Port-au-Prince ? Haiti’s key rebel leader promised Wednesday his forces would lay down their arms after 1,000 U.S. Marines began patrolling the impoverished capital to restore order and prepare for the arrival of international peacekeepers.

If Guy Philippe, a rebel boss and former police chief, can make good on his vow, it would mark the end of the rebellion that broke out Feb. 5, drove President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into African exile Sunday and left at least 130 Haitians dead.

The 15-nation Caribbean Community, meanwhile, refused to join an international peacekeeping force in Haiti and called for an independent international inquiry into Aristide’s allegations that he was forced out office by the United States.

Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson said CARICOM was “extremely disappointed” at the involvement of “Western partners” in the hasty departure of Aristide. He charged that the U.N. Security Council had ignored an urgent Caribbean appeal to it on Thursday to send peacekeepers to Haiti before Aristide was forced out.

Aristide remained in the Central African Republic, where he had been flown to exile in a U.S.-government-chartered jet, unable so far to find a permanent residence.

The Marines moved out of their bivouac at the presidential palace Wednesday in a first reconnaissance mission since they began arriving on Sunday. They walked and drove machine-gun mounted Humvees 30 blocks over trash-strewn streets.

The troops used their vehicles and their hands to push burned cars from roadways and riflemen watched the streets for any signs of resistance. Encountering none, the Marines returned to the palace that had been the seat Aristide’s power before his departure Sunday, marking the second time he had been deposed from power.

The death toll in the rebellion has continued to rise despite Aristide’s ouster, reaching at least 130 Wednesday as workers at the Port-au-Prince hospital said an additional 30 bodies had been brought to the morgue since Sunday.

Col. Mark Gurganis, 49, commander of the U.S. troops in Haiti, told reporters he and other U.S. officials asked Philippe Wednesday “to honor what he said he was going to do and lay down his arms.”

Philippe said rebels wanted peace.

“Now that there are foreign troops promising to protect the Haitian people … and they have given the guarantee to protect the Haitian people … we will lay down our arms,” Philippe told a news conference.