Haitian Prez Accepts Peace Plan

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide agreed Saturday to a U.S.-backed peace plan calling for shared power with political opponents, a new prime minister and legislative elections.

But Aristide, who gets to remain president, declared he would "not go ahead with any terrorists," meaning he would not negotiate with rebels who have led a bloody two-week-old uprising that has killed more than 60 people and chased police from a score of towns.

Saturday's breakthrough came as the United States was urging citizens to leave the country amid mounting violence by Aristide militants in government-held areas and rebel threats to take their uprising to Haiti's second-largest city, the northern port of Cap-Haitien, over this Carnival weekend.

Mexico also advised its citizens to leave Saturday.

The diplomatic mission met later Saturday with opposition leaders to urge them to accept the deal, which falls short of their demand that the embattled Aristide resign.

Although not allied, Haiti's rebels and political opponents both insist that Aristide leave office. Throughout the recent bloodshed, the president has said he will not step down before his term ends in 2006.

On hearing news of Aristide's capitulation, some opposition leaders said they still would insist he step down.

"We have a counterproposal to make" involving the "orderly departure" of Aristide, said opposition politician Serge Gilles.

"Aristide has systematically broken his promises. Why should anyone believe him now?" asked lawyer Bernard Gousse, from a coalition of 184 civil groups in the Democratic Platform coalition.

He noted that Aristide had not kept pledges to former President Clinton to disarm street gangs.

"The peace plan is a breakthrough in the impasse with Aristede," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk, "but many of the major issues are still unresolved, such as who will be a Prime Minister acceptable to both government and opposition -- and how the peace will be enforced."

"The plan may be promising, but it is sketchy," said Falk, "and does not include peacekeeping forces or foreign troops or how to deal with the more intransigent and violent opposition."

As Aristide was announcing his agreement, news came that Haitian journalist Elie Sem Pierre was shot and wounded by Aristide loyalists in Cap-Haitien. Militants there have armed themselves against the threatened rebel attack and have been terrorizing the population while frightened police have barricaded themselves in their station.

On Friday, Aristide loyalists attacked unarmed anti-government protesters in Port-au-Prince, hurling rocks and bottles and then firing shotguns and slashing machetes. No police arrived to protect the protesters. Fourteen people were injured, including a journalist seriously wounded by shotgun pellets in the back.

Diplomats in emergency talks on Haiti in recent days have not divulged any plan to disarm militants or the rebels.

Canadian Minister Denis Coderre, part of the international negotiating team, said only "When we talk about disarming armed groups, it involves a lot of people and different parties."

Aristide indicated it would be done by Haitian police, saying the agreement calls for the Organization of American States to increase its help in training Haiti's demoralized force.

"We agreed to work hard disarming thugs, preventing terrorists in Gonaives (city) moving ahead and killing people, and preventing members of the opposition from continuing with their violent approach," Aristide said.

Opposition leaders asked how the force of fewer than 4,000 officers, who have been deserting posts ahead of the rebel surge, could halt the uprising.

Evans Paul, one opposition leader, said ambassadors who presented them with a timetable for the peace plan on Friday said they believed the Democratic Platform "has enough moral force to persuade the rebels to lay down their arms."

That was an odd statement, he noted, since the rebels come from forces that tried to kill Paul and others under brutal military dictatorships 1991 to 1994.

The plan requires the government and opposition to agree by Tuesday to a three-way commission of representatives from both sides and international delegates. It also calls for the appointment of a prime minister agreeable to both sides and for overdue parliamentary elections.

A new police chief and police internal affairs chief would be appointed to replace officers accused of politicizing the force.

"We have agreed to have a new government with a new prime minister," Aristide said after a two-hour-long meeting with the diplomats, led by Roger Noriega, the top U.S. envoy for the Western Hemisphere.

Haiti's government and opposition leaders have been unable to agree on a prime minister since flawed legislative elections in 2000 were swept by Aristide's Lavalas Party.

Aristide accuses the political opposition of supporting the popular rebellion, which erupted Feb. 5 in Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city. About 40 of the 60 casualties are police officers killed by rebels who have attacked them and burned police stations across northern Haiti.

Rebel leader Guy Philippe said the next rebel target is Cap-Haitien, where he served as police chief before fleeing in 2000 amid charges of coup-plotting.

Aristide's government spokesman, Mario Dupuy, said "the government hopes the mission will be able to detach the opposition from acts and actors of violence ... the opposition has a chance to prove it is not in favor of violence and terrorism."

Noriega was accompanied by diplomats from a range of nations in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean whose message appeared to be that Aristide must accept the plan or confront the rebels alone.

With the opposition, diplomats could take the line that an agreement would show their democratic intentions and reinforce their pronouncements rejecting violence.

Opposition leaders want to know how the plan would help end the rebellion, led by a motley group of former Aristide thugs and ex-soldiers and a death squad commander from the disbanded Haitian army that ousted Aristide in 1991.

Scores of Americans, including missionaries and aid workers, left Haiti on Friday. On Saturday, Mexico advised its citizens to get out and the U.S. warning intensified, with nonessential embassy workers ordered to leave the country.

Rebels have cut supply lines to northern Haiti and aid agencies warn a humanitarian catastrophe is imminent, as food, medical supplies and gas run out.

Aristide, who won Haiti's first free elections in a landslide in 1990, has lost support since his re-election. After flawed legislative elections in 2000, international donors froze aid and Haiti's chronic misery has deepened.