Security Council Imposes Tougher Sanctions on Haiti : United Nations: The 15-0 vote comes as Clinton takes a harder line on the junta that ousted Aristide. Resolution tightens noose around ‘usurpers,’ banning almost all trade.

WASHINGTON —  The U.N. Security Council, acting at the behest of the United States, on Friday voted to tighten sanctions against Haiti in a move intended to force that nation’s ruling military regime to relinquish power to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In a 15-0 vote, the Council approved a resolution to ban almost all trade with the Caribbean nation, halt all airline flights in and out of there, prohibit foreign travel by those associated with the military regime and urge other nations to freeze assets of the leaders who overthrew Aristide in a 1991 coup.

The action came in the wake of President Clinton’s recent decision to take a harder line against the Haitian military, which has resisted U.S. and U.N. efforts to return Aristide to his role as the nation’s first democratically elected president.

In scathing tones, U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright scorned the military and police leaders of Haiti as “usurpers . . . devoid of honor or patriotism and driven only by greed and mistaken self-interest.”

Later in the day, in a separate appearance, Clinton reiterated his oft-repeated position of late that the United States would consider military options against the Haitian regime if the new sanctions fail to restore democracy to Haiti. “I don’t favor that option but can’t rule it out,” Clinton said in a photo session with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed.

Neither the President nor his aides have been willing to reveal any details of military action under consideration. But U.S. and U.N. sources said the next major step will be to prevent goods from crossing into Haiti from the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola.

The porous nature of the Haitian border has undermined the oil embargo, reimposed on Haiti by the U.N. last year, when Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, the army commander who led the coup, reneged on an agreement to resign and allow Aristide’s return.

Canadian Ambassador Louise Frechette told the Security Council that embargo violations by the Dominican Republic are “unacceptable and must stop.”

Acknowledging the key role of the Dominican Republic in making the newest embargo work, Albright said: “All of us can and must make these sanctions work. The price of failure would be too high for all of us.”

Other critics have suggested putting pressure on Venezuela, which, according to various sources, has been increasing its sales to the Dominican Republic for transfer to Haiti.

Clinton planned to continue meeting with Secretary of State Warren Christopher and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake today for further discussions about implementing the sanctions, aides said. Among the issues under review, they said, are possible compensation to the Dominican Republic for losses incurred because of the sanctions and whether to send a new U.N. contingent to Haiti.

Americans and Canadians were part of a U.N. military training and engineering mission that was recalled by the White House last fall when pro-Cedras thugs demonstrated on the docks in Port-au-Prince.

A variation of the tough sanctions resolution has lain dormant before the Security Council for several months. U.S. officials had held it back in hopes that they could persuade Aristide to compromise with the military leaders who deposed him.

Under one scenario, Aristide, now in exile in Washington, would have been reinstated but with far less power than in his elected position. But he refused to compromise, insisting that it was his right to return to Haiti with full powers.

Derided by many Aristide sympathizers in this country for failing to stand firm against the military regime, the Clinton Administration reviewed its Haiti policy and changed direction a little more than a week ago, announcing that it would push the sanctions resolution through the Security Council.

The White House also forced Lawrence Pezzullo, a veteran ambassador, to resign as special U.S. envoy working to end the crisis in Haiti. He was described as too closely linked to the failed U.S. effort to pressure Aristide into a compromise.

White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers, echoing a phrase often used by Albright, said the new resolution “tightens the noose” around the Haitian military.

Ambassador Fritz Longchamp, who still represents the Aristide regime at the United Nations, said he trusted that “this resolution will have the desired impact even before it comes into force--in other words that the military leaves immediately and Aristide returns.”

In Ottawa, Canadian Foreign Minister Andre Ouellet welcomed the resolution, saying, “Canada has maintained consistently that a total, universally applied embargo on Haiti is necessary to force the military and de facto authorities to step down.”

But there was far more skepticism in Haiti. Reports from Port-au-Prince were replete with angry comments from Haitians who called the sanctions a waste of time and said they would fail to change the military’s position, simply making the poor even poorer. Even before sanctions were first imposed, Haiti was ranked as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with a per capita income of less than $300 a year.

Albright acknowledged the effect the embargo would have on Haiti’s citizens.

“We are acutely conscious of the suffering of the Haitian people and of the potential of these sanctions to aggravate that suffering,” she told the Security Council. “That is why the United States and the international community is also undertaking humanitarian assistance measures in Haiti on a massive scale.”

The sanctions resolution is unusual in that it attempts to concentrate much of its force on Cedras, Lt. Col. Michel-Joseph Francois, the police commandant, and their families and associates.

Under these provisions, which take effect immediately, the council prohibited any travel outside of Haiti by all officers of the Haitian military and police and all major participants in the September, 1991, coup and in the illegal governments after the coup.

The ban was extended to their immediate families, as well. The resolution strongly urged all governments to freeze foreign bank accounts of these Haitians.

The resolution bans all flights to and from Haiti, except regularly scheduled stops of commercial airliners. That provision is intended to squelch a drug trade that critics insisted is enriching the Haitian military.

The resolution’s general trade embargo--prohibiting almost all goods from entering and leaving Haiti--does not take effect until May 21.

Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali will report to the Security Council two days beforehand and inform it whether Cedras and his regime have decided to comply with an agreement they signed on July 3 at Governors Island in New York’s harbor. They had pledged to resign and allow Aristide’s return. Should they do so, the council presumably would have time to rescind the embargo if Cedras and Francois give in.

There are a few exceptions to the total trade embargo, including essential food, medicine, books, propane gas for cooking and equipment used by journalists.

The resolution states that all these sanctions will remain in place until:

* Cedras, Francois and army Chief of Staff Philippe Bamphy retire.

* A proper environment is created for free and fair legislative elections.

* A proper environment is created for the deployment of the U.N. mission with military trainers and public works engineers.

* Aristide returns as president.

In the resolution, the council drew a devastating picture of life in Haiti under the military regime, as it condemned “the numerous instances of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, illegal detentions, abductions, rape and enforced disappearances, the continued denial of freedom of expression and the impunity with which armed civilians have been able to operate and continue operating.”