Haiti's crisis worsens as Aristide foes dig in heels

by Matthew Lee

Students sing anti-Aristide songs during protests 
against the government of Haitian President Jean-
Bertrand Aristide 21 February 2004 in Port-au-Prince
AFP PHOTO/Roberto SCHMIDT

Sunday, February 22, 2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP): Haiti plunged deeper into crisis on Saturday as political opponents of President Jean Bertrand Aristide rejected international appeals to accept a power-sharing plan that stops short of the embattled leader's departure.

At the same time, the United States ordered the departure of most of its remaining diplomats in the country, citing unstable security amid the spread of an armed insurgency also demanding the president's ouster spread and attacks by pro-Aristide gangs on the opposition and journalists.

The move by the State Department is likely to fuel an exodus from Haiti of hundreds of US, Canadian and French citizens, mostly aid workers and missionaries, spurred by increasingly dire warnings that the most impoverished country in the Americas might descend into anarchy.

After hours of talks with Aristide's political foes, an urgently dispatched diplomatic mediation team conceded it had made no progress in convincing the opposition to drop its demands for the president's removal but held out hope a compromise might still be reached.

"While we did not get a yes, we did not get a no," said Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell of the Bahamas who spoke for the team that included senior officials from the United States, Canada, France, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Caribbean Community (Caricom).

Mitchell told reporters the talks with the opposition had been "very frank and direct" and that Aristide's foes had agreed to provide a final response to the power-sharing plan by a Monday deadline set by the mediators.

Despite the opposition's steadfast resistance to the plan, Canadian envoy Denis Coderre sought to play down the bleak appearance of the situation.

"We are not at an impasse," he insisted.

Aristide himself had earlier embraced the proposal, declaring his willingness to work with the opposition on its implementation but again insisting that he would not step down until his current term in office ends in February 2006.

"I accept the plan, publicly, completely and entirely," he told reporters after meeting the mediation team at the National Palace. "In one word, 'yes'."

The plan would allow Aristide to serve out his term but without significant powers, including control of revamped national police force, which would be ceded to a new prime minister acceptable to the opposition and a new government that would hold free and fair elections.

The proposal envisages the creation of a three-person council -- with members representing Aristide, the opposition and the international community -- that would in turn set up a seven-strong advisory commission that would select the new premier and government.

Aristide also vowed support for the plan's requirement that gangs loyal to his Lavalas Family political party that have attacked and intimidated the oppposition be disarmed as long as the rebels are also dealt with.

"Disarmament is for everyone," he said, adding: "We will not work with any terrorists."

But opposition members were adament that Aristide -- who has ruled the country by decree since January when a two-year controversy over disputed parliamentary elections resulted in the dissolution of the legislature -- had to go, accusing him of malfeasance, corruption and cronyism.

"We cannot accept this plan without the departure of Aristide," said Rosemond Pradel of the socialist opposition party, Konakom.

"If we accept the plan without his departure, we are going to disappear as an opposition," he told reporters in an apparent reference to dangers posed by both pro-Aristide militants and fears that backing down on their key demand could splinter the movement.

However, Pradel, who described the talks as "very tough," allowed that the plan was basically sound and that the opposition's sole objection was that it allows Aristide to remain in power.

Andre Apaid, leader the "Group of 184" representing labor, professional and business groups within the opposition, also had tough words for Aristide.

Aristide "is directly responsible for the violence in Haiti because he has distributed the weapons, created the armed gangs to terrorize the population, to intimidate the political parties and to quash the opposition," Apaid said.

As the talks were underway in the capital, the director of the last radio station providing independent news in Haiti's second-largest city of Cap Haitien was shot and critically wounded by unidentified gunmen, the latest in a series of attacks blamed mainly on pro-Aristide gangs.

The chief of the Haitian Association of Journalists said that since January there had been at least 50 incidents of harassment, intimidation and violence directed at the local and international press as the political crisis has deepened and the insurgency spread.

"Before, there was some harassment and minor violence, but now they are shooting directly at journalists," Guyler Delva said.

On Friday, another Haitian radio reporter was shot and injured and a Mexican cameraman struck in the head with a machete when pro-Aristide militants attacked a student protest in Port-au-Prince wounding some 14 people.

Aristide maintained that Friday's violence was the work of opposition members masquerading as his supporters, but condemned the attack "from the opposition or not" and told reporters that his government would do its utmost to prevent such incidents in the future, particularly during annual Carnival festivities that are now underway.

He also sought to reassure the country's wary diplomatic corps of his determination to protect them in the wake of the US decision to order its non-essential diplomats and the families of all embassy personnel to leave Haiti and step up its warning for private Americans to depart while commercial air service is still available.

"It is unsafe to remain in Haiti in view of the deteriorating security situation," the State Department said in its most direct travel warning yet to Americans since the insurgency began to complicate the political crisis when rebels took the northwestern town of Gonaives on February 5.

Mexico also urged its citizens to leave Haiti on Saturday, warning those who choose to remain that they do so at their own risk as a steady stream of foreigners continued to pack flights out of Port-au-Prince.

Although the atmosphere at Toussaint Louverture International Airport was far from panicked those leaving said they were concerned that the political crisis, compounded by the insurgency, made for a dangerously volatile situation.

"There is certainly the possibility of a deterioration," said Frank Williams, an American who serves as country director for the aid group WorldVision and was at the airport seeing off his wife and three children.

The rebels have extended their reach in Haiti's north and center and members of the country's ill-equipped and poorly trained police force in numerous localities have either fled or gone into hiding, fearing their advance, which has resulted in looting and arson in some places, according to residents.

Rebel leaders, who are notably excluded from the peace plan, have not backed down in their threats to march on and attack Cap Haitien and even the capital should Aristide not resign.

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