United States Armed Forces Haiti

President Clinton ordered six warships to waters off Haiti on Friday to enforce the U.N. trade embargo scheduled to take effect Monday and readied a small contingent of troops for the possible rescue of Americans in the Caribbean island nation. Clinton ordered the show of force to back up his demand that Haiti's military rulers abide by an agreement to cede power and allow the return of popularly elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted in a 1991 military coup.

More than five years and over $2 billion after President Clinton ordered 20,000 U.S. troops to occupy this Caribbean nation--first to "Restore" and then to "Uphold Democracy," as the U.S. operations were named--chaos and violent death remain facts of life in Haiti. Disturbing signs of disintegration abound.

Concerned that the mission may already be going awry, the Senate adopted a resolution Wednesday that pointedly did not endorse the U.S. occupation of Haiti and called for the "prompt and orderly" withdrawal of American forces "as soon as possible."

President Clinton has given the Pentagon an open-ended order to maintain hundreds of troops in Haiti, shoring up an effort to keep the nation from falling back into chaos. "Have I made an indefinite commitment? No," Clinton said in Washington when a reporter asked about Haiti. "But I have made a definite commitment to continue to be involved there in ways that I think are appropriate." Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) has said maintaining a U.S.

His name is Virge. He is 24 and married and will be a father any day now. He loves football and he loves the Marines, and he has a wide smile and eyes as blue-green as the Caribbean. He is also the Marine who fired first--and gave the order for his men to fire too--on a group of Haitian police officers Saturday night in the only violent encounter involving U.S. troops since the military landed a week ago. The clash left 10 Haitian policemen dead. The actions of Lt.

The Haitian Parliament completed work Friday on a limited bill renewing and slightly expanding the right of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to extend political amnesty to the military forces that overthrew him three years ago. By a 9-1 vote, with one abstention, the Haitian Senate passed a bill already approved Thursday by the Chamber of Deputies. A copy of the provision was sent by fax to Aristide for his signature, and it will become law when it is published here Monday.

U.S. military demolition experts Saturday blew up more than three tons of weapons and ammunition confiscated in Haiti in a disarmament effort, military officials said. Plastic explosives were used to destroy the munitions, including 1,300 mortar rounds, 800 rifle grenades and 1,100 hand grenades, at a remote military target range. Most of the weapons and ammunition were seized at Haitian military weapons depots or during street sweeps and raids, officials said. Some were bought by the U.S.

The withdrawal of U.S. troops is proceeding ahead of schedule, a military spokeswoman said Saturday as hundreds of soldiers flew home. By next weekend, only 6,000 soldiers will remain in Haiti, Maj. Regina Largent said. The 6,000 will remain through January. After that, an undetermined number of U.S. soldiers will participate in the U.N. force that will take over the mission.

Sending a message to Haiti's military leaders that "it's time for them to leave," the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution Sunday permitting the use of force to restore democracy to the Caribbean nation. The 12-0 vote, with China and Brazil abstaining, provides the diplomatic cover for U.S.-led military action long threatened by President Clinton.

Senior U.S. officials have initiated large-scale business negotiations with some of the most powerful and wealthy Haitian supporters of the military overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, according to Haitian business and political sources. The secret talks came this week at the same time the United States was dismantling the Haitian army and supposedly engineering a new political environment to undermine the power of the same anti-democratic elite. In one case, the sources said, Lt.

President Clinton marked an official end to the U.S. intervention in Haiti on Monday, saluting a wind-whipped field of American troops who had just completed their part in a peacekeeping mission that he said had given Haitians back their purloined democracy. Eighteen months after he sent 20,000 U.S.

A secret deal engineered by President Clinton will send Canadian soldiers to maintain stability in Haiti after U.S. troops withdraw from the nation next month, according to published reports. The arrangement, worked out in the past week by aides to the president and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, would commit the U.S. to provide logistic support troops for the Canadians and to dispatch U.S. reinforcements in an emergency, Newsday reported.

The facts in the case of Army Capt. Lawrence Rockwood vs. the United States were never in dispute. Both the defense and prosecution agreed that on Sept. 30, 1994, while serving with U.S. forces in Haiti, Rockwood left his post without authorization, sneaked out of the Army's secured compound and hitched a ride with a Haitian to the national prison in downtown Port-au-Prince.

An Army captain who left his post to investigate reports of human rights abuses at a Haitian prison was found guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer and three other charges Saturday but not guilty of dereliction of duty. Capt. Lawrence Rockwood, a counterintelligence officer with the 10th Mountain Division, was also convicted of failure to report for assigned duty, being disrespectful of a superior officer and disobeying a superior officer.

After six months as guardians of Haitian order, U.S. forces formally turned over peacekeeping duties to the United Nations on Friday, opening a new and risky chapter in the Caribbean nation's fitful experiment with democracy. President Clinton joined Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in hailing the U.S. military's success in displacing a dictatorship and setting a democratically elected government on its course. With the arrival of 20,000 U.S.

President Clinton will arrive today to mark the end of the major U.S. military presence here and will be greeted by a still-thankful nation, but one increasingly convinced that U.S. policy is to blame for Haiti's growing lawlessness and a brutal economic crisis. Clinton will officially turn over to the United Nations responsibility for following through on policies that began Sept. 19, when 20,000 U.S.

After a whirlwind two-day tour of Haiti that included an emotional appearance by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on the streets of the capital, President Clinton's national security adviser said Thursday that there is no specific timetable for withdrawing the U.S. military intervention force from Haiti.

When the border crossing out of isolated, sanctions-bound Haiti opened to Richard Elie this weekend for the first time in months, the well-off Haitian American decided to go shopping. Big time. His list included dozens of high-priced items--from spare parts to high-tech goods--that have been banned from Haiti during its three years under economic sanctions.

Gen. George A. Fisher, the U.S. military commander here, knew at least 10 days before Mireille Durocher was murdered that the outspoken anti-government figure was the target of a serious assassination plot allegedly involving Haitian Interior Minister Mondesir Beaubrun, American and Haitian sources said Wednesday. These officials said Fisher wrote to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government, outlining the plot.

U.S. military demolition experts Saturday blew up more than three tons of weapons and ammunition confiscated in Haiti in a disarmament effort, military officials said. Plastic explosives were used to destroy the munitions, including 1,300 mortar rounds, 800 rifle grenades and 1,100 hand grenades, at a remote military target range. Most of the weapons and ammunition were seized at Haitian military weapons depots or during street sweeps and raids, officials said. Some were bought by the U.S.