Pressure Mounts for Aristide to Resign

[thedrifter]

Feb 26, 6:42 AM EST

Pressure Mounts for Aristide to Resign

By PAISLEY DODDS
Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Pressure mounted for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to step down as his supporters built barricades in the streets of Haiti's capital before an anticipated rebel advance and diplomats sought ways to stop the violence.

Foreigners fled the island nation amid isolated looting Wednesday. The U.N. Security Council scheduled a meeting on Haiti for Thursday and the President Bush said the United States is encouraging the international community to provide a strong "security presence."

Warning that Haiti is quickly heading toward chaos, France called for Aristide's resignation and the immediate establishment of a transitional government.

"As far as President Aristide is concerned, he bears grave responsibility for the current situation. It's up to him to accept the consequences while respecting the rule of law," Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said in a statement Wednesday.

"Everyone sees quite well that a new page must be opened in Haiti's history, while respecting the dignity and integrity of all the protagonists," he said. Haiti is France's former colony.

In Haiti, a leader of the group of rebels that has overrun half the country urged Haitians to stay indoors if fighting nears the capital.

"We're going straight for the National Palace where we're going to arrest Aristide," Guy Philippe said in a call to Radio Vision 2000 from the rebel-held city of Cap-Haitien in the north. "It will be over very soon."

The message was contrary to one he gave hours earlier, when he told a reporter he wanted to see if Aristide resigns and to "give a chance to peace."

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, continued to call 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.

In the statement, De Villepin called for the establishment of a civilian peacekeeping force in Haiti. "This international force would be responsible for guaranteeing the return to public order and supporting the international community's action on the ground," Villepin said.

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.

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.

---

Associated Press reporters Michael Norton and Mark Stevenson contributed to this story from Port-au-Prince.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[thedrifter]

Familiar role for Marines
February 25,2004
ERIC STEINKOPFF
DAILY NEWS STAFF

It all looks familiar to Mark Goodman and Chuck Dolejs - the crime, the government in tatters, the uncertainty - the kind of chaos Marines stepped into Monday in Haiti.

Goodman and Dolejs, both retired Marines who live in Jacksonville, have seen it before - Goodman in 1993 and Dolejs in 1994.

Eleven years ago Goodman, who now heads Onslow County emergency services, was a Marine Corps colonel. He formed a short-notice special purpose Marine air-ground task force in December 1993 that deployed from Camp Lejeune to Haiti for eight months. It helped pave the way for the turnover of power from the military dictator, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, to Jean-Bertrand Aristide - the president now in the gun sights of rebel forces.

"I was getting ready to go on Christmas leave, and I was told that I had 96 hours to form a special purpose MAGTF," Goodman said. "He said take whatever you need, and sailing south felt like the coldest January in history."

Goodman said he was had orders to evacuate the U.S. Embassy if necessary.

This Monday 50 Marines from a special attachment of the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade landed in Port-au-Prince to secure the same embassy.

"We trained throughout the Caribbean to rescue Americans and for forcible entry if needed," Goodman said. "The place had deteriorated, but there was order - organized crime."

Goodman's troops were also set to aid other embassies. "We were prepared to go in and bring out the other embassy staffs as well," he said. "They were very grateful, and the French said, 'Don't forget us.' "

Goodman rounded up about 800 troops, many of whom were from the 2nd Marine Regiment. Such a unit is assembled for a particular mission, but that changed when Cedras agreed in principle to a peaceful transition of power, said Dolejs, a former lieutenant colonel who now works for the Eastern Regional Steering Committee for Domestic Preparedness.

Dolejs was a Marine intelligence officer assisgned to a joint-service task force that included the Army's XVIII Airborne Corps and was in the country from September to December 1994.

Dolejs recalled it was in September 1994 that former president Jimmy Carter negotiated with Cedras to turn over the government to the U.S. for Aristide's return, and they called off the 82nd Airborne's combat landing.

"I took 55 people on that one to set up the intelligence center for the (theater commander)," Dolejs said. "We were planning an attack on Port-au-Prince, but the plan got switched around at the very last second. Then we started restoring order to turn over to Aristide, and it's been going downhill ever since."

The switch was significant because the type of troops they had suddenly did not match the new mission. Instead of combat troops with superior firepower to take the country by force, they now needed military police to maintain security while a massive humanitarian effort was under way.

There was an incident in which military police loyal to Cedras were shooting into a crowd of civilians and turned the guns on some of the Marine peacekeepers that challenged them. The Marines immediately killed several of the Cedras loyalists.

"When they did that, Cedras made an announcement he would leave, and he was gone in a few days," Dolejs said.

To understand the troubles facing the former French colony, one has to go back to the slave revolution in the late 1700s, Dolejs said.

"Haiti was a French colony, but after the revolution it was such a terrible place," Dolejs said. "It is an entire culture that has to catch up with modern times."

There have been 21 different constitutions and 27 changes of government, many of which occurred by coup.

"Even those governments that weren't violent at first - the party in power selectively killed off their opponents," Dolejs said. "When we arrived, there was celebrating, but garbage - including human excrement - was eight feet high. There was no sewer system - everything was in buckets and there were cesspools everywhere."

Some Marines recalled terrible incidents of people cut up by machetes hanging from trees and bodies in mass graves.

The U.S. forces started a gun buyback program to help ease the violence. It didn't work, Dolejs said.

"We paid huge amounts of money for their guns, but it wasn't successful at all," Dolejs said. "We had 3,000 old weapons in conex boxes, but nobody is going to sell good weapons in Haiti. We spent billions of dollars and we're probably worse off than before."

Contact Eric Steinkopff at esteinkopff@jdnews.com or 353-1171, Ext. 236.

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Sempers,

Roger
:marine: