Rebel leader, Guy Philippe (centre), smiles during a demonstration in Port-au-Prince, yesterday. (Photo: AP)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Rebel leader Guy Philippe yesterday declared himself the new chief of Haiti's military, which was disbanded by ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and said he would arrest Prime Minister Yvon Neptune.

"The country is in my hands!" Philippe announced on Radio Signal FM. He summoned 20 police commanders to meet with him yesterday and warned that if they failed to appear he would arrest them.

"This is one of darker moments in Haiti's history," said Brian Concannon, who had successfully prosecuted another rebel leader, Louis-Jodel Chamblain, in absentia, for a 1994 massacre. "I'm extremely afraid for all people who have fought for democracy because they all could be killed."

Meanwhile, in the Central African Republic, Aristide came under pressure from the country's government to shut-up on his claim that he was essentially kidnapped and forced out of Haiti by US soldiers. They fear that Aristide's claims could complicate the country's relationship with Washington.

Haitian prime minister, Yvon Neptune. (Photo: AP)

And in Toronto, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, whose government supported, then backed away from a plan by Caribbean countries under which Aristide would have shared power with the opposition, joined the Americans in rejecting Aristide's claim of a US-inspired coup. Yet Martin said that the compromise should have been reached.

"Our position all along has been that an accommodation should be reached between the president and the opposition parties," said Martin. "There should have been a power-sharing that would have allowed both sides to effectively restore stability, and that was our position."

In Port-au-Prince, US Marines yesterday guarded Neptune's office in Petionville suburb, where Philippe was headed with hundreds of supporters in a convoy impeded by cheering crowds who walked alongside. When local radio reported Neptune was evacuated by helicopter, the convoy went to another part of the city.

Neptune is a top member of Aristide's Lavalas party and his former presidential spokesman.

US Marine Colonel Dave Berger told a press conference at the airport that the Marines, who began arriving Sunday night as the vanguard of an international peacekeeping force, will increase their presence throughout Haiti following Philippe's comments.

He said US forces will take "appropriate action" if Philippe's men interfere, including using deadly force if they come under attack.

In a phone call to an AP reporter, Philippe said he intended to arrest Neptune on corruption charges. With the abrupt departure of Aristide on Sunday, the rebels appeared to be taking advantage of a power vacuum, even as the United States and France beefed up their military presence in the Caribbean country.

Shortly before Philippe announced his intentions in a call to the AP reporter, he appeared on the second-floor balcony of the colonnaded former army headquarters as hundreds of cheering onlookers stood outside. A burly rebel standing next to Philippe urged them to accompany the rebel chief to Neptune's house.

"Arrest Neptune!" the crowd chanted.
Speaking in Washington, Assistant US Secretary of State Roger Noriega dismissed Philippe's power to do much of anything.

"He is not in control of anything but a ragtag band of people," Noriega told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The build-up of the international presence in Haiti will make Philippe's role "less and less central in Haitian life. And I think he will probably want to make himself scarce," Noriega said.

"We have sent that message to him. He obviously hasn't received it," Noriega added.

But Philippe, who arrived in Port-au-Prince in a rebel convoy on Monday, apparently plans on transforming his fighters into a reconstituted Haitian army, which Aristide disbanded in 1995.

Execution-style killings continued in the seaside, fetid capital and looting continued.

More than 100 people died in the three-week rebellion and reprisal killings that, combined with pressure from the United States and France, led Aristide to flee.

Politicians and rebels in Port-au-Prince have made no public comment on Aristide's charges, Monday, that the United States forced him out of power - charges strongly denied by US officials.

Philippe, flanked by other rebel leaders and senior officers of Haiti's police force, announced to reporters "I am the chief," then clarified "the military chief."

He reiterated that "I am not interested in politics," indicating he was not looking to install another military dictatorship in Haiti.

Philippe said he was ready to follow the orders of interim president, Boniface Alexandre, the chief justice of the Supreme Court who was installed Sunday.

Asked if he would disarm, if requested, he said "We will."
As scattered looting continued, Chamblain, a former death squad leader convicted of murders while he was in exile, said the rebels planned patrols, possibly to the Cite Soleil seaside slum that is a stronghold of die-hard Aristide followers.

Philippe was expected to continue talks yesterday with members of a broad-based opposition coalition, who pointedly have not met with other rebel leaders notorious for human rights violations.

There were concerns the politicians could be tainted by any association with the rebels, and how that might affect plans to install a transitional government composed of members from Aristide's party and the opposition.

In a telephone interview with the AP late Monday, Aristide charged he was "forced to leave" Haiti by US military forces.
Aristide, Haiti's first freely elected president in 200 years of independence, said he signed documents relinquishing power out of fear of violence.

When asked if he left Haiti on his own, Aristide answered: "No. I was forced to leave."

When asked by who, he responded: "White American, white military."

The Rev Jesse Jackson, one of his American supporters, told the AP that Aristide was "Haiti's president in exile," arguing that his resignation was forced and invalid.

American officials dismissed Aristide's claims. US secretary of state, Colin Powell, called the allegations "absolutely baseless, absurd." But US officials acknowledged privately that Aristide was told that if he remained in Haiti, US forces would not protect him from the rebels who wanted to arrest him and have him put on trial for corruption and murder.

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