19883: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald:Work starts on choosing leader (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Fri, Mar. 05, 2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE


Work starts on choosing leader

The political process to select a new national leader and install a
temporary government gets under way.

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES, TRENTON DANIEL AND NANCY SAN MARTIN

nsanmartin@herald.com


PORT-AU-PRINCE -- A three-member commission Thursday began working to select
a new prime minister and a transition government to end the power vacuum
left by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's resignation amid a bloody
rebellion.

But the rapidly expanding force of foreign peacekeepers in the capital and
beyond did not halt sporadic gunfire between gangs loyal or opposed to
Aristide, or quell violence in the countryside.

In Petite-Goave, 20 miles west of the capital, residents stoned an alleged
Aristide militant, flung gas over him and burned him alive. And in Gressier,
six miles to the west, four bodies were found, the hands of three of them
tied behind their back, bullet wounds in the head.

FLIGHTS STILL DELAYED

American Airlines said it had postponed the resumption of flights to Haiti,
suspended Feb. 26, from Friday until Tuesday.

The three-man commission met Thursday for the first time to begin the task
of selecting a seven-member council of ''wise men,'' which will name a new
prime minister and transitional cabinet.

Sitting on the commission are Leslie Voltaire, the Aristide government's
minister for Haitians Living Abroad; Paul Denis, a former opposition
senator; and Adama Guindo, the U.N. Development Program coordinator in
Haiti.

Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, an Aristide loyalist and now largely a
figurehead, said he had selected Voltaire under pressure from U.S.
Ambassador James B. Foley. ''I have no control over the process,'' Neptune
told The Herald.

Echoing Aristide's charges that U.S. officials forced him to resign and
leave Haiti, Neptune said the search for a new government is questionable.
''It is my position that . . . the process should be delayed,'' he said.

Despite the continuing clouds hanging over Aristide's resignation, U.S.
officials were moving rapidly to restore Haiti's government coffers and
security.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a bipartisan amendment to
provide $150 million for security, counter-narcotics and humanitarian and
economic relief. Sponsored by Florida Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson, the measure
almost triples the $52 million approved for the year.

And the international security force continued to grow. On Thursday, some
1,000 U.S. Marines, 440 French security agents, 120 Chilean army troops and
some 60 Canadians were on the ground. Brazil promised 1,100 soldiers.

More significantly, the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command announced U.S.
forces had moved outside the capital for ``visits throughout Haiti to
conduct security assessments and provide assistance to Haitian government
officials.''

But there was still no word on whether the international force would try to
disarm the armed gangs still killing and burning in the dead of night.

''We're not tasked with disarming at this point,'' said spokesman Staff Sgt.
Timothy Edwards. ``Hopefully, those outside the city will see what we're
doing here and decide to disarm . . . Hopefully, we won't go out there.''

Aristide, who was elected in 1990, ousted by a military coup in 1991 and
returned to power by U.S. troops in 1994, fled Haiti on Sunday amid a
rebellion that began Feb. 5 and left more than 130 dead. Opposition to his
leadership stemmed largely from allegations of corruption and fraud in the
2000 elections.

His flight into exile in the Central African Republic came hours before
armed rebels paraded into the capital and the first batch of U.S. Marines
took up strategic posts at the airport, seaport and National Palace.

REBELS NOT SEEN

There were no signs of rebels in the capital Thursday, one day after they
agreed to lay down their weapons.

Ellen Powers, executive director of Project Medishare, which operates a
University of Miami-affiliated health clinic in the central town of
Thomonde, said in an e-mail Thursday that rebels there ``handed over their
weapons and the local police have returned and are now providing security.''

Back in Port-au-Prince, Prime Minister Neptune estimated the damage from the
rebellion and looting at $300 million and said he had frozen all government
bank accounts except those controlled by the president, the Associated Press
reported.

Some 70 Haitian police officers joined the foreign troops patrolling the
capital, a clear sign that newly installed Police Chief Leon Charles was
taking charge. Charles, a former head of the Haitian Coast Guard, had worked
with U.S. authorities for several years in anti-narcotics efforts.

At the main police barracks, Commissioner Claude Moise Marckinsky said his
agents would try to disarm the gangs and recapture the hundreds of prisoners
released from jails during the revolt.

Herald staff writers Joe Mozingo and Susannah A. Nesmith contributed to this
report.

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