U.S. Marines arrive in Haiti
Opposition gets more time to consider peace plan
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U.S. Marines arrive in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Monday.
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CNN's Lucia Newman on the arrival of U.S. Marines in the Haitian capital.
Anti-government rebels move into Haiti's second-largest city.
Demonstrators are demanding that Aristide step down.
Aristide is vowing to fight to the end.
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CNN) -- A team of 50 Marines arrived in the Haitian capital Monday to help protect the U.S. Embassy and its staff against possible rebel attack.
Late Monday afternoon, U.S. officials agreed to extend until 5 p.m. Tuesday a deadline for political opposition leaders to decide whether to accept a peace proposal put together over the weekend by an international group.
Under the U.S.-backed plan, a new government and prime minister would be appointed to share power with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Aristide accepted the proposal Saturday, but the opposition offered a counterproposal that would require Aristide, a former priest, to release student and labor activists by Tuesday and step down by March 18.
Opposition leaders said they did not like the first plan because they did not trust Aristide to implement it.
The international team offered an amended proposal Monday that according to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher included a "statement of guarantors" from the countries in the delegation.
Opposition leaders originally had until 5 p.m. Monday to accept the plan but asked for more time to consider the amended version at the prompting of Secretary of State Colin Powell, who talked to them by phone, a State Department official said.
"We made clear a government created by violent means would be isolated and would not be recognized," another department official said.
Cap Haitien in turmoil
Monday's political wrangling came a day after heavily armed rebels seeking to oust Aristide entered the key port of Cap Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city, where they seized the international airport, torched the police station, released prisoners, broke into an arms depot and looted warehouses. (Full story)
An undetermined number of people were killed, witnesses said. The Associated Press reported that violence and looting continued Monday as rebels went from house to house to root out Aristide supporters.
The opposition, which is separate from the rebels, condemned the violence in Cap Haitien, but also condemned the violence perpetuated by armed gangs loyal to Aristide.
It was not clear who, if anyone, was in charge of Cap Haitien, which is 90 miles from Port-au-Prince. With a population of about 500,000, the city is the Aristide government's last stronghold in northern Haiti.
Aristide said Sunday that he would send reinforcements, but none had arrived Monday.
Looters stole 800 tons of food from the United Nations World Food Program warehouse in the city, an agency spokesman told the AP. The balconied colonial-era mansion of the city's pro-Aristide mayor was torched, the AP reported.
Elsewhere, armed Aristide supporters set up roadblocks and barricades on the road to the international airport north of Port-au-Prince, the AP reported.
It was unclear how many of Haiti's 4,000 police remained available. Many in the ill-equipped, poorly trained force have abandoned their posts.
The nation has no army. Aristide disbanded it a decade ago, and the rebels are led by former army members.
Boucher said an international police force could be sent to Haiti "and help the Haitian police establish themselves."
He said he could not predict when that might occur, but added that the State Department sent a three-person "humanitarian team" to Haiti on Monday.
Many Aristide supporters were reported to be in hiding or have fled to the neighboring Dominican Republic.
In Kingston, Jamaica, authorities said 64 Haitians have arrived on boats and sought refugee status in the past three days. Another two boatloads of Haitians were en route, authorities said.
Embassy taking precautions
The Marines, part of an elite Fleet Anti-Terrorism Support Team, emerged from two C-130 transport planes in full battle gear and were taken directly to the embassy, where they were to augment the security detail.
Pentagon sources said the contingent was intended solely to ensure the safety of embassy personnel and that the deployment did not portend a large-scale military intervention.
Over the weekend, the State Department ordered the departure of all family members and nonemergency personnel from the embassy, and the departures were stepped up Monday while commercial flights were still available.
The embassy was closed Monday, as is customary during Carnival, but even key personnel were ordered to stay home, a spokeswoman said.
The United States and Mexico told their citizens to get out last week, and France did the same thing Monday.
The Red Cross estimated last week that more than 50 people had been killed since the rebellion erupted February 5 in the city of Gonaives.
The rebels say Aristide's government is corrupt and are calling for new elections. He has faced criticism since an election in 2000 that observers called fraudulent.
Opposition parties accuse his supporters of using violence to intimidate them. He has said repeatedly that he will not willingly step aside until his term of office expires in 2006.
Nearly 40,000 Haitians fled the country after a 1991 coup that ousted Aristide, a former priest who was the nation's first democratically elected president. Aristide was restored to power in 1994 after U.S. military intervention.
CNN's Lucia Newman, Ingrid Arnesen, Mike Mount and Elise Labott contributed to this report.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
