U.S. will not allow ‘thugs’ to oust Aristide

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday the United States would not accept Haiti’s president being ousted by the “thugs” and “murderers” rampaging through the streets of the impoverished nation.

But he steered away from recommending that Washington answer an appeal from President Jean-Bertrand Aristide for intervention to end an 11-day-old uprising that has left at least 56 persons dead.

The appeal was renewed yesterday in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, by Mr. Aristide’s prime minister, Yvon Neptune, who warned of an impending coup and appealed for international help.

“We are witnessing the coup d’etat machine in motion,” Mr. Neptune said, urging the international community “to show it really wants peace and stability.”

Both Haitian leaders stopped short of asking for military intervention. Mr. Aristide on Monday asked for “technical assistance.”

“We cannot buy into a proposition that an elected president can be forced from office by thugs,” Mr. Powell told reporters.

Another State Department official, when asked whether the United States would allow the rebels to bring down Mr. Aristide’s government, said simply: “No.”

Mr. Powell said Washington was working with the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Caribbean Community and France to try to open a dialogue between the armed opposition groups and Mr. Aristide.

“There is frankly no enthusiasm right now for sending in military or police forces to put down the violence that we are seeing,” he said.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin went further, suggesting in a radio interview that Paris could send security forces into the tiny nation of 8 million. France has some 4,000 military personnel based in nearby Martinique and Guadeloupe.

Asked whether such forces could be deployed quickly, Mr. de Villepin said: “Absolutely. Many friendly countries are mobilized.”

Still, he said, any international mobilization “supposes a spurt of effort by Haiti’s political class, that President Aristide commits himself to a respect of civil peace. That’s his first responsibility.”

A State Department official said that during a meeting between Mr. de Villepin and Mr. Powell on Friday, the French gave no indication they were prepared to intervene.

Mr. Powell said the rebellion — which erupted in Gonaives, 70 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince, and spread to a number of cities — was taking on new dimensions as bandits and political exiles try to exploit the instability.

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