Foreign workers, missionaries flee Haitian rebellion

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Scores of foreigners, including missionaries and aid workers, streamed out of Haiti on Friday to escape a two-week rebellion that has overwhelmed the impoverished country's north. Many police deserted their posts, and rebels threatened new attacks.

Pro-government militants torched 15 homes in the western port of St. Marc overnight, and three people died in the fires, independent Radio Galaxie reported.

A day after the U.S. government urged Americans to leave Haiti, more than 200 Americans, French and Canadians stood in long lines Friday at Toussaint Louverture International Airport, anxious to get out.

"We knew that it was right for us to leave. It's just hard," said Nancy McWilliams, an 18-year-old from Ottawa, Ontario, who abandoned a volunteer job at a children's home in northern Cap-Haitien.

The U.S. government has begun placing air marshals on all American flights in and out of Haiti because of hijacking fears, officials in Washington said. American Airlines said seats were sold out on four of five daily flights to the United States.

American missionary Gerald St. Vincent, waiting for a flight to Miami, said Haiti will resolve its problems "only if they have help from outside sources -- not less help but more."

The uprising began two weeks ago when rebels took the city of Gonaives, and they have since pushed police out of more than a dozen towns in the north. They accuse President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of breaking promises to help the poor and of driving the country into chaos while quietly supporting attacks on opponents -- charges the president denies.

On Friday, American and other diplomats presented Aristide a plan that calls for an interim governing council to advise him. It would also disarm politically allied street gangs and appoint a prime minister agreeable to both sides. But it would not have Aristide resign, which the opposition has demanded, and neither side indicated they would accept it.

Foreigners who stay

Some foreigners vowed to remain despite the violence.

American missionary Terry Snow, who planned to stay, said six truckloads of pro-Aristide gunmen torched seven houses in his seaside neighborhood in St. Marc. As their houses burned, residents jumped into the sea and gunmen fired into the air to keep them from returning to land, he said.

"Innocent people are being killed and houses are burned down every day and night in St. Marc and the police are doing nothing," said Snow, 39, of Granbury, Texas.

He said about 20 American, German, Norwegian and Canadian missionaries left for the neighboring Dominican Republic this week from St. Marc, which has become one of Haiti's most violent front-line cities.

No foreigners have been killed in the uprising that began Feb. 5 and has claimed the lives of more than 60 Haitians, about 40 of them police officers. Armed men have threatened missionaries and journalists.

There are an estimated 30,000 foreigners in Haiti, including about 20,000 Americans. Many of them also have Haitian passports, but it is not known how many.

All 70 Peace Corps volunteers are being pulled out of Haiti. They were in a convoy Friday heading to the Dominican Republic.

France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, warned that the chaos compounded by the "depths of despair and of chronic misery ... cannot but lead to a humanitarian catastrophe."

The Pentagon said it was sending a small military team to assess security for the U.S. Embassy and its staff.

The new leader of a loose alliance of three rebel groups, Guy Philippe, said he plans to attack Cap-Haitien during celebrations of the pre-Lenten carnival bash that were scheduled to begin Friday and run through Tuesday.

About 60 frightened police officers have barricaded themselves into their station at Cap-Haitien, saying there aren't enough of them and they're too poorly armed to fight. Gangs of armed Aristide supporters built roadblocks and vowed to fight any rebel attack.

A U.S. official said Prime Minister Yvon Neptune sent a letter to U.S. Ambassador James Foley requesting help to strengthen the police, judiciary and restore order.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has said the United States would not object if he agreed to leave office early. Aristide's term ends February 2006, and he has said he will not leave before them.

The violence has raised fears of a mass exodus of Haitians, but the U.S. Coast Guard has said it has not seen any increase in migrants leaving.