A contingent of U.S. Marines departed for Haiti Sunday after the abdication of its president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide earlier that morning.
Aristide fled the country after international pressure from France and later, the United States, coupled with armed rebels looming on the capital Port-au-Prince, forced him to resign.
The White House promised Friday it would consider sending up to 2,200 Marines to the chaotic Caribbean island only if a settlement between Aristide and opposing rebels were reached.
Until Sunday, the situation remained too volatile for U.S. troop commitments. Rebels stormed communities surrounding Port-au-Prince Saturday after having overtaken the northern half of the country, while pro-Aristide gangs vandalized the city.
After Aristide fled Haiti, Haitians poured into the streets, beating drums and celebrating the departure of a president who had been criticized as corrupt and who abandoned his promises to help the nation's poor.
\Aristide has lost the provinces, and in Port-au-Prince, he has lost the students, the intellectuals, the shopkeepers, the industrialists, the small-scale merchants,"" said Laennec Hurbon, a prominent Haitian sociologist. ""The common people hate [pro-Aristide gangs].""
Ten years ago, the United States helped install Aristide to power through Haiti's first democratic elections since its independence. Aristide was popular, especially among residents of the country's slums.
Yet Aristide came under fire for turning Haiti into a ""narco-state"" with substantial drug trafficking fueling government corruption.
Aristide, who disbanded Haiti's 5,000-strong army, also supplied slum residents with weapons in an effort to protect himself, which backfired according to UW-Madison Assistant Professor of French and Italian Deborah Jenson.
""In the end, when he re-armed slum dwellers and created these bands of thugs, he inaugurated a whole new are of a different kind of lawlessness,"" she said.
Without organization, said Jenson, these armed groups turned into mobs operating ""like the mafia"" and forced the United States to re-evaluate its view of the Haitian government.
""This long-simmering crisis is largely of Mr. Aristide's making,"" admitted White House spokesperson Scott McClellan in a statement Saturday.
Aristide, whose whereabouts are unknown, left behind a fragmented government temporarily led by Supreme Court Justice Boniface Alexandre.
Countless refugees fled to the neighboring Dominican Republic and boatloads of Haitians have landed in Florida only to be denied asylum.
Madison's United Refugee Services Program Director Arthur Upham said because Haitians are not classified as refugees under immigration codes, his program is unable to assist Haitians who have fled.
The possibility of increased refugees combined with the continued presence of armed gangs under an unstable government could forestall much-needed reform in what is already the hemisphere's poorest nation. Jenson, however, said she remains ""optimistic"" for Haiti's future.
""When you look at the end of Aristide's rule, this looks like something that had to happen to allow Haiti to try to get on its feet,"" she said. ""There is always a chance for Haiti to make good on its tremendously inspired attachment to freedom.""
-The Washington Post contributed to this report
