Port-au-Prince, Haiti ? As 50 U.S. Marines arrived here Monday to protect the U.S. Embassy amid growing political violence, a broad coalition opposed to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said a U.S.-backed plan to share power with the embattled president was “an open door to bloodshed.”

“We are tired of burying our people,” said opposition leader Charles Baker, who said 18 days of rebel violence, which has left much of this impoverished country under the control of a few hundred anti-government militiamen, had been caused by three years of Aristide “terrorizing the Haitian people.”

Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned opposition leaders on Monday, urging them to delay for one more day their final decision on the U.S.-led diplomatic proposal, which calls for replacing the prime minister and holding internationally monitored parliamentary elections. It would allow Aristide to stay in power until his term expires in 2006.

The plan was proposed Saturday by a group of international diplomats led by Roger Noriega, the top official for Latin America at the State Department, who met here with Aristide and his opponents. That diplomatic move came after weeks of reluctance by the Bush administration to become involved in resolving the latest violence in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.

The opposition leader said the coalition would honor Powell’s request and welcomed his pledge to be “personally involved” in the crisis. The group said they hoped that in the next 24 hours Powell would come up with a new proposal that would include Aristide’s ouster. They said they were “adamant” that they would not accept any plan that left him in office.

“The people of Haiti are tired of being terrorized,” Baker told reporters in the capital. “Going into an accord like the one that was presented to us means only one thing: two more years of terrorizing the Haitian people.”