BY RON HOWELL and DEBORAH BARFIELD BERRY
STAFF WRITERS

Black lawmakers are calling on President George W. Bush to send 250 to 400 troops as part of an international force to "restore the rule of law" in Haiti and protect the fragile democracy there.

"We want to see the government stabilized in Haiti," said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, in a telephone interview yesterday.

"It's not an issue for us whether [Haitian President Jean-Bertrand] Aristide is doing a good job or not. The issue is that we have a democratic government there ... We have a country in turmoil. Just our presence sends a powerful message," Cummings said.

The caucus made the appeal for troops to Bush directly Wednesday night, Cummings said, when it met at the White House with the president, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Testifying yesterday before the Senate Budget Committee, Powell said no outside force should go into Haiti before opposing sides there had reached a political settlement. As for Aristide, Powell told reporters yesterday, "Whether or not he is able to effectively continue as president is something he will have to examine carefully."

The lawmakers' push for tougher U.S. action came as the situation continued to look grim in Haiti, with rebels threatening to attack the capital city and Aristide going on CNN yesterday vowing to remain in office until his term expires in 2006.

In a telling development, American Airlines, the main airline traveling between the United States and Haiti, announced it was suspending its flights both ways, Reuters reported.

Despite cancellation of the American flights, and the continuing strife, U.S. officials said they would continue to deport undocumented immigrants to Haiti, using chartered or special government planes.

"We will remove people," Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a telephone interview from Washington.

Last year 1,004 Haitians were deported to Haiti. Those deportations are in addition to the Haitians turned back trying to reach the United States by boat. Bush said Wednesday that the U.S. Coast Guard would continue to interdict and repatriate Haitian boat people heading to southern Florida.

Yesterday the Coast Guard said it had intercepted 546 Haitians at sea in the past three to four days, The Associated Press reported, compared with 2,000 or 3,000 a day during the tumultuous early '90s.

As black legislators and others lobby for a more aggressive policy, France is hosting a meeting with high-level Haitian officials to find a resolution.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin has proposed sending an international force to Haiti. But the proposal comes with a sticking point: De Villepin says Aristide should first resign and make way for a transitional power-sharing government.

Aristide's Florida-based lawyer, Ira Kurzban, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the Congressional Black Caucus was "very forceful in urging the president to protect democracy and protect the president [Aristide]." Kurzban said he was briefed on the legislators' meeting with Bush.

According to Kurzban, a small contingent of American troops could restore order to Haiti. "Probably 50 could do the job," he said at one point, later adding that "a couple of hundred" could be needed.

Kurzban stressed that the black legislators are not alone in demanding help for Haiti. Earlier this week Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) called for the dispatch of a police force, American or otherwise. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry urged Bush to appoint Graham as a special envoy to seek an end to the crisis.

Florida politicians are especially sensitive to the unrest in Haiti, in large part because tens of thousands of Haitian boat people fled toward that state during the Haitian crises of the early 1990s.

The Rev. Al Sharpton said yesterday that he would go to Haiti next week to meet with Aristide and opposition leaders. "As leader of this delegation we will take no side, except the side of peace," Sharpton, a Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement.

Some Haitians in the United States say they resent the actions of the Congressional Black Caucus.

"They have been blinded by Aristide," said Clotilde Charlot, a board member of the Haiti Democracy Project in Washington, which maintains Aristide has become dictatorial in recent years. In 1994 the United States sent 20,000 troops to restore Aristide to power, following his ouster three years before in a coup.

The caucus "supported him in the 1990s, and in so doing they were in sync with the Haitian people's democratic aspirations, but when Aristide started turning back they did not withdraw their support."

Charlot said she believes some of the black lawmakers know Aristide is not the beloved democratic leader he once was, "but they don't want to admit they were wrong."

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