Marines arrive in the capital to guard the U.S. Embassy. Opposition politicians say they'll reject the proposed power-sharing deal.

By Carol J. Williams
Times Staff Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — As dozens of Marines arrived here Monday to secure the U.S. Embassy, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell sought to head off a bloody clash for control of this capital, urging opposition politicians to accept a power-sharing deal with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Early Monday, the Haitian opposition was poised to announce its rejection of the plan. But in a conference call with about 20 opposition leaders, Powell asked them to take an additional 24 hours to consider a proposal from U.S. and international diplomats to end a violent insurrection sweeping this impoverished Caribbean nation.

Powell made it clear that "it was important that they accept the plan, and that we cannot support a government that comes to power through violence," said Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman.

Opposition leaders said they would wait another day before publicly rejecting the deal. They warned that to accept the diplomats' proposal would embolden the armed rebels controlling half of Haiti and the violent gangs that Aristide maintains to harass political opponents.

An anticipated march on Port-au-Prince by armed rebels prompted Washington to send 50 Marines to secure the U.S. Embassy, a walled, two-story complex near the capital's most violent slums.

Most nonessential personnel were evacuated last week. Those still here have been working from their homes since the embassy closed Friday.

Powell's appeal was cast as giving opposition leaders more time to reevaluate an ultimatum presented to the mainstream political opposition Saturday by a delegation of diplomats from the United States, Canada, the Caribbean Community and the Organization of American States. But the opposition leaders speculated that Washington wanted the extra day to reassess its position of including Aristide in a future power-sharing agreement.

The diplomats' plan calls for appointing a new prime minister acceptable to Aristide's Lavalas Party and the opposition coalition as a first step toward organizing elections that should have taken place last year.

U.S. officials emphasized that if the proposal was accepted, the international community would make sure the deal's terms were observed by all parties, including Aristide, Ereli said. He added that once the deal was accepted, international police could enter the country to help bring order.

Asked what would happen if the opposition rejected the offer, Ereli said he could not say specifically, but he warned that "the consequences would be serious for Haiti."

Ereli acknowledged that opposition leaders who have been meeting in Port-au-Prince were not affiliated with the rebels and former army officers who have been fighting the government in the northern section of the country. But he said U.S. diplomats hoped that a deal would calm the population and end the insurrection.

Many groups in the opposition Democratic Platform have said from the outset they would take part in negotiating new institutions of power only after Aristide resigned. They blame him for corruption, poverty and repression in the country.

Although Powell's intervention served to postpone collapse of the diplomatic initiative, other signs pointed to an impending confrontation in Port-au-Prince. The armed militants who on Sunday seized control of Cap-Haitien — the second-largest city — promised to march on the capital in the next few days.

Prime Minister Yvon Neptune urged Port-au-Prince residents — many of them armed — to "mobilize" and repel any attack.

The armed rebels occupying the northern and central plains, whose uprising has claimed at least 70 lives since Feb. 5, number about a few hundred but are reported to have armed sympathizers in the capital who could be mobilized at any moment. The ragtag bands of rebels encountered little resistance when they swept through about 20 towns and cities. Demoralized police fled, surrendered their weapons or joined the uprising.

In urging residents to help defend the capital, Neptune conceded that the police were fearful because insurgents had targeted law enforcement officers. At least 40 of those killed have been police officers. The rebels, who include a prominent death-squad leader from the country's 30-year dictatorship and several exiled figures of the junta that deposed Aristide in 1991, have looted and burned police stations and government offices in the towns they have seized.

"We are asking the population to stay mobilized, to continue building a state of law," Neptune said.

When asked whether that meant civilians taking up arms, he added: "We said this should be nonviolent, but we can't deny the population the right to defend themselves."

In Cap-Haitien, the rebels continued looting the city and hunted down Aristide's militants, who had been terrorizing residents in recent months. Some radio reports quoted rebel gunmen as saying that Aristide loyalists were being detained for their own protection, while others said they would face retribution.

The standoff here over the Western diplomats' peace plan was unlikely to affect the course of the bloody rebellion. The diplomatic initiative, which was presented to Aristide and the opposition groups but not to the armed rebels, contains no plan to disarm Aristide's gangs or a proposal to get the rebels to halt their insurrection, said Evans Paul, a former mayor here and a prominent opposition leader.

Opposition leaders have argued that they would be able to influence the rebels only if they delivered the one aim shared by Aristide's armed and unarmed rivals: his ouster.

"Our position at the Democratic Platform is clear: We need Mr. Aristide's departure as the first element of a resolution of the crisis," said Hanns Tippenhauer, an investment analyst and activist with the opposition alliance.

"We feel crushed between two armed movements — the armed movement holding the north and the one terrorizing us here — the criminal government in the national palace," said Andre Apaid, an industrialist and leader of the Group of 184 civil society movement.

Of Aristide, he said: "One man cannot keep hostage a nation. He must resign."

Other opposition leaders said they needed to remain independent of Aristide and the rebels to foster national reconciliation once the president left office.

Jean Herold Buteau, a doctor and one of the activists who spoke with Powell, said the opposition would stand firm on its call for Aristide's resignation.

Powell has said that Aristide remains the elected leader of Haiti and that he must be allowed to serve out the two years left in the five-year term he won in November 2000. Opposition parties boycotted that election to protest alleged fraud and intimidation by Aristide's Lavalas Party during a parliamentary vote six months earlier.

Haiti has been in an economic and social tailspin since. Foreign-aid donors cut off an estimated $500 million in assistance and loans to pressure Aristide to uphold democratic standards. Poverty, already worse here than anywhere outside of sub-Saharan Africa, has deepened, leaving half the population of 8.5 million malnourished, as many as 70% unemployed and a swelling majority illiterate.

The current crisis exploded Feb. 5, when members of a gang originally loyal to Aristide attacked the police station and mayor's office in Gonaives. To the cheers of many of the city's 200,000 residents, the rebels took over Gonaives, inspiring outbreaks by other disgruntled forces in a dozen nearby cities. Ten days ago, exiled militants from the Duvaliers' dictatorship infiltrated from the neighboring Dominican Republic to launch an assault on remaining government strongholds north of here.

After capturing Cap-Haitien with no more than 200 gunmen, rebel commander Guy Philippe, one of the returned junta officers, warned Aristide that the militants would control the entire country within 15 days.

Faced with an approaching confrontation that could unleash widespread bloodshed here, the Democratic Platform leaders proposed a timetable that would force Aristide to resign by March 18.

But some believe that their proposal, which foreign mediators have so far rejected, could be overtaken by events if rebels deposed Aristide.