
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, October 11, 1993                   TAG: 9310110042
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S. GETS HAITIAN WARNING

If the United Nations mission fails to restore democracy in Haiti, hordes will flee toward the United States, Prime Minister Robert Malval warned Sunday.

He spoke after a night of heavy gunfire in the capital, a stark reminder of the volatile political passions that many fear will force the U.N. peacekeepers into fighting, as has happened in Somalia.

A U.S. warship carrying hundreds of GIs to take For updated information on this story, call InfoLine and enter code 2021. part in the U.N. mission is to arrive today. A contingent of U.S. and Canadian troops arrived last week.

The U.N. troops are part of a U.N.-brokered plan to restore democracy to the country more than two years after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first freely elected leader, was deposed in a coup.

After Aristide's ouster, countless Haitians began fleeing by boat for the United States. U.S. military ships began intercepting them and returning them to Haiti, sparking outraged criticism that Washington was turning away refugees of political oppression.

If the U.N. plan fails, "more and more people will leave the island. It will no longer be a problem for Haiti. It will be a problem for Florida," Malval said. "Even the U.S. 6th Fleet will be unable to prevent Haitians from fleeing a less and less hospitable land."

He rejected comparisons with Somalia, asserting that 90 percent of Haitians - inside and outside the military - wanted to restore democracy. However, his transition government has received little cooperation from the Haitian army, and civilian gunmen tied to the military have been blamed for a series of politically related killings in two months.

U.S. lawmakers expressed concern Sunday that sending hundreds of soldiers could get the United States embroiled in another military conflict.

"This risks being a police action. . . . There is some danger there," Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., said on ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley."

And Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kansas, called on President Clinton to reverse course and "bring what few people we have in Haiti back home and not send any more."

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by CNB