Haiti Rebels Set Sights On Capital

A sense of dread settled over Haiti's capital on Wednesday as rebels prepared to attack and pressure mounted on President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to resign.

Police watched idly as thieves wearing black ski masks and armed with guns and stones swarmed motorists trapped by roadblocks, stripping people -- many of them attempting to flee the city -- of luggage, handbags and cell phones.

International support for Aristide appeared to crumble, with French officials saying Wednesday night that they now backed a coalition government that didn't include him.

"He does not have our support," a senior official at the French Foreign Ministry in Paris told Knight Ridder. "We will now move to support a government of national unity."

In Florida, a freighter with 21 Haitians on board was intercepted by the Coast Guard off the coast of Miami Beach on Wednesday, hours after President Bush urged Haitians not to flee their homeland despite escalating violence.

"With violence increasing and food shortages widespread, the threat of an exodus is real," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk.

Mr. Bush repeated the United States' oft-stated policy in recent days that it will turn back any Haitian refugees trying to reach American shores.

The rebels have overrun half of Haiti, including its second-largest city, Cap-Haitien, where their leader, Guy Philippe, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that they were taking a wait-and-see approach to proposals to send international peacekeepers.

"If they do not attack the Haitian people, we won't attack them," he said. "If they come to help us to remove Mr. Aristide, they will be welcome."

Asked when they planned to move on Port-au-Prince, he said: "We're ready. We just want to give a chance to peace," indicating they would hold off. "We're ready to talk to anyone. The only one the country doesn't want is Mr. Aristide."

There was talk in Washington, Paris, the Caribbean and at the United Nations of intervention by a team of international peacekeepers. But there seemed to be little agreement on what course to pursue.

At the United Nations, the Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting for today to consider a request by Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, chairman of the 15-member Caribbean Community, that a U.N.-led peacekeeping force be sent to Haiti.

President Bush predicated a "security presence" in Haiti on a settlement between Aristide and his political opponents. But leaders of other nations disagreed with that condition, and Aristide's political opponents maintained that Aristide must go.

"U.S. and French negotiators are not yet reading from the same page," Falk said. "France is asking for an international force immediately to assure a return to order. Washington does not want to send troops until a negotiated solution is agreed to."

"There has been violence on the streets for a year," opposition leader Charles Baker said as chaos began to roil Port-au-Prince. "We can take a few more weeks. I guess that's the price we will have to pay for liberty and democracy."

Two men were killed by rebels in the northern city of Cap-Haitien, which was captured by rebels earlier this week. The three-week rebellion has now left 80 dead and dozens wounded.

The U.S. Embassy was closed by what American officials called "gang activity." Three American Airlines flights to Florida were delayed as passengers and airport employees struggled to get through roadblocks that materialized throughout the city and along the road to the airport.

Guy Lockrey, an autoworker from Flint, Mich., abandoned his car at a barricade and headed to the airport on foot with his suitcase when police picked him up.

"We didn't feel any tension until we got close to the capital," said Lockrey, who had been helping to build a church.

Most of the dozens of barricades, constructed from burning tires, large rocks and wrecked vehicles, were erected and guarded by militant Aristide supporters called chimeres, after a mythical fire-breathing creature.