Haitian rebel convoy enters capital to joyous welcome

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Rebels rolled into the capital Monday and were met by hundreds of residents dancing in the streets and cheering the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. U.S. Marines and French troops secured key sites.

People clapped and waved as they yelled "Good job!" and called out the name of key rebel leader Guy Philippe. The convoy first rolled through Petionville, a wealthy suburb, before moving into the heart of Port-au-Prince.

When the rebels arrived at the plaza outside the National Palace and a nearby police station, thousands of Haitians converged on the square, shouting "Liberty!" and "Aristide is gone!"

Philippe later met in a hotel with members of the political coalition that had opposed Aristide. Philippe said he planned to make preparations for the new president, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre, to assume office, as called for in the constitution.

Asked whether he would like to be Haiti's next leader, Philippe said: "No, thank you."

Not everyone was happy to see the rebels in the capital. Some residents watched indifferently, their arms folded. At one point, the convoy stopped and rebels jumped out, sweeping their weapons from side to side, then moved on.

Most of the 150 U.S. Marines who arrived Sunday night were at the capital's airport, some doing overflights in a helicopter. Some of the 50 Marines who arrived last week drove cautiously along the waterfront road, and pedestrians raised their hands in fright and surprise on seeing them.

The U.S. and French forces spread out from the airport to protect key sites -- the vanguard of a multinational force approved by the U.N. Security Council.

Col. David Berger, head of the U.S. Marine contingent, described the capital as "definitely not a hostile environment" for U.S. troops.

Most "are going to welcome us. We're glad to be here," he told the AP.

Aristide, who fled Haiti under pressure from the rebels, the political opposition, the United States and France, arrived Monday in the Central African Republic for "a few days," according to the country's state radio.

Randall Robinson, former president of TransAfrica monitoring group, said the former Haitian president told him in a phone call that he was abducted from Haiti by U.S. troops who accompanied him on a flight to the Central African Republic.

"He asked that I tell the world that it is a coup," Robinson said in a statement. "That he was abducted by American soldiers and put aboard a plane, told to make no phone calls to anyone, put aboard a plane with his sister's husband and his wife."

Secretary of State Colin Powell called those allegations "absolutely baseless, absurd."

"He was not kidnapped," Powell told a news conference.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld added that "the idea that someone was abducted is inconsistent with everything I saw."