Haiti in chaos after 7.0 quake

A mighty earthquake rocked the small, impoverished island nation of Haiti on Tuesday, collapsing a hospital, the presidential palace and other buildings, triggering massive panic and claiming an as-yet uncounted number of lives -- perhaps thousands. Screams for help emanated from felled buildings, and chaos reigned. One diplomat called the quake a "catastrophe" in one of the countries least equipped to handle it. As night fell on the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, a city of 2 million, reports emerged of extensive destruction; homes and buildings a shambles; trapped, seriously injured victims; and residents sleeping in streets.

Tsunami alerts were issued for Cuba, the Bahamas and much of the Caribbean, and numerous aftershocks were reported. The quake, one of the most powerful ever in the region, measured a preliminary magnitude of 7.0. It was centered about 10 miles west of Port-au-Prince and was shallow, just five miles deep. It struck about 4:53 p.m., hitting one of the city's most densely populated areas.

All of that augured vast damage and overwhelming casualties. Electricity in the capital was out Tuesday night, telephone communications were down and the airport was closed. "We are hearing of sheer devastation," said Caryl Stern, president of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, which has 100 workers in Haiti. UNICEF employees in Port-au-Prince reported seeing a school collapse with children inside.

Source: Los Angeles Times
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

Haitian Plans a Vatican Visit To Win Support for Aristide

A day after he announced that he would stay on past his scheduled Dec. 15 resignation, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Prime Minister announced that he would go to the Vatican to seek support for a new effort to press Haiti's military leaders to give up power.

Robert Malval said today, "We are about to launch a new initiative and we want the Church to take part and support what we are about to do."

Only the Vatican has recognized the military authorities who overthrew Father Aristide, Haiti's first elected President, in September 1991. Juan Carlos Brandt, a spokesman for the United Nations, said that the backing of the Vatican would carry more weight with the Haitian people, who are predominantly Catholic, than anything else.

Mr. Malval said his plan called for a meeting of Haitians -- political party leaders, businessman, various members of the private sector and hopefully the military -- to meet in Haiti sometime before Christmas to discuss how to implement the United Nations-brokered agreement that would restore Father Aristide to power.

Mr. Malval said that with the country in the grip of a United Nations trade embargo, the situation in Haiti is so desperate that even Father Aristide's opponents now want him to return.

Mr. Malval had vowed to resign on Dec. 15, but agreed to stay on in an acting capacity after appeals by the Clinton Administration and United Nations officials. The Administration regards Mr. Malval as having the best chance to bridge differences between the military and Father Aristide.

Mr. Malval said the meeting in Haiti would focus on how to carry out the agreement, which was signed in New York in July by Father Aristide and Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cedras, the head of the Haitian Army. The agreement called for General Cedras to step down and Father Aristide to return to Haiti by Oct. 30. When General Cedras refused to step down the United Nations reimposed a fuel and arms embargo.

After meeting with members of the Senate and State Department in Washington on Monday and with the United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali today, Mr. Malval said that he had their full support to move forward with his plan.

Next week, on Dec. 13 and 14, there will a meeting on Haiti in Paris between American, Canadian, Venezuelan and French officials. Mr. Malval said he would go to Paris before the conference begins to discuss his plan with the group.

Source: New York Times

C.I.A. Formed Haitian Unit Later Tied to Narcotics Trade

The Central Intelligence Agency created an intelligence service in Haiti in the mid-1980's to fight the cocaine trade, but the unit evolved into an instrument of political terror whose officers at times engaged in drug trafficking, American and Haitian officials say. American officials say the C.I.A. cut its ties to the Haitian organization shortly after the 1991 military coup against Haiti's first democratically elected President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Three former chiefs of the Haitian unit, the National Intelligence Service, known as S.I.N. from its initials in French, are now on the United States Treasury Department's list of Haitian officials whose assets in the United States were frozen this month because of their support for the military leaders blocking Father Aristide's return to power. Analyses Are Criticized

The disclosure of the American role in creating the agency in 1986 comes amid increasing Congressional and public debate about the intelligence relationship between the United States and Haiti, the richest and poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Supporters of Father Aristide contend that the C.I.A. is undermining the chances for his return with analyses skewed by a misplaced trust in his military foes.

The agency paid key members of the junta now in power for political and military information up until the ouster of Father Aristide in 1991. A review of the C.I.A.'s activities in Haiti under the Reagan and Bush Administrations, based on documents and interviews with current and former officials, confirms that senior C.I.A. officers have long been deeply skeptical about the stability and politics of President Aristide, a leftist priest. C.I.A. Help for Aristide

No evidence suggests that the C.I.A backed the coup or intentionally undermined President Aristide. In fact, the agency has acted to help him at times, for example through a program that is now training bodyguards to protect him should he return to Haiti from his exile in the United States.

Though much of the C.I.A.'s activity in Haiti remains secret, the emerging record reveals both failures and achievements in recent years.

Having created the Haitian intelligence service, the agency failed to insure that several million dollars spent training and equipping the service from 1986 to 1991 was actually used in the war on drugs. The unit produced little narcotics intelligence. Senior members committed acts of political terror against Aristide supporters, including interrogations that included torture, and threatened last year to kill the local chief of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.

On the other hand, United States officials said, one senior Haitian intelligence officer dissuaded soldiers from killing President Aristide during the 1991 coup. The C.I.A. also helped to save the lives of at least six Aristide supporters after the coup, evacuating them in a late-night rescue that involved the Navy's elite SEAL unit, officials said.

The C.I.A. also had a mixed track record in analyzing the fall of the 30-year Duvalier family dictatorship in 1986. The agency's analysts did not foresee the political violence that led to the collapse of elections in 1987 and the 1991 coup. But the analysts, contradicting the White House and the State Department, correctly predicted this year that the Haitian military would block President Aristide's scheduled return in October.

Members of the Congressional panels that oversee the C.I.A. say the agency's intelligence-gathering helped American policy makers bewildered by the political chaos that followed the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, including a series of military coups, and by Father Aristide's overwhelming victory in the December 1990 election. Lawmaker Cites C.I.A.'s 'Bum Rap'

"The problems of Haiti are problems of policy, not intelligence," said Representative Dan Glickman, a Kansas Democrat who heads the House intelligence committee. "In some cases, intelligence gets a bum rap. From the interviews we've had with the agency, I don't get any feeling that our goal was to preserve military dictatorship in Haiti."

But Senator Christopher J. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who received extensive briefings from the agency, asserted last week that the C.I.A.'s view of Haiti was distorted by its ties to the Haitian military. "A lot of the information we're getting is from the very same people who in front of the world are brutally murdering people," Senator Dodd said.

One crucial source of information for American intelligence over the years, according to two Government officials, was Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cedras, who leads the Haitian armed forces. The officials said he provided the United States Government with reports critical of Father Aristide. The officials did not provide details from those reports. Nor did they say whether the general was paid.

In 1957, Francois Duvalier rose to power in Haiti. A corrupt dictator, he consolidated his power with the aid of a 10,000-member gang known as the Tontons Macoute.

Four years later, he was threatened by a C.I.A. covert operation in which the agency supplied arms to opponents plotting a coup, according to a 1975 Senate report. The plot failed.

