Diplomatic chaos

Aristide accepts with a caveat; a rebel leader refuses; the opposition is undecided.

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

But the top American diplomat for the Western Hemisphere left Haiti without persuading all sides to agree to a deal for the political opposition to share power.

Amid the negotiations, the State Department ordered the withdrawal of all nonessential U.S. personnel and family members from the U.S. Embassy, citing continuing violence in the Caribbean nation.

The results of the negotiations were unclear on all sides.

Aristide appeared to lay down a condition for his acceptance of the deal. He declared he will "not go ahead with any terrorists," referring to rebels who have led a bloody 2-week-old uprising that has killed more than 60 people and chased police from more than a dozen towns in northern Haiti.

Diplomats said opposition leaders did not give them an answer, but plan to respond to the proposal Monday.

"While we did not get a yes, we did not get a no," Fred Mitchell, foreign minister of the Bahamas, told reporters after meeting with opposition leaders.

Publicly, leaders of the political opposition and rebel forces were unyielding.

"We expect the international community to understand our position ... which will not change," said Gerard Pierre-Charles, a leading opposition figure once allied with Aristide.

"The key point of disagreement ... is not included: the element of Aristide's resignation and his departure date," said Andy Apaid, a spokesman for the Democratic Platform, a coalition of opposition political parties and civil society groups.

"If we accept this plan without the departure of Aristide, we will disappear as an opposition," said another leader, Rosemond Pradel.

Also unhappy about the international plan was rebel leader Buteur Metayer, who began the rebellion.

"What about me? When the international community come into Haiti ... they (will) take my gun," he told Associated Press Television News in the rebel-held city of Gonaives. "(Aristide is) going to kill me."

Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega and other top diplomats from the Americas and Europe spent the day in Port-au-Prince, pushing an urgent proposal to replace the current government with a multiparty cabinet, while allowing Aristide to complete his term in office.

Despite hours of hard negotiating, the opposition refused to budge, insisting that Aristide must resign immediately. At one point during talks with a group of opposition leaders, one diplomat could be seen hammering the table with his fist. But the visiting diplomats evidently had few inducements to offer the opposition.

"The plan calls for us to build a government with Aristide, but that is not acceptable," Pradel said.

The president, while backing the plan, again insisted that he will complete his term, which ends in February 2006.

"The plan attempts to pull his (Aristide's) teeth but doesn't have the means," opposition leader Evans Paul said before meeting with the diplomats. He also complained that the U.S.-backed plan fails to call for foreign peacekeepers to enforce it.

The U.S.-backed plan requires the government and opposition to agree by Tuesday to a 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 parliamentary elections.

Noriega was accompanied by diplomats from a range of nations in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. The international community's message appeared to have been that Aristide must accept the plan or confront the rebels alone.

Scores of Americans, including missionaries and aid workers, left Haiti on Friday after the United States urged them to flee the mounting violence in government-held areas and threats of new rebel attacks over this Carnival weekend.

The U.S. warning intensified Saturday, with nonessential embassy workers ordered out of the country.

The airport was busy Saturday, but mostly with Haitians who said they were going to spend Carnival in Miami. There were a few seats on American Airlines' six daily flights to the United States.

Mounting political tensions have turned into violent rebellion over the past two weeks as armed groups opposing Aristide have clashed with the government's outnumbered and outgunned police force and brutal, armed gangs used by the president to impose his political will on the long-suffering populace.

More than 60 people have died in the clashes and a swath of territory - from the coastal city of Gonaives across the Central Plateau to the border with the Dominican Republic - has been wrested away by rebel troops, virtually cutting the country in two.

Rebels have cut supply lines to northern Haiti by blocking the highway at Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city, with barricades of shipping containers. Aid agencies warn a humanitarian catastrophe is imminent, as food, medical supplies and gas run out.

The United States blames Aristide's government for the crisis, saying it ignored mounting problems and did not halt police corruption, act on promises to negotiate with the opposition and end growing civil disorder.

Diplomats are anxious to hammer out a political deal because the alternatives are unpalatable. Either Haiti would slide into civil war, setting off a humanitarian crisis and a wave of refugees to the United States, or external military action would be needed to stabilize the country.

- Information from the Associated Press, New York Times, Knight Ridder Newspapers and Washington Post was used in this report.

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