Haiti's Embattled Leader Vows to Finish Term
By LYDIA POLGREEN

Published: February 17, 2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 16 — President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, defiant in the face of an increasingly violent opposition movement, denounced it on Monday as an effort to overthrow Haiti's elected government and declared that only he can save the country from civil war.

"We have had 32 coups in our history," Mr. Aristide said in an hourlong interview with The New York Times at the National Palace on Monday morning. "The result is what we have now: moving from misery to poverty. We need not continue moving from one coup d'état to another coup d'état, but from one elected president to another elected president."

Asked whether he would consider stepping aside to prevent further bloodshed in a conflict that has killed dozens of people and paralyzed much of the country, he replied: "I will leave office Feb. 7, 2006. My responsibility is precisely to prevent that from happening. What we are doing now is preventing bloodshed."

Speaking in an anteroom outside his spacious office, he called for armed opposition groups to lay down their weapons and for political opponents to begin discussions with the aim of having new parliamentary elections as soon as possible.

"It is time for us to stop the violence and to implement the Caricom proposal for elections," Mr. Aristide said, referring to the plan of the Caribbean Community, an organization of Caribbean states, to build trust between the government and opposition groups as part of the groundwork for new parliamentary elections.