US: The deteriorating situation in Haiti may require an international security presence there once a political settlement was reached, President Bush said yesterday.
"Incident to a political settlement, we will encourage the international community to provide a security presence," Mr Bush told reporters. He also said he had instructed the US Coast Guard to turn back any fleeing Haitians trying to reach the US.
Foreigners streamed out of the Caribbean island yesterday as the capital braced for a rebel advance and diplomats tried to rekindle talks on a power-sharing deal to defuse the bloody conflict.
With insurgents in control of Haiti's second-largest city, Cap Haitien, and a series of towns across the north, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said thousands could die if the rebels, led by a former death squad commander and a former police chief, are allowed to reach teeming Port-au-Prince.
But Mr Aristide's political opponents - who have distanced themselves from the armed revolt but share its aim of getting the president out - on Tuesday rejected a US-backed deal brokered by diplomats.
Under the proposal, Mr Aristide would give up some of his powers and form a new government.
More than 60 people have died in clashes that began on February 5th when the rebels, a collection of gangs and former soldiers, began the revolt by over-running Gonaives, a city north of Port-au-Prince where Haiti's slaves declared independence from France in 1804.
Warned by their governments that the country of 8 million is no longer safe, American, French, and other foreigners headed to Toussaint L'Ouverture Airport in Port-au-Prince for flights out before an attack on the capital that the rebels have said could come any time. Officials say up to 20,000 Americans live in Haiti.
People shoved two and three at a time through metal detectors at the airport entrance early yesterday and were pushed back by guards.
"I don't want to go but I've been told to go," said Ms Yolanda Murphy (41), a missionary for the Indiana-based Church of God who has been in Haiti for 17 years.
Mr Aristide warned on Tuesday that a rebel advance on the capital could result in a bloodbath and cautioned that Haitians could take to the sea, touching on US concerns of a repeat of the 1990s boatlift in which tens of thousands of people fled political turmoil and tried to reach Florida.
Since the revolt erupted, the US Coast Guard has been monitoring the sea northwest of Haiti where boat people would sail on their way toward Florida, but the agency has so far reported no unusual numbers of migrants. But more than 100 Haitians have arrived in Jamaica, to the west of their poor country.
On Tuesday, rebels seized control of Port-de-Paix on Haiti's northern coast.