Thousands in Haiti Rally for President

By Scott Wilson and Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 28 -- The White House on Saturday questioned President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's "fitness to govern Haiti." Earlier, thousands of the Haitian leader's supporters demonstrated here as the capital braced for a rebel assault.

"This long-simmering crisis is largely of Mr. Aristide's making," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement.

The United States has been steadily raising pressure on Aristide during the three-week uprising, but the White House announcement was the closest the Bush administration has come to publicly endorsing the Haitian leader's resignation as a way to resolve the conflict.

The statement urged Aristide to "examine his position carefully, to accept responsibility, and to act in the best interests of the people of Haiti."

Hours earlier, Aristide called on supporters to remain calm after the U.S. ambassador here, James B. Foley, accused the president of allowing pro-government gangs to "burn, pillage and kill" in his defense.

Saturday's furious, if mostly peaceful, march wound through the capital's commercial center and ended at the gates of the National Palace, which rebels have threatened to attack within days. They already control half the country.

Meanwhile, the violence in Port-au-Prince continued as armed Aristide supporters, some of them riding in police trucks, menaced the city. At least five bodies were discovered in the heart of the capital and its southern suburb of Carrefour, including that of an unemployed security guard whose corpse lay in a pool of blood for hours in front of the State Hospital.

"He just got killed, and I don't know why," said Michael Morency, 50, as the body was carried to the morgue. "We don't know what's going on."

The uprising has advanced to within 20 miles of the capital but appeared to slow Saturday as rebel leaders and the president considered their next steps. More than 100 people have died during the insurrection. A rebel assault on this city of 1.3 million people, many of them Aristide loyalists, would surely mark the rebellion's bloodiest phase.

Aristide, facing the gravest moment of his three-year-old presidency, appeared on state television Friday evening to urge his supporters to stop the lawlessness and looting that has erupted in the capital over the past two days.

"When it's not good, we have to say it's not good," Aristide said. But the president, vowing to remain in office until his term ends in 2006, also said his supporters were free to barricade streets at night to prevent a rebel assault. He urged them to remove the barriers during the day to allow commerce in the capital, where key intersections are littered with the remnants of burning tries, concrete blocks and rusting appliances used in roadblocks.

"If you think barricades are necessary, yes, you can do that," said Aristide, who asked civil servants to return to work on Monday. "When the sun appears and the people have to go to work, people should be able to work."

Aristide's comments were apparently in response to a statement from the U.S. Embassy on Friday night warning that Aristide's "honor, legacy and reputation are now at stake" if he did not order an end to the "blind violence" being committed in his name.

The statement also urged the rebels to halt their advance, which has essentially encircled the capital. In Cap-Haitien on the country's northern coast, rebel leader Guy Philippe told the Associated Press that he would heed the request and postpone an assault on the capital for a day or two.

Philippe, a former military officer and regional police chief, said he presumed U.S. officials "have a better option" to resolve the crisis peacefully. But he said he had had no direct contact with U.S. officials.

"We always give peace a chance here, so we'll wait to see for one or two days," he said. "We will keep on sending troops, but we won't attack Port-au-Prince until we understand what the U.S. means."

More than 10,000 of Aristide's supporters surged through the capital's streets, vowing to defend the president with their lives and chanting that they would be "cutting heads and burning houses" if Aristide is forced from office.

Ragtag bands of the president's supporters blazed through the city in pickup trucks and searched cars at checkpoints. Rifles and pistols once hidden from view by pro-government militias are being displayed far more openly, though leaders continue to insist they are not being armed by the government.

"If they force Aristide to leave, there will be bloodshed," said Rene Civil, 32, a civic leader and supporter of the ruling Lavalas party who organized Saturday's march. "The country will never be stable, there will never be democracy and peace will never develop. We will have a country where people eat one another."

Aristide became a hero to Haiti's poor majority when, as a Roman Catholic priest in the capital's slums, he helped topple the Duvalier family dictatorship in 1986. Four years later he became the country's first freely elected president, only to be ousted soon after in a military coup.

His followers say he is the victim of Haiti's economic elite and the remnants of Haiti's military, dissolved by Aristide after he was returned to the presidency by U.S. forces in 1994.

He left office in 1996 and was elected again in 2000. Former army officers, many of whom have been charged with human rights abuses, are leading the rebel forces against him.

But opposition leaders accuse Aristide of ruining the economy through his populist economic program, political intimidation and corruption.

Saturday's march is "not a sign of Aristide's support, it's a sign of his terrorism," said Charles Baker, a leader of a broad coalition of civic leaders who have pressed a nonviolent campaign to oust Aristide. Baker, reached by telephone, said many of those marching were intimidated into doing so by pro-Aristide armed gangs.

"If Aristide can only muster 10,000 people by scaring people, what better proof that he's got zero popularity in this country?" he said.

Baker said he and other opposition leaders were hiding from pro-Aristide gangs. He said looters ransacked a garment factory owned by his sister Friday night, stealing machinery and other goods while calls to the police went unanswered. He also said pro-Aristide gang members on Saturday attacked a mission and a church. "If the United States and others want to back a president like that, be my guest," Baker said. "But this is what Jean-Bertrand Aristide is all about."

The rebels have easily driven Haiti's meager police force from many small towns during the uprising.

But Dessalines Jeffrard, a businessman marching in favor of Aristide, promised that a rebel attack on the capital would be met with stiffer resistance. Referring to Philippe's frequent boasts that he would celebrate his 36th birthday Sunday in the National Palace, Jeffrard said thousands of Aristide defenders would be waiting for him.

"We're going to give them a party," he said.

Staff writer Mike Allen in Washington contributed to this report.

© 2004