Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 11, 1994 TAG: 9410110131
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti NOTE: above
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is expected to return Saturday.
At a military headquarters ceremony, Cedras delivered a farewell appeal to the 7,500-strong Haitian army, which has been blamed for countless political murders, rapes and tortures during three years of authoritarian rule. The commander of U.S. forces in Haiti, Lt. Gen. Henry Hugh Shelton, stood beside him.
Haitian Army chief of staff Brig. Gen. Philippe Biamby, who already resigned, was not in sight.
U.S. officials hope he will leave the country with Cedras in the next few days. Madeleine Albright, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, reportedly told Security Council members Monday that Cedras would go to an undisclosed South American country.
``I will not be with you. I have decided to leave our country for your protection, so my presence won't be a motive to create terror and destabilization against the military,'' said the 45-year-old Cedras, whose family has amassed a fortune in contraband fees and kickbacks from state industries since he took power.
``The U.S. military is going to help us rebuild our country and I ask you to cooperate,'' Cedras said, adding that from exile ``I will suffer when you suffer. I will be happy when you are happy.''
Cedras handed the Haitian flag to Maj. Gen. Jean-Claude Duperval, who will take command until Aristide names a replacement.
``You're taking away a thief and installing another thief,'' the crowd chanted, as Duperval began to speak.
``We need a new Haiti that has ... respect for life and human rights,'' Duperval said. ``We will work for true respect and democracy.''
``Arrest Cedras!'' the crowd cried, as the general's wife, Yanick Prosper, watched the proceedings glumly from the balcony of army headquarters.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Stan Schrager said the Clinton administration was preparing to restore Aristide to power in Haiti on Saturday. He said the military resignations marked ``the end of a sad chapter in the history of this nation.''
De facto President Emile Jonassaint is to stay on through the transition to Aristide, Information Minister Jacques Saint-Louis said.
Though it was unclear where the officers would immediately go for exile, it is known that Cedras wishes to resettle eventually in Spain, where he studied and owns a villa. His wife, who used Cedras' influence to gain lucrative contraband concessions that enriched the family, favors Italy.
American soldiers assigned to the Cedras security detail said that after the ceremony they saw tears in Prosper's eyes as she and her husband were driven off with a heavy escort of U.S. soldiers. As their car moved through the crowd, the Haitians shouted, ``Go away!''
The general and his wife flinched when two large rocks thrown by the jeering crowd bounced off their jeep, cracking a window, the soldiers said.
``She was highly upset,'' said Lt. Col. Ed Sullivan, of the 10th Mountain Division of Fort Drum, N.Y., the head of the Cedras security team that escorted them up the winding mountainside road to their walled villa in the exclusive Peguyville district.
Sgt. Charlie Graham, a psychological operations expert from Fort Bragg, N.C., said he was assigned to calm Prosper, 38.
``I told her nothing would happen to her while we're around,'' Graham said. ``She was a little angry. She's a very strong woman.'' He said Cedras was ``hardly nonchalant, but he's calm.''
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by CNB