On his death in 1971, Mr. Duvalier bequeathed his regime to his son, Jean-Claude, who received nearly $400 million in American economic aid until a popular revolt toppled his Government and he fled the country in February 1986.

Shortly afterward the C.I.A. created the Haitian intelligence service, S.I.N. The agency was staffed solely with officers of the Haitian Army, which was already widely perceived as an unprofessional force with a tendency toward corruption. The stated purpose was to stem the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of cocaine through Haiti, a crucial transit point for drug traffickers. Money for Agency Despite Aid Curb

The United States would gain information on the Haitian military by creating the unit; the Haitian military would obtain money, training and equipment from the C.I.A.

In intelligence parlance, it was a "liaison" relationship. The C.I.A. does not normally report to Congress on such relationships, citing the sensitivity of other nations to disclosures of secrets. That reduces the role of Congressional oversight.

S.I.N. received $500,000 to $1 million a year in equipment, training and financial support from the C.I.A., United States and Haitian Government officials say. The money may have sent a mixed message, for Congress was withholding about $1.5 million in aid for the Haitian military regime at the same time.

By late 1988, the agency decided to "distance itself" from the intelligence service, a senior United States official said. But the ties continued until October 1991, just after the Sept. 30 coup against Father Aristide, he said.

A 1992 Drug Enforcement Administration document described S.I.N. in the present tense, as "a covert counternarcotics intelligence unit which often works in unison with the C.I.A. at post."

The Haitian intelligence service provided little information on drug trafficking and some of its members themselves became enmeshed in the drug trade, American officials said. A United States official who worked at the American Embassy in Haiti in 1991 and 1992 said he took a dim view of S.I.N.

"It was a military organization that distributed drugs in Haiti," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It never produced drug intelligence. The agency gave them money under counternarcotics and they used their training to do other things in the political arena." U.S. Drug Official Gets Death Threat

"The money that was spent to train these guys in the counter-narcotics field boggled the mind -- half a million to a million a year," the official said. "They were turning it around and using it for political reasons, against whatever group they wanted to gather information on."

In September 1992, the work of United States drug-enforcement officials in Haiti led to the arrest of a S.I.N. officer on cocaine charges by the Haitian authorities.

A few days later, the Drug Enforcement Administration's chief in Haiti, Tony Greco, received a death threat on his private telephone line in the American Embassy. The caller identified himself as the arrested intelligence officer's superior, United States Government records show. Mr. Greco immediately left Haiti and has not returned.

Three former chiefs of the Haitian intelligence service -- Col. Ernst Prudhomme, Col. Diderot Sylvain and Col. Leopold Clerjeune -- were named by the United States Treasury Department in a Nov. 1 order for seizure of their assets in the United States. The document named 41 people "who seized power illegally," helped anti-Aristide forces or "contributed to the violence in Haiti."

Haitian officials say those S.I.N. officers persecuted Father Aristide's supporters and used their C.I.A. training to spy on them.

"They were heavily involved in spying on so-called subversive groups," an exiled member of the Aristide Government said. "They were doing nothing but political repression. Father Aristide was one of their targets. They targeted people who were for change."

Between 1 A.M. and 3 A.M. on Nov. 2, 1989, Colonel Prudhomme, who headed S.I.N. and held the title of chief of national security, led a brutal interrogation of Evans Paul, the Mayor of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, according to a sworn deposition taken from Mr. Paul in connection with a Federal lawsuit filed against senior Haitian military officers in 1991 in Miami.

Colonel Clerjeune also was present at the interrogation, which left Mr. Paul with five broken ribs and internal injuries, the Mayor said.

Mr. Paul, who opposed the military regime, was arrested by soldiers, beaten and taken to the police headquarters in Port-au-Prince, where the beatings continued, according to sworn statements. When Mr. Paul lost consciousness, he said, he was revived by soldiers holding a flame from a cigarette lighter under his nose.

"Prudhomme himself never touched me," Mr. Paul said in an interview from Haiti. "He played the role of the intellectual, the man who searched carefully for contradictions in your account -- the man who seemed to give direction to the whole enterprise. He wanted to present me to the world as a terrorist."

"He seemed to have so much information about my life, all the way from my childhood," the Mayor said. "It was if he had been following me step by step."

Last summer, Mr. Paul met his interrogator again. Colonel Prudhomme was part of the military delegation led by General Cedras at talks mediated by the United Nations in July at Governors Island in New York. The accord reached at that meeting called for General Cedras to step down by Oct. 15 and allow Mr. Aristide to return on Oct. 30. The military reneged on the accord.

But S.I.N. also produced a success story: Col. Alix P. Silva, who led the Haitian intelligence service from 1986 to 1988. In 1988, Colonel Silva compiled a list of 18 senior Haitian military officials whom he said should be cashiered for unprofessional conduct, corruption or cocaine trafficking. At the head of the list was Lieut. Gen. Prosper Avril, who seized power in a 1989 coup.

Forced into hiding when General Avril took power, Colonel Silva resurfaced after the 1990 election, in which Father Aristide won 67.5 percent of the vote in a field of 10 candidates. The colonel then served as Deputy Commander in Chief of the army under General Cedras, who betrayed President Aristide by ousting him in September 1991.

It was Colonel Silva, current and former American officials say, who persuaded Haitian soldiers not to shoot Father Aristide on the night of the coup. Although briefly a member of the Cedras junta, Colonel Silva was among a handful of Aristide supporters who were evacuated shortly after the coup in a clandestine flight from Haiti that was coordinated by the C.I.A. and a team of Navy commandos, the officials said.

Though derring-do may be part of the C.I.A.'s image, the agency's most important task is helping American leaders understand what goes on in the world. Its intelligence analysts, not its spies, hold sway in Washington.

The agency's leading analyst of Latin American affairs, Brian Latell, traveled to Port-au-Prince in July 1992 and recorded his trip in a three-page note that he later shared with members of Congressional intelligence committees. He met with General Cedras, who he said impressed him as "a conscientious military leader who genuinely wishes to minimize his role in politics."

That impression, Father Aristide's supporters say, contributed to the faith placed in General Cedras by United States policy makers, a faith broken when the general abrogated the Governor's Island accord.

Mr. Latell also reported that he "saw no evidence of oppressive rule" in Haiti. Rights Report Tells A Different Story

"I do not wish to minimize the role the military plays in intimidating, and occasionally terrorizing real and suspected opponents," the analyst said, but "there is no systematic or frequent lethal violence aimed at civilians."

That conflicts with a State Department report for the same year, which said, "Haitians suffered frequent human rights abuses throughout 1992, including extra-judicial killings by security forces, disappearances, beatings and other mistreatment of detainees and prisoners, arbitrary arrests and detention and executive interference with the judicial process."

Mr. Glickman, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, defended Mr. Latell's work and said that no institutional bias afflicted the agency's reporting on Haiti.

But he said he had questions about "this whole counternarcotics involvement of the agency" and what good, if any, it achieved in Haiti.

Source: New York Times

Haitian Radio Host, Backer of Aristide, Is Killed in Miami

A popular Haitian radio broadcaster and local community leader who supported the ousted Haitian President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was killed on Sunday night in the parking lot of a school here.

