February 20, 2004
Photo: Haitian armed rebels stand guard during a rally in the rebel-held town of Gonaives, Haiti, February 19, 2004, which was taken over by an armed gang opposed to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The rebels, who have been joined by former soldiers and death squad leaders, declared the areas they control an independent country, and vowed to take their revolt, in which more than 50 people have been killed, to the capital of Port-au-Prince. REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar REUTERS
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — American citizens are being warned to leave Haiti as the rebellion against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide showed no signs of abetting after two weeks of bloody chaos.
"I am ready to give my life if that is what it takes to defend my country," Aristide told police officers honoring slain comrades at a ceremony in Port-au-Prince (search), the capital.
The defrocked priest, who was elected in 1990, overthrown by a military coup, restored via U.S. intervention and then, according to the opposition, became as bad a dictator as his predecessors, has been appealing for international help to defend his government.
The United States, neighboring Caribbean countries, the Organization of American States (search) and France, the former colonial power, have been preparing a political plan to resolve the crisis. Secretary of State Colin Powell (search) said it could be presented to Haiti's government and opposition as early as Friday.
"If wars are expensive, peace can be even more expensive," warned Aristide, who has survived three assassination attempts and a coup d'etat.
The U.S. State Department on Thursday warned Americans to get out of the country.
Armed street gangs, many of them former Aristide supporters who have switched sides, have taken over most of Haiti's smaller cities in the past two weeks. Members of the police force, created by Aristide after he abolished the army, have been killed and mutilated in the streets by angry mobs.
The American flag has become a rallying symbol for the rebels, with many of them carrying or wearing the Stars and Stripes as they march in the streets, but its exact significance has yet to become clear.
The capital is firmly in government hands, but Cap-Haitien (search), the country's second city, has been awaiting rebel attack for a few days.
There are about 20,000 Americans registered with the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince, at least a quarter of them missionaries. Haiti is by far the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with infant-mortality and starvation rates approaching those of sub-Saharan Africa.
The rebellion broke out shortly after ceremonies marking the 200th anniversary of Haiti's independence, won after a bloody slave uprising against French colonial masters.
The peace-plan announcement came as an unconfirmed report surfaced that two U.S. Embassy vehicles were fired on earlier in the week. An American in Haiti, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said six armed men stopped the two vehicles in Port-au-Prince on Monday night and opened fire the shots, hitting a vehicle but causing no injuries.
The Pentagon said it was sending a small military team to assess the security of the embassy and its staff.
The Peace Corps (search) is withdrawing about 70 volunteers, and other U.S. citizens should leave while commercial flights are still available, the State Department said.
Six truckloads of armed gangsters drove Thursday night into St. Marc (search), west of Port-au-Prince, American missionary Terry Snow said, adding that 15 Americans in his group of 20 missionaries left the country this week.
"Innocent people are being killed and houses are burned down every day and night in St. Marc and the police are doing nothing," said Snow, 39, from Granbury, Texas.
He said the city has been terrorized by Aristide partisans from the "Clean Sweep" gang since police won the city back from rebels last week.
The OAS approved a resolution Thursday expressing "firm support" for Aristide's government in its efforts to "restore public order by constitutional means." It also called for an immediate end to the violence.
OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria said he is confident a political solution could come "not in months, but in weeks."
U.S. Ambassador John Maisto told delegates that Haiti's crisis "is due in large part to the failure of the government of Haiti to act in a timely manner to address problems that it knew were growing." He said it hadn't fought police corruption, strengthened its judiciary or restored security.
Meanwhile, 20 Haitian refugees arrived by boat in Jamaica — the second group in less than a week — saying they were fleeing the violence, Jamaican police said.
The U.S. Coast Guard has said it has not detected any increase in Haitian migrants.
Haiti's rebellion has raised fears of a mass exodus on the scale of the tens of thousands who fled to Florida when Haiti was under brutal military dictatorships from 1991 to 1994.
Former President Bill Clinton sent 20,000 troops in 1994 to restore Aristide, end the killings of his supporters and halt the flood of refugees.
In Washington, Powell said the plan does not require Aristide to step down before his term ends in February 2006, as the political opposition and rebels are demanding.
But he said the United States would not object if, through negotiation with opposition leaders, Aristide agreed to leave ahead of schedule.
A political solution would not halt the northern rebellion that has killed dozens of people, including about 40 police officers, according to Jean-Gerard Dubreuil, undersecretary for public security.
At Cap-Haitien, the last major government bastion in northern Haiti, armed supporters of Aristide patrolled Thursday and vowed to fight any rebel attack. Frightened police remained barricaded in their station, saying they were too few and poorly armed to repel the rebels.
Rebels torched the police station at the northeastern border post of Ouanaminthe on Thursday, Radio Vision 2000 reported.
Haiti's police force numbers less than 4,000 and demoralized officers this week deserted at least three provincial posts. Eight officers have sought asylum in Jamaica and the Dominican military said it arrested four fleeing officers this week.
Aristide, who was wildly popular when he became Haiti's first freely elected leader in 1990, has lost support since flawed legislative elections in 2000 that led international donors to freeze millions of dollars in aid.
Even before the rebellion, about half of Haiti's 8 million people went hungry daily, according to aid groups.
Hungry people in rebel-held Gonaives looted food aid from a rebel storage facility on Thursday after they were turned away from an aid distribution. Witnesses said shots were exchanged Wednesday between rebels and armed residents who thought they were being denied food rations.
Thousands of people, some brandishing machetes and guns, marched through the city Thursday in support of the rebellion.
"We are going to win. We are going to take the (National) Palace," Guy Philippe, a rebel leader and former police chief of Cap-Haitien, told Associated Press Television News.
Fox News' Paul Wagenseil and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111970,00.html