Haiti's parliament was meeting again in special joint session Thursday to arrange a timetable for debate on an amnesty law that is key to a U.S. plan for restoring democracy.
At the same time, Port-au-Prince Mayor Evans Paul, a supporter of democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was due to return to his office for the first time in three years. Anticipating that move, U.S. troops sealed the City Hall with barbed wire Wednesday.And in Cap Haitien the bodies of 10 military police who were shot and killed Saturday in a firefight with Marines were disinterred and flown by helicopter to Port-au-Prince.
A U.S. official said that Haitian Gen. Raoul Cedras had asked that the bodies be sent to Port-au-Prince for military burial.
Against this backdrop, Haiti's military-backed president Emile Jonassaint accused the U.S. government of pushing Haiti toward civil war.
Jonassaint also claimed the United States had failed to honor an agreement he signed Sept. 18 with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter that allowed 18,000 troops to enter Haiti peacefully to pave the way for Aristide's return .
On Wednesday a special session of parliament ended after about 90 minutes when no progress was made on the amnesty issue. Senate President Firmin Jean-Louis said it would reconvene Thursday morning.
Diplomats and scores of reporters attended the abbrieviated session, but the country's military leader, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, who was invited in his capacity as commander-in-chief, was not present.
The amnesty law is designed to give Cedras the security to leave office.
Under an accord brokered 10 days ago by Carter, Aristide, Haiti's first ever democratically elected leader, will return to power in mid-October after three years in exile.
Cedras, the man who helped put him there with a September 1991 military coup, is to resign under the same agreement.
The parliamentary session took place with tight security in place. U.S. soldiers surrounded the dilapidated white building to keep away thousands of curious and noisy bystanders.
Blocks away, a pro-military gunman shot and wounded a man in a pro-Aristide demonstration advancing toward the headquarters of a major paramilitary group, FRAPH.
Members of parliament, some of them returning from exile in the United States under U.S. military protection, appeared divided on whether to endorse an amnesty only for political crimes or a wider-ranging bill covering all infractions committed by military coup leaders and their cohorts.
"I can't give an amnesty to assassins," said Deputy Gary Guiteau, one of 12 pro-Aristide deputies flown in from Miami Wednesday under armed guard. But others said only a broad amnesty would allow Haiti to move forward.
Haiti's military leaders have demanded the amnesty before they relinquish power.