The victim, Dona St. Plite, was leaving a fund-raising event he had headed to benefit the children of Fritz Dor, a Haitian-born radio personality who was also killed in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood, in 1991. In all, three Haitian radio show hosts have been killed since 1991, and all of them have been Aristide supporters.

No suspects had been arrested in the St. Plite case.

"It is too early to tell what the motive is," said David Magnuson, a Miami police spokesman. "We are talking to a number of people who were in the parking lot of the Edison Middle School, where the shooting took place."

But some Haitians here said Mr. St. Plite's name appeared on a hit list of Aristide supporters that had circulated in Miami over the weekend. "It is obviously a political murder," said Rolande Dorancy, who heads the Haitian Refugee Center here.

Ms. Dorancy's name was on at least one version of the hit list, which also named Father Aristide, his Cabinet and exiled pro-Aristide journalists. The hand-written document says, "This is a list of people in Haiti, Miami and Canada who must be executed before the 30th of October." That is the date agreed to by the Haitian military leaders for Father Aristide's reinstatement.

Mr. St. Plite was host of a popular radio show on WKAT-AM that featured guests, call-ins and French and Creole music. Arnie Premer, the manager of the station, said Mr. St. Plite also owned a driving school and was planning to open a used car dealership.

The third radio personality who was killed, Jean Claude Olivier, was shot in 1991. According to Assistant State Attorney John Kastrenakas, both of the men convicted in the two 1991 cases were hired killers.

Source: New York Times

WHAT'S BEHIND WASHINGTON'S SILENCE ON HAITI DRUG CONNECTION?

At stake in the U.S. confrontation with the Haitian military regime is a cocaine smuggling operation that earns millions of dollars for Haitian military officials while dumping tons of the deadly white powder on American streets. Yet while the country debates the merits of armed intervention in Haiti, the Clinton administration has remained mum on the Haitian "drug connection."

A confidential report by the Drug Enforcement Agency obtained by Pacific News Service describes Haiti as "a major transshipment point for cocaine traffickers" funnelling drugs from Colombia and the Dominican Republic into the U.S.-with the knowledge and active involvement of high military officials and business elites.

The corruption of the Haitian military "is substantial enough to hamper any significant drug investigation attempting to dismantle" illicit drug operations inside Haiti, the report states. Echoing the report's findings, exiled Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide recently blamed the military's role in the drug trade for his ouster.

Despite extensive DEA intelligence documenting Haiti's drug role, neither the Clinton administration, nor the Bush administration before it, have ever raised that role publicly. Now critics of U.S. policy on Haiti, including one Congressman, are questioning that silence, suggesting it reflects de facto U.S. support for the Haitian military and a reluctance to offer unqualified support for Aristide.

"I've been amazed that our government has never talked about the drug trafficking...even though it is obviously one of the major reasons why these people drove their president out of the country and why they are determined not to let him back in. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal profits that are having disastrous consequences for the American people," says Rep. John Conyers (D-MI).

Larry Burns, head of the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, claims, "From the moment Aristide was overthrown two years ago, Washington has equivocated on whether it wanted him back or not..." To secure the military "as an anchor to Aristide's sail," Burns charges, Washington "turned a blind eye to the corruption charges, and pretended that it could be reformed through professionalization and U.S. training."

A senior administration official at the National Security Council dismisses the charge but when asked why the administration has failed to publicize DEA allegations of drug trafficking, the spokesman had no comment.

The DEA first established a Country Office (CO) in Port-au-Prince to assist the Haitian government with its anti-narcotics activities in November 1987. Throughout Aristide's brief tenure in office, DEA agents worked closely with Haitian military narcotics services, investigating an illegal cocaine network estimated to be moving some $300-$500 million worth of cocaine into the U.S. per year. Although the DEA office was shut down after the 1991 coup, it reopened in the fall of 1992. But soon after DEA intelligence prompted the arrest of a member of Haiti's ClA-linked National Intelligence, DEA local agent Tony Greco received death threats from a man identifying himself as the National Intelligence member's boss.

A Congressional source familiar with the DEA's history in Haiti told PNS that Greco had also "connected (Lt. Colonel Michel) Francois to the drug trafficking operations in Haiti." Francois, the current chief of police, is alleged to be behind the current campaign of terror.

What disturbs Rep. Conyers is that none of this information ever reached the public. "By turning a deaf ear to what is obviously a prime force behind Aristide's ouster, we raise questions about our own involvement in drug activities," Conyers says. He is currently investigating how it is that the ships and aircraft necessary to sustain such a large operation evade detection and interdiction, while the U.S. government has managed to spot, stop and turn back almost every ramshackle boat carrying refugees.

Indeed the DEA report shows that after the 1991 coup sent Aristide into exile, there were virtually no major seizures of cocaine from Haiti as compared to nearly 4,000 pounds seized in 1990.

Michael Levine, author of "Deep Cover" and a decorated DEA agent with 25 years of experience fighting drugs overseas, says what's going on in Haiti is "just another example of elements of the U.S. government protecting killers, drug dealers and dictators for the sake of some political end that's going to cost a whole bunch of kids in this country their lives.

"I saw the drug traffickers take over the government of Bolivia in 1980, ironically with the assistance of the CIA, and we (the DEA) just packed up our office and went home."

Source: Global research.ca

Haiti's Security Forces Allow March by Aristide's Backers

For the first time since a September 1991 military coup ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Haitian military and the police today allowed supporters of the exiled President to march in the capital.

Watched by six observers from the United Nations and Organization of American States, a group of 10 Roman Catholic priests led 300 people in a religious procession with political overtones for some 500 yards. "We believe this is a major victory," said the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, a leading supporter of Father Aristide. "For the first time we have been able to walk out freely and express ourselves," said Father Jean-Juste.

The marchers sang hymns and recited prayers most of the way, but at the end of the procession, about a third of the participants broke into chants of "Aristide or death!" while activists scattered leaflets calling for his return. No uniformed soldiers or police were visible at any time.

Father Jean-Juste said plans for a mile-long march across the city center were canceled because of threats and because senior church authorities refused to authorize the procession.

Source: New York Times

THE CIA'S HAITIAN CONNECTION

Although the Clinton administration insists it is making every effort to return ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power, covert connections between Haiti's military junta and the CIA may be helping to keep the regime in place.

Confidential government documents obtained by the Bay Guardian show that the CIA helped establish and finance Haiti's powerful National Intelligence Service, which played a key role in the 1991 coup and continues to provide paramilitary muscle for the anti-Aristide dictatorship. As recently as February 1993, a confidential congressional report described the NIS as "working closely" with the CIA.

The documents-along with interviews with members of Congress, senior administration sources, and a high-ranking member of Aristide's cabinet-in-exile-raise troubling questions about Clinton's policy toward the tiny, impoverished Caribbean nation and provide strong evidence to support critics who claim the United States is giving little more than lip service to the cause of Haitian democracy.

Among other things, the Bay Guardian has learned:

Haitian Lt. Col. Joseph Michel Francois-the reputed kingpin behind the military junta-was trained at a clandestine U.S. Army combat facility known as the "coup school," whose alumni also include jailed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and former Salvadoran president Roberto d'Aubuisson.

