The United States and some of its Caribbean allies will tighten the screws on Haiti's military rulers by imposing more severe sanctions.
President Clinton's adviser on Haiti, William Gray, said Clinton will announce increased sanctions this week that Gray says will bring coup leaders "to their senses." Those would include a cutoff of commercial air traffic and international financial transactions.
He told the House Foreign Affairs committee Wednesday the administration plans to send U.S.-backed U.N. peacekeepers into Haiti after the leaders are forced out.
Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott later said the United States will exhaust all political, economic and diplomatic means before contemplating military intervention.
The U.S. position reflects that of Caribbean nations at an Organization of American States conference in Brazil.
They supported tighter sanctions and kept open the option of armed intervention - if the U.N.-backed embargo fails.
"Force can be used to restore democracy," said Grenadan Ambassador Denneth Modeste, head of the OAS' permanent council.
The major OAS nations - except Argentina - have been skeptical about a military invasion, unless done under U.N. auspices. The United Nations hasn't taken a formal position.
Also Wednesday:
-- In Haiti, police and armed civilians stopped two cars carrying U.N. observers, smashed their radios and seized a handgun, U.N. officials said.
-- Reports quoted U.S. officials in Haiti saying the military leaders are using Haiti as a transhipment point for Colombian cocaine destined for the USA. This is in sharp contrast to earlier U.S. statements.
The leaders, who met last week with the U.S. lawyers who unsuccessfully defended Panama's Manuel Noriega from drug charges, are said by The New York Times to be earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug deals.
But federal authorities insisted no charges are in the works.
-- Activist Randall Robinson, dramatizing his opposition to Clinton's Haiti policy, sent a strongly worded letter to the White House withdrawing from a conference on Africa.
