Hti: Governing Haiti

James Morrell, executive director of the Haitian Democracy Project, said the administration should push for Aristide's replacement by a neutral transition government that would manage the country until elections were held.

"What we should be doing is supporting the democratic sector that still fortunately exists but is hanging on by its fingernails," Morrell said. "What the Bush administration is trying to do is to keep Aristide in there."

Acknowledging Haiti's turmoil, the Department of Homeland Security yesterday halted the deportation of Haitians. The Bush administration is developing plans to halt a water-borne exodus by stopping boats and establishing a refugee camp, much as U.S. authorities did in the mid-1990s, when Haitian refugees occupied tent camps at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Pentagon opposes using Guantanamo because of the presence there of hundreds of men detained in Afghanistan and elsewhere as part of a global terrorism investigation.