Paramilitary death squads controlled by Francois and Frank Romain, the former mayor of Port-au-Prince, are carrying out what some critics call a systematic attempt to wipe out Aristide's base of support, making it difficult if not impossible for the ousted president to reclaim political power. The death squads, known as attaches have been linked to roughly 4,000 murders since the coup.

Former Haitian officials and congressional sources link Francois and the NIS to a massive drug-smuggling and money-laundering operation that sends at least a billion dollars worth of cocaine a year to the United States. Aristide's attempt to crack down on the drug ring may have helped spark the coup-and since the military junta took power, cocaine exports have soared.

In fact, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency operative who was investigating an NIS officer allegedly involved in drug smuggling had to flee Haiti in 1992 after receiving death threats on a private telephone line with a secret number known only to a few top government officials.

At least two senior members of Congress, Rep. Charles Rangel and Rep. Major Owens, both New York Democrats, told the Bay Guardian they have enough reason to suspect CIA involvement in the Aristide coup that they are calling for a full congressional investigation.

HALF HEARTED EFFORTS

As the crisis in Haiti drags on and the military junta refuses to relinquish power, critics have charged that the United States is making only token efforts to restore Aristide to office.

Larry Burns, an analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Hemispheric Relations, pointed out that the United States has not fully participated in the United Nations embargo of Haiti (unlike most other countries, the U.S. has exempted its own companies in Haiti from the embargo). It's also curious, he told the Bay Guardian, that the Clinton administration has failed to make a public issue of the military regime's role in drug trafficking-a tactic that the Bush administration used extensively to discredit Panama's Manuel Noriega.

"You would think that the White House would want, as one of its major points, to pin the drug tail on the military donkey in Haiti," Burns said. "It would be their best opportunity to rally the American people to a pro-Aristide position. Yet they never used it."

White House Deputy Press Secretary Don Steinberg told the Bay Guardian that "there's nothing halfhearted about our administration's commitment to returning democracy to Haiti and Aristide to power."

"We sent military trainers to Haiti, we've supported the embargo, and we've fully supported the Governor's Island accords," which were supposed to lead to Aristide's return, Steinberg said. "This administration has not for a second coddled Francois or Cedras." Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras heads the military junta.

But Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) said he was worried that the administration's silence on the military's connection to the drug trade would only embolden the junta and tighten its grip on power.

"We have turned a very deaf ear to what is obviously a moving force," he said. "It leads you to wonder if our silence is because we knew this was going on and that our complicity in drug activity may parallel the accusations that were raised about our involvement in drug activities-that is, our government and the Central Intelligence Agency's-during the Vietnam conflict."

Although they admit they have no hard evidence, both Rangel and Aristide's exiled interior minister, Patrick Elie, told the Bay Guardian they see shadows of the ClA's hidden hand behind the September 1991 coup, which overthrew Aristide after only seven months in office.

"I don't have a specific answer as to whether the CIA was involved," Rangel said. "But I do know that our feelings against Aristide were made pretty clear before the coup."

Rangel was referring to the Bush administration's open backing of former World Bank official Marc Bizan against Aristide. But in a show of popular support that caught the Bush administration by surprise, Aristide received 67.5 percent of the vote, while Bizan captured only 13 percent.

Elie told the Bay Guardian that the relationship between the CIA and Haiti's National Intelligence Service went far beyond mere cooperation.

"In fact," he said "the NIS was created by the Central Intelligence Agency. It was created by it and funded by it."

Elie, whose job included oversight of the NIS, launched an investigation shortly after taking office that revealed that the CIA had covertly given the NIS $500,000-twice what the U.S. government was providing Haiti overtly for drug interdiction.

He said that although the NIS was supposed to be used to combat drug smugglers, "in fact, all the NIS has done has been political repression and spying on Haitians."

Records of the Drug Enforcement Administration confirm that the NIS operates with CIA assistance. According to a confidential DEA document titled "Drug Trafficking in Haiti," presented to members of Congress in February 1993 and obtained by the Bay Guardian, the NIS "is a covert counter-narcotics intelligence unit which often works in unison with the CIA."

On Sept. 26, 1992, the report states, the DEA itself was driven from Haiti when its main agent was forced to flee the country after receiving death threats. DEA attaché Tony Greco received the threats on his private line in the U.S. embassy, "given out to only a few trusted individuals," the memo says, within a week of his providing information that led to the arrest of a NIS officer for drug trafficking. "The unidentified threat," the report states, "came from an individual who claims to control many Haitian soldiers in the narcotics distribution trade."

Rep. Major Owens (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus task force on Haiti, told the Bay Guardian: "I worry about the CIA having had a role in the overthrow of the Aristide government. The Congressional Black Caucus has joined with congressman Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.) in calling for a full-scale investigation. "

Bay Guardian phone calls to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., were not returned. Steinberg said he knew nothing about possible CIA involvement in the coup and was "hearing about it for the first time." He refused to comment on the allegations of drug smuggling.

THE SCHOOL OF COUPS

Rangel, who has traveled several times to Haiti and is close to the deposed administration of Aristide, told the Bay Guardian that although Cedras heads the junta, Francois, who is also Port-au-Prince's chief of police, wields the real power.

Francois, Rangel said, "has been targeted as being directly responsible for the recent murder of [Justice Minister] Guy Malary," who was dragged out of church, beaten, and killed on Oct. 14.

Michel Francois learned some of his skills right here in the United States. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army's School of the Americas (SOA), which Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch in Columbus Georgia, described as a "combat and counterinsurgency training facility for soldiers from Central and South America and the Caribbean."

White House spokesperson Steinberg didn't deny that Francois had attended the Army training school. "But just because he graduated from SOA doesn't mean he has U.S. government intelligence connections," Steinberg said. "A lot of people graduate from that school."

Bourgeois said SOA was founded in 1946 and operated in Panama until it was kicked out in 1984 as part of the canal treaty. It was reestablished in Ft. Benning, Ga.

"In Latin America," he said, "it's known as La Escuela de Golpes, the school of coups," because of the achievements of some of its 55,000 graduates, including d'Aubuisson; Noriega, who is serving 40 years in federal prison for drug trafficking; Gen. Hugo Banzer, who ruled as Bolivia's dictator from 1971 to 1978; and Hector Gramajo, Guatemala's former defense minister who helped oversee years of
brutal repression in that country and was the guest speaker at SOA's graduation in December 1991.

On March 15, 1993, the United Nations Truth Commission released its report on El Salvador and, Bourgeois said, "about 75 percent of the officers cited in the most serious massacres, including the killing of six Jesuit priests, the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, and the rape and murder of four U.S. nuns, were SOA graduates."

Bay Guardian calls to SOA were not returned.

DRUG MONEY

The coup and resulting embargo may have left thousands of Haitians dead and created terrible hardship for many thousands more, but it's apparently been quite profitable for the drug traffickers.

According to a Feb. 10, 1993, memo from one of Conyers' congressional staffers, a copy of which was obtained by the Bay Guardian, "the wholesale value of Haiti's drug industry on the U.S. market is now equal to $1 billion a year, which equals the entire revenue of Haiti's population of six million.

"Haiti has become the second most important transshipment point, after the Bahamas, for cocaine shipments from Colombia to the U.S.," the memo states.

The DEA's "Drug Trafficking in Haiti" document also says that Haiti is believed to be a main center for laundering of drug money.

