PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Rebels rolled into the Haitian capital Monday and were met by hundreds of residents dancing in the streets and cheering the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The United States denied allegations Aristide was kidnapped by U.S. forces eager for him to resign and be spirited into exile.\nMost of the 150 U.S. Marines who arrived Sunday night were at the capital's airport, some doing overflights in a helicopter. Some of the 50 Marines who arrived last week drove cautiously along the waterfront road, and pedestrians raised their hands in fright and surprise upon seeing them.\nThe U.S. and French forces -- the vanguard of a multinational force approved by the U.N. Security Council -- spread out from the airport to protect key sites. \nPeople clapped and waved as they yelled "Good job!" and called out the name of key rebel leader Guy Philippe. The convoy first rolled through Petionville, a wealthy suburb, before moving into the heart of Port-au-Prince.\nWhen the rebels arrived at the plaza outside the National Palace and a nearby police station, thousands of Haitians converged on the square, shouting "Liberty!" and "Aristide is gone!"\nPhilippe later met in a hotel with members of the political coalition that had opposed Aristide, including Evans Paul, a former mayor of Port-au-Prince and a top opposition figure. Paul said Philippe "has played an important role."\nNot everyone was happy to see the rebels in the capital. Some residents watched indifferently, their arms folded. At one point, the convoy stopped and rebels jumped out, sweeping their weapons from side to side, then moved on.\nA half-dozen Marines in combat fatigues with assault rifles were seen on the grounds of the palace. The rebels and the Marines did not immediately approach each other.\nCol. David Berger, head of the U.S. Marine contingent, described the capital as "definitely not a hostile environment" for U.S. troops.\n"Most of (Haitians) are going to welcome us. We're glad to be here," he told The Associated Press.\nAristide, who fled Haiti under pressure from the rebels, the political opposition, the United States and France, arrived Monday in the Central African Republic for "a few days," according to the country's state radio.\nAristide said in a short broadcast on the African station that those who overthrew him had "cut down the tree of peace" but "it will grow again." Aristide has returned to rule Haiti once before, in 1994, when U.S. forces took him back to Port-au-Prince. He had been ousted in a military coup three years earlier.\nRandall Robinson, former president of TransAfrica monitoring group, said the former Haitian president told him in a phone call that he was abducted from Haiti by U.S. troops who accompanied him on a flight to the Central African Republic.\n"He asked that I tell the world that it is a coup," Robinson said in a statement. "That he was abducted by American soldiers and put aboard a plane, told to make no phone calls to anyone, put aboard a plane with his sister's husband and his wife."\nSecretary of State Colin Powell called those allegations "absolutely baseless, absurd."\n"He was not kidnapped," Powell told a news conference.\nDefense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld added that "the idea that someone was abducted is inconsistent with everything I saw."\nAn Associated Press correspondent, traveling with more than 70 rebels under the command of Philippe, set out before dawn from the western town of Gonaives, driving past scenes of death and destruction.\nIn the town of St. Marc, the convoy rolled past three charred bodies in the road. The rebels took the town early in the uprising, which began Feb. 5, but were forced to retreat as government forces counter-attacked.\nPhilippe said he planned to make preparations for the new president, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre, to assume office.\n"We're just going to make sure the palace is clean for the president to come ... that there is no threat there," said Philippe, who was in the military in the period when it repressed dissident politicians.
AP reporters Michael Norton in Kingston, Jamaica, Mark Stevenson in Port-au-Prince, and Joseph Benamsse in Bangui, Central African Republic, also contributed to this story.
