Confrontations Point Up Danger of U.S. Role : Military: Diplomats fear Americans’ actions against police will bring mob violence, need for more force.

A growing series of confrontations between U.S. troops and the Haitian military, including Saturday night’s bloody engagement in which 10 Haitians were killed, are exposing the dangers and confusions of U.S. policy here, diplomats and military officials said Sunday.

“It’s what we were afraid of, Americans having to use more and more deadly force,” one diplomat said, speaking of the Saturday incident in Cap Haitien. “It’s going to be a nightmare.”

The Cap Haitien gunfight, which came about when U.S. Marines tried to prevent local police from breaking up an anti-government demonstration, was just the worst of several weekend incidents in which American troops interfered with police efforts to control popular demonstrations.

In Gonaives, about 10,000 Haitians demonstrated Saturday against the military just after U.S. troops arrived there. When two men, presumably police or civilian auxiliaries, pulled out ancient M-1 semiautomatic rifles, the American soldiers disarmed them.

The crowd went after the two men, who had to be rescued by the U.S. soldiers.

The Americans in Gonaives also had to save a well-known army supporter, Jean Tatoune, and three Haitian policemen after Tatoune began shooting in the air when demonstrators attacked his house.

At the same time, the Haitian military and its civilian allies appear to be defying the American presence by increasing the oppression in slum areas where there is strong support for exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose overthrow three years ago ignited the crisis that resulted in the U.S. intervention.

Residents in Cite Soleil, Carrefour and Mirebalais, three large Port-au-Prince slums, say attaches, as the police auxiliaries are called, prowled the streets Saturday night, firing into the air. In at least one case, they reportedly killed a man who had taken part in a pro-Aristide demonstration earlier in the day.

In Cap Haitien, the Marines used deadly fire when Haitian police in civilian clothes pulled weapons and reportedly fired on a large anti-government crowd.

In some of the other confrontations, the American troops had to intervene to save the lives of police when the demonstrators turned on the authorities.

That is a major danger sign, according to diplomats, a warning that they fear is being misunderstood if not ignored by the Clinton Administration.

“They have bought into something they don’t understand,” one official said. “Every time the (U.S. forces) disarm or shoot a Haitian soldier or policeman, it emboldens the crowds to act on their own. They think they have the right to revenge.”

A Sunday rampage in Cap Haitien, in which a crowd stormed three police facilities, was an example, said another diplomat who agreed with that interpretation. “When they saw the Marines shoot the police, the people saw that as a go-ahead to taking over, so they went after the police posts and army base,” he said.

By one diplomat’s analysis, this ultimately will end up with American troops using at least the threat of force, if not actual violence, against large segments of the general population.

“It will be difficult to explain to the (American) public why we are shooting the people we supposedly are here to defend, or why we are defending the people we are here to get rid of,” an American military officer said.

While these incidents have been building, the real test of American policy will come when Aristide returns from exile.

“You could see half a million people, maybe even more, show up at the airport to greet Aristide,” another diplomat said. “If they decide to get even with the army and its friends, the only way to stop it will be by massive force.”

The continuing challenge by the poorly armed and smaller Haitian forces to the authority of the American force of more than 10,000 now here also shows signs of being part of a calculated effort by the Haitian military, the sources said.

One Haitian expert said that “there is no other explanation. (Haitian military commander Raoul) Cedras and (Police Chief Michel-Joseph) Francois aren’t crazy enough to think they can drive out the Americans. But they think they can get Congress to.”

Under his interpretation, the Haitians are provoking the U.S. troops into overreacting in hopes that an already dubious American public and wary Congress will demand a pullout.

“They read the papers and their friends (in the United States) tell them that Clinton’s policy here is unpopular. They think this is their only hope of preventing Aristide’s return,” the expert said.

“It is likely,” another official said, “that this kind of harassment is designed to spark an American resistance to U.S. policy, just like in Somalia.”

He was referring to an American public outcry and congressional demand for U.S. withdrawal from the African country after 18 Americans were killed in an ambush there.