One of Elie's key tasks was to have been overseeing the drug interdiction efforts, and he had developed an extensive program that included close cooperation with U.S. agencies. But the program was barely off the ground when the coup drove him into hiding in Haiti-and five months later, into the United States. (He has since fled the U.S., fearing for his life, and called the Bay Guardian from an undisclosed location because he was told there is a $750,000 contract on his head. Three pro-Aristide radio broadcasters have been murdered in Florida.)

"While I was in hiding," he said, "I monitored Michel Francois over the airwaves directing the landing of a [drug smuggling] plane right in the middle of Port-au-Prince. I immediately notified the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince. I was in touch with the CIA main agent there at the time, and I gave him the time and date of that landing.

"I don't know if he did anything with it. Since the coup, despite our repeated attempts to continue this collaboration with the U.S. as the legitimate government of Haiti, we were met with stonewalling."

Elie's account is supported by the memo to Conyers, which stated that after the coup, "all those jailed for drug-trafficking have been released and...Michel Francois has personally supervised the landing of planes carrying drugs and weapons."

And a September 1992 State Department report titled "International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: Mid-Year Update" noted that "although President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was planning new policies and institutions to combat narcotics trafficking, his ouster...crippled narcotics control efforts in Haiti."

Meanwhile, observers say, the violence continues-targeted largely at the popular organizations that helped bring Aristide to power. As part of the reign of terror, death lists are being posted in small Haitian villages, Liam Mahoney, an independent human rights monitor in Haiti, told the Bay Guardian by phone on Nov. 3.

The military regime so far has ignored the Governor's Island accords that on Oct. 30 called for Aristide's return to power, leading some to speculate that the junta wants to completely destroy Aristide's power base before they allow him to return-if they allow him to return at all.

"If something is not done soon, there will be no Aristide supporters left," said Rep. Owens. "They will all be destroyed."

Source: Global research.ca

2,500 at Rally in Haiti Urge Return of Aristide

A funeral Mass today for victims of last week's ferry disaster turned into the largest demonstration in support of the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide since he was was overthrown as President in September 1991.

About 2,500 people attended the two-hour service for the 600 to 900 people who perished when the ferry Neptune sank on Feb. 16. At least a dozen times, people chanted "Aristide or death!" Representatives of the military-backed Government did not attend. Despite efforts by the head of a United Nations human rights mission to maintain calm, several demonstrators were arrested outside the cathedral after scuffling with bystanders shouting anti-Aristide slogans.

Bishop Willy Romelus, a prominent Haitian clergyman who gave the funeral oration, was attacked when he left the cathedral and was rescued when a half-dozen members of the United Nations delegation jumped between him and the attackers.

Source: New York Times

THE WORLD; Aristide Seeks More Than Moral Support

WHEN he confidently strode to the podium of the General Assembly one year ago bearing news of democracy's triumph after nearly two centuries of bloody failures, Haiti's first elected President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was the toast of the United Nations. This week, as Haiti's deposed President, overthrown in a military coup no sooner than he had returned home, Father Aristide will stand before the same audience to plead that the world not forget his country's tragedy.

He will surely be greeted with hearty applause, but it is much less certain that he will get anything beyond moral support. Diplomats say there is little chance that anything but the use or serious threat of force can now dislodge a Haitian army that has bloodily secured its hold on the nation while gorging itself on drug money and contraband since the coup last Sept. 30. Such a rescue seems remote. If anything, as time has passed, the world consensus against taking action on Father Aristide's behalf has hardened. For different reasons, likely defenders seem not to want to get involved.

At the United Nations, increasingly stretched by compelling crises from Yugoslavia to Somalia, most diplomats agree there is little chance that the body will take up Father Aristide's expected call to actively work for his return. Nor is the Organization of American States as indignant as it once was. Having announced plans for a 500-member observer mission to Haiti, the O.A.S. is now ploddingly assembling a corps of 18.

As for the United States, since shortly after the overthrow -- when Secretary of State James Baker echoed President Bush's famous "this aggression will not stand" statement about Iraq -- little consideration has been given to backing up American principles in Haiti with American muscle.

Virtually all observers agree that facing down Haiti's ill-equipped and undisciplined 7,000-man army would take little in the way of force. Recently, an adviser of the provisional Government of the army-backed Prime Minister Marc L. Bazin repeated Father Aristide's longtime complaint when he said that "all it would take is one phone call" from Washington to send the army leadership packing. Certainly in Haiti, it is keenly recalled that the United States played a critical behind-the-scenes role in forcing out the last military leader, Col. Prosper Avril, setting the stage for the democratic elections that Father Aristide won in a landslide.

Father Aristide has undoubtedly been frustrated that other nations have found ways to avoid effectively rallying to his cause. Mexico, for example, has invoked deep-seated opposition to American or even multilateral intervention by the O.A.S. in a member country's internal affairs. The European Community has failed to even slow its trade with Haiti.

Indeed, supporters and opponents of Father Aristide agree, nothing more threatening than a leaky and ineffective embargo, quickly imposed on Haiti after the coup, has ever been seriously contemplated, which reflects Washington's deep-seated ambivalence about a leftward-tilting nationalist whose style diplomats say has sometimes been disquietingly erratic. Father Aristide rose to popularity on the wings of his calls for redemption for the hemisphere's poorest and most oppressed people and on stinging speeches that often depicted the United States as a citadel of evil and the root of many of his country's problems. His salutations have long invoked the name of Charlemagne Peralte, a leader of the Haitian resistance to the United States' occupation early in the century, so he himself recognizes the trickiness of calling for stronger American measures.

Despite much blood on the army's hands, United States diplomats consider it a vital counterweight to Father Aristide, whose class-struggle rhetoric during his nearly eight months in office, threatened or antagonized traditional power centers at home and abroad. For months Washington has mixed almost rote-like public statements of the need to restore Haitian democracy with private comments that confess its unwillingness to take on the military. "He wants us to get rid of his enemies for him so that he can have a free hand to mop up, and we're just not going to do that for him," a senior official said in a comment that has been repeatedly echoed in American diplomatic circles.

For Father Aristide there remains only the slim possibility that a new effort at mediation by the former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael N. Manley, who was recently recruited by the O.A.S. for the task, can revive diplomatic efforts to restore him to office. Failing that, Father Aristide's backers can only hope that a people who have so far remained quiescent, will rise up again, as they did in 1986 to cast off the Duvalier family dictatorship, and reclaim the right to choose their leaders. "It is possible that the international community fails to find the instruments to help us and even that our civilian Government fails," said Father Aristide's Ambassador to Washington, Jean Casimir. "But time cannot help these gorillas, and given time, the Haitian people cannot lose."

Source: New York Times

Meetings With Aristide Emphasize Human Rights

Amid reports of discussions of a new hemispheric initiative for resolving the Haitian political standoff, American human rights experts have begun meetings with Haiti's deposed President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to discuss weaknesses in his human rights record and help devise plans to smooth his eventual return.

Participants said the meetings have involved detailed discussions of what Father Aristide's critics call human rights abuses during his nearly eight-month tenure in office, as well as talks about internationally brokered peace plans in other badly torn countries like El Salvador, which the human rights experts said could provide useful models for Haiti.

