Army commander Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras has given two major conditions to Haiti's exiled president before stepping down, including limiting the selection of a new chief to Cedras' three top aides.
The demands were outlined in an Oct. 14 letter to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The other condition is quick parliamentary approval of a general amnesty for soldiers and others who took part in murders and varied human rights violations since the September 1991 military ouster of Aris-tide.Rights groups said at least 1,500 people have been killed since the coup. A general amnesty also would cover those behind the assassination Oct. 14 of Justice Minister Guy Malary and the Sept. 11 murder in church of pro-Aristide businessman Antoine Izmery. Army-linked gunmen were blamed for those and other killings.
The letter was discussed during a meeting Saturday between Cedras and Aristide's premier, Robert Malval. Cedras in recent days has spoken openly of early retirement, which he agreed to as part of a U.N.-mediated pact to return Aristide to power.
But first, he wrote, Aristide must choose and the legislature must approve a new army chief according to army rules. That limits the selection to a general, and Cedras has only three on his staff - second-in-command Maj. Gen. Jean-Claude Duperval and brigadier generals Philippe Biamby and Max Mayard.
All were involved in the coup that toppled Aristide, a Roman Catholic priest popular among the poor who won Haiti's first free election with a landslide in 1990.
Aristide opponents in the legislature submitted an amnesty proposal Saturday to Malval and U.N. envoy Dante Caputo. Aristide already has granted an amnesty decree, but the army argues it could be revoked at any time.
U.N. officials welcomed the proposal but were assessing it to determine if it was another tactic to delay Aristide's return.
U.S., Canadian and other warships are cruising offshore to enforce a U.N. embargo imposed last week to punish the army for violating the peace accord. Among other things, Cedras failed to step down last week, despite his pledge to do so when he signed the accord in July.
"We clearly sense that (with) the embargo . . . it is not in anybody's interest to stall," U.N. spokesman Eric Falt told The Associated Press.
"General Cedras has pledged before to retire. General Cedras has pledged to honor the (U.N.) plan," Falt said. "We'll see if he's a man of honor."
In the meantime, U.N. spokesmen said they would press on with plans to expand the oil and weapons embargo to cover all commercial shipments.
Under the plan, Cedras is to retire and Aristide is to return by Saturday. Malval is to ask Aristide about the concessions in a meeting Wednesday in Washington.
The U.S. Embassy, in a statement, urged "all parties to give the proposal the closest possible scrutiny at the earliest possible time."