Haiti Violence Will Get Worse, Diplomats Say : Caribbean: Human rights observers leave. Sources believe military regime will crack down on Aristide supporters.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti —  The ouster Wednesday of the international human rights mission here is the prelude to another wave of violent repression aimed at destroying the last remnants of the opposition before any possible American invasion, diplomats and military sources say.

The regime will act ruthlessly, according to this theory, so that any U.S. occupying force would have to turn to traditional Haitian institutions--the military and the allied, civilian elite--because there would be no one else they could rely on to govern or to run police, security and other necessary state functions, the sources said.

“You are going to see an increase in the systematic elimination of whatever is left” of the loose political coalition established by exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, said a source close to the Haitian military. The source said the regime does not “want to leave behind an infrastructure that can facilitate an invasion or occupation.”

One security expert said the next days and weeks could see a repeat of the bloody repression of the spring and early summer, when the Haitian junta and its armed civilian allies murdered an average of 60 people a month in the Port-au-Prince area alone.

Fears that a new bloody wave was developing resulted from the discovery earlier this week of two freshly dug mounds of dirt near the seaside town of Leogane, about 18 miles west of the capital.

Some residents claimed the mounds were graves containing the bodies of 12 unidentified men supposedly killed by gunmen when they tried to board a boat that would carry them to the United States. But the reports could not be confirmed beyond a finding by the U.S. Embassy that there were bodies in the graves.

Although the past killings involved many ordinary people, most of those targeted were seen by the military as active supporters of Aristide, who was ousted in a bloody military revolt on Sept. 30, 1991.

Much of Aristide’s political movement was destroyed then. But evidently not enough, the sources said.

“As soon as they (human rights monitors) are gone, the army will do whatever it wants,” the source said. “They have armed a bunch of civilian supporters, and I expect they will be operating in a big way in Cite Soleil and Carrefour.” Carrefour and Cite Soleil, two dense slums populated overwhelmingly by Aristide supporters, have been the focus of military murders, beatings, rapes and extortion.

On Monday, the puppet government of acting President Emile Jonassaint gave the 100 or so human rights monitors, operating under the auspices of the United Nations and the Organization of American States, 48 hours to leave Haiti.

Without the monitors, who were confined to the capital for the most part, there will be no systematic tracking of human rights violations. Unofficial scrutiny of human rights abuses by reporters has been hampered for weeks now under an order from the regime that prevents journalists from traveling outside Port-au-Prince.

While that restriction has been largely ignored by reporters, diplomatic and military sources say they expect the army to begin enforcing the ban; that, in turn, may result in the arrest and expulsion of violators.

The monitors and their administrative staff left on an Air France flight Wednesday along with about 170 Haitians approved for refugee status in the United States.

At the same time, Air France announced on Wednesday that it was suspending its three weekly flights as of Aug. 1, as demanded by the United States. All other passenger flights here were suspended June 25; with the last Air France flight, Haiti will be isolated as part of U.N. economic sanctions designed to force the military to give up power.

But most diplomats and military experts here don’t see the military regime leaving, as the international community hopes.

“Biamby and Cedras are here to stay,” said a source close to the military, speaking of Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, the junta’s strongman, and his chief of staff, Gen. Philippe Biamby. “The rest of the officers are sitting on their hands, afraid to move” against the commanders, he said.

Diplomats said they also expect the army to step up harassment of foreigners, particularly news reporters, both to restrict their ability to monitor the bloodletting and to intimidate them so they will leave.

When asked if such actions could not be seen as provoking international intervention, one diplomat said the military and its puppet government either don’t believe there will be U.S. action--or they don’t care if there is.

“They have successfully resisted (international pressure) for 2 1/2 years,” he said, “and each day encourages them. They are more assured and more audacious. They think they can do anything.”

In any case, he said, the military is actually more unified than before, reinforced by fear that any dissension now would destroy their institution or by the belief that Cedras is right and it would be foolhardy to rebel against him.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelly said the Coast Guard picked up 770 Haitians on Tuesday, bringing the total number to about 20,000 since June 15.

Meanwhile, there were reports that U.S. Marines had staged a mock evacuation on the Bahamian island of Great Inagua on Wednesday, practicing the sort of operation they might conduct if ordered to get Americans and others out of Haiti. Military officials said the two-day mission was routine. But some Clinton Administration officials publicized the drill, apparently as part of the effort to coerce Haiti’s military leaders.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.