American diplomats have said that Father Aristide's insistence that Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cedras, Haiti's military commander, be either immediately imprisoned or exiled for having presided over the coup against him has been an obstacle to international diplomatic efforts to secure the exiled President's return.

The human rights experts, from private groups, said they hoped to persuade Father Aristide of the wisdom of deferring the question of General Cedras's fate, while allowing international monitoring to help assure order in the country and provide for his own security. Under such a plan, the question of punishment for soldiers who overthrew Father Aristide last September, as well as those involved in abuses since then, would be handled by an independent monitoring agency to be established under international supervision.

Although they described the discussions as useful, participants said that Father Aristide refused to say that there had been any specific human rights problems during his tenure or to endorse a gradual approach to restoring him to power that would defer the question of punishment for the army leadership.

Neither Father Aristide nor his Ambassador to Washington, Jean Casimir, responded to requests for comment. But participants in the discussions said Father Aristide complained that by seeking a solution that did not involve the immediate removal of General Cedras, Washington was trying to "stick me with a Pinochet," a reference to Chile's former military dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet. General Pinochet, who has stayed on as armed forces chief, has a tense relationship with the civilian Government of President Patricio Aylwin.

The meeting's participants said that Father Aristide wondered aloud whether he could avoid being assassinated under such a plan. "It was an interesting exchange of views, but we didn't come to any understanding ultimately," said Kenneth Roth, deputy director of Human Rights Watch, the New York-based rights organization. "He didn't relinquish the demand for the immediate punishment of some individuals in the army, and that insistence, rather than allowing an independent process to take place gradually, perpetuates a stalemate."

Participants in the meetings also expressed frustration with what they described as Father Aristide's failure to address widespread assertions that his statements as President had repeatedly seemed to condone mob-style violence. Human rights experts said that Father Aristide gave little ground beyond the general pledges he has made in the past to reject popular violence.

Another participant cited a speech by Father Aristide to Haitian students in which he praised the presence of a mob armed with gasoline and tires -- which are often used in the vigilante justice Father Aristide's critics have suggested he condoned -- outside a courthouse where a notorious former Interior Minister was on trial.

A senior American official, speaking of what he called Father Aristide's lack of candor on human rights questions, said, "It is a very serious problem, and I don't know what to do about it."

Another official, saying that many people in Haiti already have "little confidence in what he says," called on Father Aristide to issue some "good, stiff declarations about popular justice and some direct acknowledgement that he had some responsibility for certain things that went wrong."

Source: New York Times

'Fight With Us' Against Military, Ousted Haitian Urges Americans

Raising a fist in salute to more than 2,500 cheering Haitian students at Brooklyn College, the deposed President of Haiti, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, extolled his faith in the youth of his country yesterday and said he was certain that they would "rally the resistance so that Haiti will become a democratic country once again."

Then, addressing Americans, Father Aristide, whose Government was toppled by the Haitian military last September, said, "We need you to fight with us in the same way we saw Americans fight in Nicaragua." Earlier, in remarks to 200 members of the Baptist Ministers' Conference of Greater New York and Vicinity at the Convent Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem, Father Aristide reportedly called for a stepped-up embargo of Haiti and said he believed that Washington should take stronger action to force the Haitian military to give up its hold on political power. "He said they have given beautiful statements," said the Rev. V. Simpson Turner, the president of the ministers' conference, referring to the support voiced so far by Washington officials. "But he said what's needed is action." Any Criticism Is Muted.

In a telephone interview yesterday, though, Father Aristide had no criticism of the Bush Administration. He did not believe, he said, that United States or other foreign troops should be sent to Haiti, as some supporters in New York have suggested during his visit here. He said he believed that the Administration was doing everything it could and that he was "sure they will see the result of what they are doing."

The United States cut aid to Haiti and imposed an economic embargo shortly after the Sept. 30 coup. Administration officials said last week that they were considering further steps against the military Government, including tightening the embargo. On May 18, the Foreign Ministers of the Organization of American States are to meet in the Bahamas, with Haiti the most urgent matter on their agenda.

After four days of meetings in New York that went for the first time far beyond talks with Haitian-Americans, Father Aristide is to spend today seeing journalists and members of his government in exile before leaving for Boston on Wednesday. He came to New York from Washington on a visit of several weeks that journalists and diplomats who follow Caribbean affairs say was partly an effort to insure that the issue of Haiti's political turmoil remains in the public eye. Suggests Internal U.S. Pressure

Mr. Turner said Father Aristide urged the Baptist ministers to "pressure our Congressmen" and city officials so they would insist that the Bush Administration not relax and begin to accommodate the Haitian military.

Father Aristide began his New York visit with a breakfast Friday with business and labor leaders, then went to City Hall to talk with Mayor David N. Dinkins and members of the City Council. On Saturday, he drove to a resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania to address a regional meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists and that evening attended a $150-a-plate dinner in Queens that was organized to pay for the visit. On Sunday, Father Ariside spoke privately with Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and then strode onto a stage in Central Park, where he was cheered by tens of thousands of Haitian exiles.

Speaking of Mr. Cuomo, Mayor Dinkins and of Representative Charles B. Rangel, a Democrat who represents Harlem, Father Aristide said: "Those people are so good by the way they welcome us here. We are proud to be their friends."

Fritz Longchamp, who speaks for Father Aristide's exile government at the United Nations, was at the ousted President's side yesterday. He said the Haitian leader had sought a broader audience on his visit because "there is a sense of urgency in Haiti. "He wants to go back to Haiti with the full support not only of the U.S. Government," Mr. Longchamp said, "but of the American people."

Source: New York Times

Ousted Haitian Leader Signs Pact With Old Rival

Nearly five months after he was ousted in a coup, the exiled Haitian President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, signed an agreement today with a former political rival who is now his Prime Minister, pledging to form a "government of national unity" and to begin a timetable for the President's return to Haiti.

With a formal accord in place, diplomats say Father Aristide, who was deposed by the military under Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cedras, may also be more willing to compromise on the army chief's future. In an interview on the ABC News program "Nightline" on Monday night, Father Aristide spoke of removing General Cedras, whom he calls a common criminal unqualfied for amnesty, by constitutional means as part of an army reorganization.

Before leaving Washington, where they have been talking since Friday, Father Aristide and his Prime Minister-designate, Rene Theodore, agreed to meet again in a month to discuss a multi-party cabinet as well as the mechanics of the President's return.

In the meantime, the two leaders -- Father Aristide in exile in Venezuela and Mr. Theodore in Haiti -- are to consult regularly. Before returning to Caracas, the exiled President left today for Geneva, where he is to address a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

The accord signed by the two leaders provides for the sending of an international human rights team to Haiti to strengthen protection for civil liberties before Father Aristide returns. The Organization of American States has put together a list of about 60 potential members of a democracy mission similar to one sent to Nicaragua in 1990 to observe electoral politics, defuse crises, resettle rebels and verify accords.

Father Aristide, who won 67 percent of the votes in December 1990, has in effect exchanged some of this mandate for a compromise solution that gives him a far greater chance of returning. Many of his supporters are sharply critical of the accords signed this weekend because they are perceived as cutting into the President's legitimate powers. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington policy group, called the agreement with leaders of Parliament "a near-total defeat for Haitian democracy."

