Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled Haiti yesterday in the face of a bloody armed revolt. - File
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, (Reuters):
HAITIAN PRESIDENT Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled his chaotic Caribbean country yesterday in the face of a bloody armed revolt, and United States (U.S.) President George W. Bush ordered in American Marines to restore order.
Aristide said he resigned to avert 'a bloodbath' but turmoil persisted in Port-au-Prince, where shooting rang out as armed Aristide supporters roamed the streets, a big prison was emptied of criminals and looters ransacked a police station.
A U.S. State Department official said yesterday that an African country, which he declined to name, had agreed to give asylum to President Aristide.
NO CONFIRMATION
The official said South Africa, the continent's diplomatic heavyweight, had been helping to find a destination for Aristide.
NBC television news reported yesterday evening that Aristide may end up in the a Central African republic.
The State Department official said he could 'neither confirm nor deny it.'
Aristide initially traveled to the Dominican Republic and then to the eastern Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda yesterday after resigning as president of Haiti, the Haitian consul in Santo Domingo said.
Bush ordered the immediate deployment of U.S. Marines to serve as the vanguard of an international security force aimed at heading off a power struggle and restoring stability in Haiti. More than 120 French troops were to leave for Haiti yesterday and Canada, which has about 20 troops in the country, says it could send in another 100 on short notice.
US TROOPS DEPLOYED
"There will be some forces that are expected to be there this evening," a U.S. Defence Department official said on condition of anonymity. The official declined to say how many.
Aristide, 50, whose role in a popular uprising that ended decades of dictatorship in the 1980s once made him a hero of Haitian democracy, left early yesterday morning.
It was 24 days since the uprising began in the poorest country in the Americas, and 10 years since the former priest was restored to office in a U.S.-led invasion after being bundled out in a 1991 coup shortly after first taking office.
The United States, which along with former colonial power France had called on Aristide to quit to help bring an end to the crisis, urged rebels to lay down their arms.
One of the rebel leaders said after Aristide left that "We don't intend to fight anymore."
"If we move in Port-au-Prince it will be to put (impose) security but we don't intend to fight anymore," Guy Philippe, a former police chief who joined the rebels, told CNN's 'Late Edition' programme.
The revolt, which capped months of simmering political tensions, began on February 5 in the western city of Gonaives, led by a street gang that once supported Aristide but had turned against him.
The uprising spread over much of the country and killed nearly 70 people. With rebels closing in on Port-au-Prince, many had feared a bloody battle for control with Aristide's militant supporters. Hundreds of foreigners had fled.
ARISTIDE'S DESTINATION UNCLEAR
The departure of Aristide, who had been insisting up to just before he fled, that he would serve out his second term until 2006, was arranged by U.S. officials.
Within hours, Haitian Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre was named to replace Aristide as laid out in the constitution.
Aristide's destination was unclear. Haiti's consul in the capital of the neighboring Dominican Republic said he travelled to the eastern Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda to refuel and was then planning to travel to Morocco. But Morocco said it would not grant Aristide asylum.
Panama said it would offer temporary refuge if no country offered asylum in the coming hours.
Several of Aristide's supporters escaped to the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune read a statement by Aristide in which he said, "The constitution should not sink in the blood of the Haitian people."
"That's why, if tonight my resignation is the decision that can avoid a bloodbath, I consent to leave with hope there will be life, not death," Aristide said in the statement, evidently written late on Saturday night.
Speaking at a ceremony at Neptune's home, U.S. Ambassador James Foley urged the rebels to lay down their arms.
CHIMERES ROAM THE CITY
Rebel soldiers in Cap Haitien, the rebel stronghold in the north overrun last weekend, celebrated in the streets. The rebels, led by Philippe and a former death squad leader, had said they were advancing on the capital.
Philippe said he welcomed Bush's decision to send in U.S. Marines. "We are waiting for them. We need them," Philippe said. "They will have full co-operation."
A band of about 50 rebels swooped into Port-au-Prince, some from outlying towns and some from around the city. Clad in bullet-proof vests and camouflage uniforms, they drove sport utility vehicles and pick-up trucks, some bearing signs in the windows that said 'Liberation Front, Haitian Armed Forces'.
A man who called himself Clive Scott, wearing a flak jacket and carrying a rifle, said the group was not part of Guy Philippe's force and had come to protect Port-au-Prince from Aristide's militant supporters called 'chimeres'.
Armed bands of 'chimeres' roamed the city in pick-up trucks, armed with shotguns and other weapons.
Police guarding Haiti's main prison near the National Palace ran away, witnesses said, and the jail emptied. An estimated 2,000 inmates including murderers and other hard-core criminals melted into the streets.
Looters hit a police station in Petionville, an up-scale suburb in the hills above the capital, carting away police hats, tee-shirts, helmets and other pieces of police uniforms.
Aristide's departure was welcomed by his foes, who have long accused him of human rights violations and corruption.
The opposition turned down a U.S.-led international peace proposal last week that would have left Aristide in office but given them a role in a power-sharing arrangement, a refusal that tightened the pressure on Aristide. Up to 200 French troops are due in Haiti on Monday after the Caribbean nation's president resigned and fled the troubled former French colony, officials said.
The office of French President Jacques Chirac said France was sending the troops to Haiti in coordination with the United States, and that it was continuing to work with other countries to form a U.N.-backed peacekeeping force.
The French soldiers will be deployed in the main Haitian city of Port-au-Prince to protect French nationals, a day after Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned as Haitian president and went into exile.
"Conforming to the wish of the president of the republic, two companies - between 150 and 200 men - will arrive there tomorrow from the French Antilles (Martinique and Guadeloupe)," French Defence Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau said.
The deployment of French troops along with U.S. Marines is expected to be backed by the U.N. Security Council at hastily-arranged talks that were already under way yesterday.
The U.N. Security Council met in emergency session yesterday to authorise a multinational force to restore order in Haiti after its president resigned in the face of an armed rebellion.
The council convened at the request of the United States and France.
Earlier, an informal group of 'Friends of Haiti', including the United States, France, Canada and Haiti's Caribbean neighbors, met near U.N. headquarters to work out the makeup of an international force and the fine print of a draft U.N. resolution authorising the force to go in.
It was the second time the 50-year-old former slum pastor fled his country. Aristide was ousted in a 1991 coup, months after he was elected president for the first time. He was restored to power three years later by U.S. troops.
U.S. President Bill Clinton sent 20,000 troops to restore Aristide but insisted he respect a constitutional term limit and step down in 1995.
Aristide hand-picked his successor, Rene Preval, but was considered the power behind the scenes until he won a second term in 2000. Those elections were marred by a low turnout and an opposition boycott.
It was not clear where Aristide's wife was. The ex-president and Mildred Trouillot Aristide had sent their two daughters to her mother in New York City last week.
