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Rebels say they're poised to attack Haiti capital
Leader says fighters ‘awaiting the order’ to go in, arrest Aristide
The Associated Press
Updated: 11:29 a.m. ET Feb. 26, 2004
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Pressure mounted Thursday for Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to resign, as rebel fighters advanced on the capital and claimed they were only awaiting a command before launching an attack.
Guerrilla leader Guy Philippe told the Associated Press that rebel forces were on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.
“They’re taking their places. They know what to do,” Philippe said by phone from Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city in the north, which fell on Sunday. “… They're awaiting the order."
Philippe said he expected the capital to be in rebel hands soon.
"It won't take a lot of days,” he said. “We don't have all our lives to wait for what a dictator is going to do,” he said.
There was no independent confirmation to back the commander's claims about his force's deployment around Port-au-Prince.
‘I don't want him to die. It would be too easy’
The rebel leader said the fighters would seek to arrest Aristide, if he did not resign, so Haiti's leader could be tried on charges ranging from corruption to murder.
"I don't want him to die. It would be too easy. He has to pay for what he has done to the Haitian people," Philippe said.
The rebel advance came as a Haitian government delegation arrived in France ahead of talks on the crisis proposed by France, Reuters reported, citing an unidentified official at the Haitian Embassy in Paris.
The Haitian Embassy official, who declined to be identified, gave no other details. It was not immediately clear whether the members of the Haiti opposition also planned to attend the meeting.
The French Foreign Ministry said earlier that it was still waiting to hear whether Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin’s invitation for talks would be taken up by both sides.
“We have made clear this past week our readiness to receive -- in separate consultations of course -- members of the Haiti political opposition and the government,” the ministry said in a statement.
Will rebels attend talks in France?
“We remain ready and wait to see whether either side will follow through on their plans,” it added.
The U.N. Security Council also was scheduled to hold a meeting Thursday on the deteriorating situation in Haiti.
Villepin issued a statement Wednesday calling on Aristide to step down and make way for a transitional government of national unity.
It also proposed immediately sending an international peace force -- made up of police from unspecified contributing nations -- to restore order and providing assistance for new elections.
Washington has delayed action over the crisis. President Bush has rejected Aristide’s plea for help to quell the rebellion, saying a political settlement must come first.
Bush is instead encouraging the international community to provide a strong “security presence" in the country, and France said a peace force should be established immediately for deployment once a political agreement is reached.
Foreigners fled the island nation amid isolated looting Wednesday.
Aristide has lost support
Aristide, 50-year-old former slum priest, once commanded widespread support as Haiti’s first democratically elected leader and savior to the poor, but he has steadily lost support as poverty deepened after his party swept flawed legislative elections in 2000 and international donors suspended aid.
An opposition coalition, which maintains it is not linked to the rebels, has called on the president to resign and formally announced its rejection of a U.S.-backed proposal for Aristide to remain president and share power with his political rivals.
French and U.S. diplomats say Aristide used police and supporters to crush dissent, contributing to the violence, and failed to fight corruption in the police and judiciary.
A convicted drug lord, meanwhile, provided damning testimony against Aristide, saying the former priest was profiting from cocaine trafficking.
Beaudoin “Jacques” Ketant testified Wednesday in Miami after being sentenced to 27 years for money laundering and allegedly shepherding 41 tons of drugs for Colombian drug cartels through Haiti to the United States from 1987 to 1996.
“He turned the country into a narco-country,” Ketant said of Aristide. Ira Kurzban, a Miami attorney for the Haitian government, dismissed the allegations from “a lying, convicted drug dealer”
Aristide has, for his part, accused the rebels of leading the popular uprising, which has killed about 80 people and seen buildings torched, through drug-trafficking proceeds.
As order in the impoverished country of 8 million unraveled, Aristide’s two daughters flew to the United States.
Roads in the capital were blocked by Aristide militants who set up dozens of barricades. They were initially erected to prevent rebels from entering the capital, but on Wednesday the militants began robbing people at the barricades.
Police at first did nothing but later arrested about a dozen suspected roadblock robbers.
Exodus
American Airlines said three of its five daily flights to the United States were delayed because crew and passengers had trouble passing the roadblocks. Air Jamaica canceled its flights to Haiti indefinitely.
U.N. nonessential staff and their families were being evacuated.
Canada and the Dominican Republic said small teams of their soldiers were on their way to Haiti to protect their embassies. Canadian Maj. Mike Audette said the soldiers would prepare for the possible evacuation of more than 1,000 citizens.
The last of 56 Mormon missionaries in Haiti left Wednesday.
Fearing an exodus of Haitians fleeing the violence, the Dominican Republic doubled the number of troops along its 225-mile border with Haiti.
Haitians fled a political crisis in large numbers 12 years ago. There has been little evidence of a repeat of that situation thus far although a freighter with 21 Haitians on board was intercepted by the Coast Guard off the coast of Miami Beach. Bush has said the U.S. Coast Guard would turn back Haitian refugees reaching American shores.
In Cap-Haitien, at least two men were killed Wednesday — one shot by rebels for allegedly looting, and another shot by unidentified gunmen who accused him of being an Aristide militant.
The Red Cross said that raised the toll to 20 dead in Cap-Haitien, and the overall toll from fighting in the three-week-old rebellion to about 80.
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