A statement by the council said: "As a combined result of ineffectual actions taken by the State Department, the regional organization and the European Community, which never respected the embargo, Aristide was effectively left with no option but to mutilate his own stature by signing away his powers in exchange for the still uncertain prospect of his restoration to what will now be a figurehead presidency."

The Haitian Embassy here, which has remained loyal to the ousted President, disagrees, saying that the President will enjoy all the rights and privileges granted by the Constitution. U.S. to Help the Lawmen. In an interview with the Voice of America, which has expanded broadcasts to Haiti in recent months, Bernard W. Aronson, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, said the United States was ready to assist Haiti in professionalizing its army and police.

Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, believes that the Bush Administration did not do enough to dislodge Haiti's military rulers earlier, thus forcing Father Aristide to compromise his party and program. "What the military thugs down there understand is that they have got a nod and a wink from the U.S. Government," Mr. Conyers said in an interview today after introducing legislation that would give Haitian refugees safe haven in the United States until democracy is restored. "If you wanted to see an end to this mobster rule," he continued, "ban air travel to the United States, impose a blockade on Haitian ships into Miami, ask for a United Nations task force."

On Wednesday, the House will consider his legislation and other proposals to grant what is known as "temporary protected status" to Haitians.

Source: New York Times

U.N. Assembly Calls for the Restoration of Haiti's Ousted President

Strongly condemning the military coup in Haiti, the General Assembly called today for the immediate restoration of the democratically elected Government of the exiled President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, but made no move to request that peacekeeping forces be sent to the area.

After delegates from around the world denounced the military takeover in Haiti and expressed support for Father Aristide, who was ousted Sept. 30, the Assembly unanimously approved without a vote a resolution demanding his immediate return to office, full application of the Constitution and full observance of human rights in Haiti.

The resolution, introduced by the Foreign Minister Roberto Flores Bermudez of Honduras, as chairman of the Latin American and Caribbean Group, also declared "unacceptable" any entity resulting from the illegal situation and expressed support for measures taken by the Organization of American States.

Later, Haiti's delegate to the United Nations, Fritz E. Longchamp, said at a news conference that he was very satisfied with the resolution, which he said "from a moral and political standpoint, is very important. We're not looking for military action to solve the problem," the Haitian delegate said. He stressed that Father Aristide wanted a peaceful solution to the problem and had called on the people to resist by nonviolent means.

In the Assembly debate, the United States delegate, Thomas R. Pickering, declared that his Government "does not and will not recognize the self-appointed junta which has illegally usurped power in Haiti." He said the United States strongly supported efforts by the Organization of American States to resolve the crisis and restore Father Aristide's "legitimate, constitutional rule."

There was no indication in Mr. Pickering's statement that the United States was moving away from its unequivocal support of the ousted President. Some Administration officials last week criticized Father Aristide for what they said was his condoning of mob violence by his supporters.

The French delegate here, Jean-Bernard Merimee, called the recent move by the military leaders in Haiti to name a provisional President "a second coup d'etat." He said President Aristide, who was elected with a large majority through free, United Nations-supervised elections, respresented "the only legitimate constitutional order."

In a strong statement of support for the Aristide Government, Canada's Secretary of State for External Affairs, Barbara McDougall, expressed "anxiety and outrage" over the evolving tragedy in Haiti. "We cannot accept that military intervention is the means to an end and that the people's will is overturned by the interests of a few," the Canadian official said. She urged all countries to join the O.A.S. in its effort to restore constitutional stability in the region, including a trade embargo on Haiti except for humanitarian aid.

Haiti's provisional President moved to form a new government today, announcing the appointment of Jean-Jacques Honorat as Prime Minister. Mr. Honorat is a civil rights leader and staunch foe of the deposed President, Father Aristide.

A terse announcement on the national radio said only that "Jean-Jacques Honorat is named Prime Minister."

The provisional President, Joseph Nerette, issued a call for Parliament to meet on Saturday to ratify the appointment of Mr. Honorat, a lawyer, agronomist and leader of the Haitian Center for Human Rights.

He was known to be the most popular choice among lawmakers, who met privately all day on Thursday to consider canidates from a list sumbitted by Mr. Nerette. Parliamentary approval is considered to be virtually assured.

Source: New York Times

IN POLICY SHIFT, U.S. CRITICIZES HAITIAN ON RIGHTS ABUSES

Administration officials have begun to move away from the unequivocal support they have voiced for the ousted Haitian President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, citing concerns over his human rights record.

After Father Aristide was ousted in a coup last Monday, President Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d both demanded his reinstatement as President with no conditions. But today, officials said they had concluded that Father Aristide must publicly disavow mob violence and work toward sharing power with the Parliament. Such acts, Administration officials said, are necessary if he is to gain the Haitian and international support he needs to return to office.

With this shift, the officials, who had said his reinstatement was necessary for the hemisphere's democracies to resist a comeback of military rule, are now hinting that Father Aristide is at least in part to blame for his fall from office. While strongly criticizing the Haitian military for carrying out the coup, these officials now concede that Father Aristide's condoning and even encouragement of vigilante justice by mobs of his supporters in the streets has jeopardized his moral authority and popularity. Aristide Denounces Violence

After meeting with a high-level delegation from the Organization of American States here this morning, Father Aristide made a short statement in French to reporters, in which he denounced violence in Haiti by all parties, including, specifically, vigilante killings in which tires are placed around the necks of victims and then set on fire.. He also called on Haitians to respect the Constitution and human rights, thanked the O.A.S. for its efforts and said he would welcome some sort of presence by the organization in Haiti.

Father Aristide, a 38-year-old Roman Catholic priest, became the nation's first democratically elected president in December when he won 67 percent of the vote in a popular election.

In Haiti tonight, the Parliament moved toward naming an interim president to form a coalition cabinet and negotiate the return of Father Aristide. The goal was apparently not only to reinstate him but also to put conditions on his return that would force him to work with other Haitian institutions and leaders and to avoid any human rights violations. The reasons for the sudden refocusing of Administration concerns from placing full blame for the current crisis on the military to criticism of Father Aristide were not immediately clear. The new criticism of Father Aristide would put the Administration in a more favorable position to negotiate with the Haitian Army.

Underscoring the change in attitude, American officials are beginning to quietly disclose a thick notebook detailing accounts of human rights abuses that took place during Father Aristide's rule. The Administration has apparently been aware of the human rights violations for some time, but officials are only now beginning to emphasize them in their remarks to reporters. That point was driven home in meetings that the O.A.S. delegation held in Haiti last week with business and political leaders who complained that Father Aristide had failed to nurture the country's new democratic institutions. Several suggested that he was trying to develop another dictatorship with his own militia, and that he was at least indirectly responsible for scores of political killings.

The eight members of the O.A.S. delegation, which includes Bernard W. Aronson, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American affairs, returned to Washington this morning to meet with Father Aristide for nearly three hours. The members told Father Aristide that they had heard widespread concerns in Haiti from people who accused him of excesses in his rule.

