Haitians Hear Opposing Pleas From Interim Leader, Aristide

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti —  As former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide appealed Monday to his supporters to resist occupation, the former judge sworn in as interim president urged Haitians to lay down their weapons and begin building a new society.

Aristide’s appeal from his African exile coincided with a frantic outbreak of looting at a private industrial park that was one of the country’s last functioning areas of commerce. With neither Haitian police nor troops of the multinational force in sight, hundreds of poor slum dwellers carted off televisions, picture frames, school equipment and clothing from the SONAPI industrial park, half a mile from U.S.-led forces based at the airport.

The free-for-all dealt another blow to Haitians’ hopes that the foreign troops -- the third U.S.-led occupation here in less than a century -- would bring stability and a chance to repair a shattered nation.

On Sunday, gunmen believed to be Aristide loyalists fired into a massive crowd of demonstrators celebrating his departure. The death toll from that incident rose to seven Monday, when two of the 30 wounded people died.

Col. Mark Gurganus, the U.S. commander of ground forces in Haiti, said Marines exchanged fire with at least two armed men outside the National Palace during the demonstration, killing one and driving off the other. No inquiry had been ordered into the shooting, nor an autopsy of the body, he said.

“We have a pretty good idea of who they are and where they’re coming from,” Gurganus said. “What we’re dealing with is criminals here. There is no organized enemy.”

Amid the persistent chaos and violence, interim President Boniface Alexandre was formally sworn in at the National Palace more than a week after being named to replace Aristide until presidential and parliamentary elections can be held.

Though a figurehead, Alexandre came from the Haitian Supreme Court with a reputation for fairness despite his allegiance to Aristide, who named him chief justice.

“A political party is not one person,” Alexandre said in a clear reference to Aristide’s appeal to his Lavalas Party to work for his return to power. “It’s a program, a vision, a place for people who want to move in the same direction.”

From his exile in the Central African Republic’s capital, Bangui, Aristide insisted that he was Haiti’s bona fide leader.

“I am the democratically elected president and I remain the constitutional president,” he told reporters at a news conference. “I am pleading for the restoration of democracy.”

In comments to the BBC program “World at One,” Aristide said he had been forcibly removed by American forces. “In one word, it was a kidnapping. You can say coup d’etat,” Aristide told the program.

“The political abduction unfortunately paved the way for occupation and in the name of peace we call for a peaceful resistance,” Aristide said, emphasizing the word “peaceful,” a well-known phrasing that some here say he has used before to exhort his armed supporters to take to the streets to protect him from political opponents.

American officials, including Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, have dismissed Aristide’s version of his departure as absurd, and his resignation letter was read to the country by one of his closest allies, Prime Minister Yvon Neptune. A new prime minister is expected to be named today by a transitional seven-member Council of Sages.

Alexandre urged Aristide’s gunmen to turn in their arms so the country could begin healing. He thanked the rebels led by Guy Philippe for promising to disarm and for taking part in Sunday’s demonstration without weapons.

“What we are trying to do in democratizing the country is open to everyone,” Alexandre said as a small procession of Lavalas supporters shouted outside the palace for Aristide’s return. “What you do in the next few days will determine whether you can be part of the next government.”

The interim president also condemned the pillage and destruction that has taken a devastating toll on what was already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Pro-Aristide militants had looted and torched many enterprises owned by prominent members of the Democratic Platform, which was Aristide’s political opposition, and hordes of the poor followed in their wake to grab what they could.

Business leaders estimated more than $160 million in losses even before the industrial park was overrun Monday.

Once everything of value had been carried off from the park’s two dozen factories in wheelbarrows, handcarts, bicycles and on the heads of women who had been out marketing, a gang of youths wielding machetes attacked drivers slowed by the burdened throng filling Boulevard Toussaint L’Ouverture. At least two four-wheel-drive vehicles fell into the hands of the street toughs before other traffic reversed out of the bedlam.

“Those looting, those burning, those stealing are enemies of peace. They are enemies of the people. They are enemies of progress,” Alexandre said in an address carried throughout the day on radio stations, some of which also reported Aristide’s call for resistance.

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Times staff writer Robyn Dixon in Johannesburg, South Africa, contributed to this report.