Haitians Brace For Rebel Attack

Rebel fighters moved closer to the capital Thursday and awaited an order to attack, their leader said, as pressure mounted for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to resign and for the deployment of international peacekeepers.

Haitians and foreigners fled the capital, which was expected to fall easily to the insurgents, since hordes of Haiti's small, ill-equipped police force have been deserting their posts without a rebel in sight.

Members of the U.N. Security Council met on Haiti Thursday afternoon.

Americans with M-16s guarded a convoy of United Nations workers and their families on the way to the airport, past flaming barricades built by Aristide supporters to block the city from rebels who have overrun half of the country in the 3-week-old rebellion.

Many of the dozens of barricades set up Wednesday by Aristide supporters were abandoned Thursday, although it was unclear why. One police officer said the pro-Aristide militants had agreed to man them only at night so business could carry on.

Businesses were shuttered, long lines grew at the few gas stations open, and hardly anyone ventured onto the trash-strewn streets after rebel leader Guy Philippe said his forces were gathering to attack the presidential palace to arrest Aristide.

"It will be over very soon," Philippe said on the radio.

Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate Budget Committee on Thursday the United States is willing to participate in any international security force sent to Haiti to enforce a political settlement.

The Organization of American States also held a special meeting to discuss the crisis.

Haiti's foreign minister and Aristide's chief of staff were in Paris to meet with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who on Wednesday condemned the president for the crisis in its former colony and indicated he should resign.

De Villepin has called for a civilian peacekeeping force to support a "government of national unity."

Jamaica said it would ask the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force, but that could take weeks.

The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted about a dozen small vessels within 50 miles of the Haitian coast this week, and 546 Haitians have been brought aboard cutters, where they are receiving food and water, spokesman Luis Diaz said.

He said the Coast Guard has intercepted vessels holding more than 350 Haitians on a single boat in the past, so this is not unusual.

"It doesn't appear to be a mass exodus," Diaz said.

On Wednesday, President George W. Bush repeated the United States' oft-stated policy in recent days that it will turn back any Haitian refugees trying to reach American shores.

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

Philippe would not say if an attack was imminent.

"It doesn't mean that we're going to attack today. We're just going to take our positions and wait for the right time. They're awaiting the order," he told The Associated Press in an interview in Cap-Haitien, the second-largest city, which fell to the rebels Sunday.

Philippe said his fighters were converging on the capital from the north.

There were no independent eyewitness reports of rebel movement, but there also appeared to be few fighters in Cap-Haitien, where hundreds were seen Wednesday. Cap-Haitien is just 90 miles north of Port-au-Prince, but it is a seven-hour drive over badly potholed roads.

Haiti's police force, just 4,000 for a country of 8 million, is trained to deal with rioters — not the soldiers who are among the guerrillas.

More than 40 officers were killed in the first 10 days of the rebellion, which erupted Feb. 5. Dominican soldiers said they turned away 37 Haitian officers trying to flee the country this week.

Aristide disbanded the army that ousted him in 1991 after the United States sent 20,000 troops to restore him and halt an exodus of boat people to Florida in 1994.

France and the United States have blamed Aristide for the crisis.

Aristide, a 50-year-old former slum priest, once commanded widespread support as Haiti's first democratically elected leader and savior to the poor, but he has steadily lost support as poverty deepened after his party swept flawed legislative elections in 2000 and international donors suspended aid.

As he has lost support, Aristide is accused of using police and street gangs to attack opponents — charges he denies.

"The president has no intention of resigning," government spokesman Mario Dupuy told AP. Others, however, spoke openly of it.

On Wednesday, Aristide sent his two daughters on a flight to New York City.

"The day of deliverance has come. Aristide's departure is imminent," opposition politician Claire Lydie Parent said in a radio declaration.

Opposition leaders, who say they are not linked to the rebels, rejected a U.S.-backed proposal for Aristide to remain as president and share power with his political rivals.

"There is a lot of tension today," said Jean Pierre Sully, 30. A planned demonstration in the capital was canceled.

At the airport, Americans with M-16 rifles and bulletproof vests arrived with a convoy of 92 U.N. employees and their families leaving after the United Nations ordered an evacuation of nonessential staff.

Military helicopters from the neighboring Dominican Republic ferried people from its embassy in the hillside suburb of Petionville to the airport. Spain chartered a plane in the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo, that left for Port-au-Prince on Thursday to evacuate 50 nationals.