An official close to the delegation said the members had strongly suggested that he speak out against mob violence and in favor of constitutional rule. The official said they had also advised him to "begin a dialogue" with Haitian parliamentary leaders to discuss the outlines of what kind of O.A.S. presence Haiti would accept to avert future human rights violations. "Part of the equation for putting him back in his rightful place and reaching a solution," a State Department official said, "is for him to assure all Haitians that he will not tolerate or condone the mob violence that has taken place."

The official added, "There is a generalized fear down there that the mobs that sometimes act for President Aristide's Lavalas movement have been tolerated or condoned by him." Officials stressed that while Haitian soldiers had used violence against crowds, Father Aristide's forces had also used force and murdered.

In a speech Father Aristide made late last month on the steps of the Presidential Palace, he appeared to agree to the lynching of opponents with tires placed around their necks then set afire. He said burning rubber produced "such a nice smell."

The small cracks that are beginning to emerge in American support for Father Aristide underscore the quandary the Administration faces in Haiti. For years Father Aristide complained bitterly that United States support had maintained the Duvalier family dictatorship in power. Despite Father Aristide's anti-Americanism and socialist inclinations, when he won overwhelmingly in Haiti's first free election, the Administration embraced him as an agent for democratic change.

Mr. Bush has placed less emphasis on the Caribbean basin than did President Ronald Reagan, but a number of senior officials including Vice President Dan Quayle and Mr. Aronson have given special attention to the island. These officials have expressed concern that the failure of democracy in Haiti could embolden other militaries in the region, while it could set off a civil war and a quickening migration of Haitians to the United States.

When Father Aristide was overthrown last week, the Administration was faced with the first test of Mr. Bush's new world order in the Western Hemisphere. It quickly intervened to demand that the army protect Father Aristide's life and allow him to leave the country. And some senior American officials would not discount the possibility that military force might have to be employed to put Father Aristide back in power.

Source: New York Times

Haiti's Choice, and Father Aristide's

Sunday's election in Haiti was a triple triumph: for Haiti's determined voters, for the winning candidate, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and for the international effort to guarantee a free, fair vote. After a bloody fiasco in 1987, and an unconvincing army-run vote in 1988, Haiti has at last chosen a democratic successor to the Duvalier dictatorship. Father Aristide has won a mandate for radical change. But he has also acquired a duty to respect the constitutional procedures that assured his victory.

Outsiders have always found it easy to write off Haiti. The hemisphere's poorest republic, they said, could not afford the luxury of political choice. Besides, Haiti lacks any history of democratic government. And, they dolefully predicted, the armed thugs of the old regime would surely veto all attempts at serious change. Perhaps there was also an element of racism in the wide refusal to acknowledge that black Haiti could become part of Latin America's democratic trend.

Haitians never succumbed to such reasoning. They braved intimidation from the army and the remnants of the Duvaliers' secret police, the Tontons Macoute, to approve a democratic electoral code, and then defend it in the streets against military encroachments. Neither failed elections nor military coups extinguished their faith that they were as entitled to democracy as anyone else.

Americans can be proud of the role played by their Ambassador, Alvin Adams, since his arrival a year ago. By making plain that American economic support depended on progress toward elections, he helped keep the electoral process on track. Last month Father Aristide's radical rhetoric began to draw not only wide support from the poor but also threats from panicked sections of the elite that threatened to derail the election. Ambassador Adams held firm for democratic principle.

Democracy's cause remains insecure. Father Aristide's promises to sweep away social inequality and political violence will be impossible to fulfill at once. The violent men of the old regime will be around to thwart the new government's initiatives long after international election observers have departed.

Father Aristide will need to be tough. But he will also need to be patient, and to preach patience to his followers. His is a truly historic challenge. He can now become either the father of Haitian democracy or just one more of its many betrayers.

Source: New York Times

A HAITIAN PRIEST IS OUSTED BY ORDER

A Roman Catholic priest who has been one of the most outspoken critics of social injustice in Haiti has been expelled from his ecclesiastic order and accused of using religion to incite hatred and violence.
In a statement prepared in Rome, the Salesian order, one of the largest groups in the church, accused the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a 35-year-old Haitian priest, of desecrating the sacraments by using them for political purposes.

Father Aristide, who preached on a need for a ''real revolution'' in Haiti and alluded to armed warfare as a means of ending military domination of the country, had refused an order by Salesian officials to leave Haiti by Oct. 17 and take up duties in Canada.

The priest, who has been seen in public only once since narrowly escaping death in early September in an attack on his church in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, has been in contact with Haitian radio stations by telephone, but has expressed no reaction to his expulsion. No Public Response From Avril
The expulsion order came as the Government of Lieut. Gen. Prosper Avril began its third month in office at a time of rising disappointment over its slow progress in moving the country toward democracy.

For several days in October, thousand of Haitians protested the efforts to transfer Father Aristide to Canada. But there has been no public reaction since the expulsion was first reported on Haitian radio stations on Thursday. There has also been no comment from either General Avril or the Haitian Conference of Bishops. Both have been criticized by Father Aristide.

In a statement in November on Radio Metropole, an independent station, Father Aristide accused several bishops of plotting against him. He said the Avril Government was incompetent and guilty of failing to curtail violence by right-wing thugs known as Tontons Macoute.

Shortly after General Avril, an adviser and confidant to the dictators who ruled Haiti for nearly 30 years, assumed power in a coup in September, he said he wanted to go down in history as a leader who had ''saved the country from anarchy and dictatorship'' and had established ''an irreversible democracy.'' Washington Is 'Still Encouraged'

Though no date has been set for elections, United States officials in Haiti say that they are ''still encouraged'' by the things General Avril ''has been doing and saying'' and that they feel he is making progress toward democracy.

The Haitian Government said Friday that the last comments and suggestions by political and civic leaders on a proposal by General Avril to form a body to conduct elections would be accepted Thursday and that a public meeting to discuss the plan would be held in early January.
Many Haitian political leaders have expressed concern that General Avril is trying to limit the independence of the electoral body But have praised him for fostering debate on the plan.
In recent statements, General Avril has reaffirmed a pledge to respect human rights. But he has been criticized by some religious and civic leaders for jailing a group of noncommissioned officers who he asserts tried to overthrow him in mid-October.

There have been continued reports of unrest within the armed forces and new rumors of a coup circulated this week as the retirement and transfer of a half dozen key noncommissioned officers was announced.

Source: New York Times

Gunmen in Haiti Kill 3 In Attack on a Church

Gunmen burst into the church of a radical Roman Catholic priest during Mass today, shot and killed at least three parishioners, wounded 60 and and burned the building down, Radio Haiti-Inter reported.

A foreign journalist attending the Mass telephoned The Associated Press in New York and said the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide had just begun 9 A.M. Mass when a group of men began throwing rocks at the church, panicking 600 to 800 parishioners, who rushed for the doors. ''Suddenly the doors at the back of the church burst open and 20 to 30 men with machetes, huge sticks and guns came in,'' said the journalist, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''They started shooting people, beating them, and stabbing and slashing them.''

The journalist said at least five parishioners were wounded by bullets or stabbed and at least three were killed. The reporter said parishioners surrounded and protected Father Aristide, who was not injured.
The priest heads the Catholic Church's radical wing, which opposes military rule. There have been several attempts on his life by people widely believed to be connected to elements in the army loyal to the deposed Duvalier dictatorship.

Source: New York Times