Haitians now ask: 'What next?'

Deposed Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide liked to say that his country had suffered 32 coups, and he that he would die before becoming No. 33.

But in the end, Mr. Aristide - who was returned to power in 1994 by the United States - fled his office and his country on Sunday, this time under as much international as internal pressure to step down. The onetime democratic hope of the hemisphere's poorest country left under a cloud of doubts and near-complete rejection.

Haiti was living a tense calm Sunday as some citizens ventured out to see if a neighbor knew more about this historic moment. Some people in the capital waved arms triumphantly in the air, while some Aristide supporters in the center city looted shops and burned cars.

But all Haitians are left wondering: Is Aristide really gone or will he be back? What will the rebels do now? When will American troops arrive to restore order? And underlying it all: Will Haitians finally see a better day?

"We are happy, we are free," says Bab Saint-Croix, an agronomy student cautiously venturing out in the largely anti-Aristide Petion-Ville section of the capital. "Aristide took everything for himself, but now maybe we can make Haiti better," he adds. "We await the Americans and the rest of the world to come help us."

By press time Sunday, reports said the former Catholic priest turned president was fleeing to either South Africa or Panama. He had reportedly driven to the airport under US military escort before boarding a private jet at 6:15 a.m.

With in three hours, Haiti's Supreme Court Justice Boniface Alexandre announced that he had assumed power. But Mr. Alexandre must be confirmed by the parliament, and even before Aristide's departure, many members of the political opposition were questioning the acceptability of the Aristide appointee for the office.

Just when an international security force would arrive to restore order remained unclear. President Bush acknowledged Alexandre's role as interim president of Haiti, and said Sunday afternoon that he'd ordered a contingent of US Marines to the island nation as the leading edge of an international force. According to a State Department statement: "We have been informed that several other countries are prepared to move quickly to join this mission." The statement didn't specify when the Marines would land in Haiti nor what other countries will join in the peacekeeping mission.

Aristide, who came to power in 1990 as Haiti's first democratically elected president, was thrown out by the military in 1991 but then returned to his office - with the support of 20,000 US Marines - in 1994 as part of an American bid to restore democratic order. His return allowed President Clinton to trumpet at a summit of the Americas in December 1994 that for the first time the entire hemisphere - with the glaring exception of Cuba - lived under democracy.

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