20146: (Chamberlain) Haiti names new interim prime minister (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

    By Joseph Guyler Delva

    PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 9 (Reuters) - Former Haitian Foreign
Minister Gerard Latortue was named as Haiti's new interim prime minister on
Tuesday, 10 days after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide went into exile in
the face of an armed revolt and U.S. pressure.
     A council of seven "wise men" charged with setting the impoverished
Caribbean country on the path toward a new legitimate administration
selected Latortue, and his appointment was approved by interim President
Boniface Alexandre, said council member Anne-Marie Issa.
     Latortue, a native of the northwest Haiti port city of Gonaives and a
former senior official of the United Nations Industrial Development
Organization, replaces Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, who was appointed by
Aristide, and will remain as interim prime minister until elections can be
held.
     He was expected to be sworn in and to select a Cabinet during the
course of the week, most likely under heavy guard by some of the 2,300
U.S.-led troops now in the country to restore order after Aristide's flight
triggered lootings and bloodshed.
     The new government will have to patch over deep divides in this
country of 8 million people.
     Aristide, a former priest who championed democracy and the poor after
decades of dictatorship by the Duvaliers, was driven from office following
months of anti-government protests, many of them violent.
     The political tensions erupted into an open armed revolt on Feb. 5
when a gang that once supported Aristide took over Gonaives. The rebellion
was later joined by former soldiers and leaders of death squads affiliated
with past military regimes.
     Latortue is an economist who served as Haiti's foreign minister under
President Leslie Manigat, and left Haiti when Manigat was overthrown in a
1988 military coup.
     An Aristide critic, he has been living in Boca Raton, Florida, working
as a business consultant and hosting a twice-weekly television talk show on
the Haitian Television Network in Miami.
     It was unclear how long he would remain in office following the ouster
of Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected leader but who faced
accusations of corruption and political thuggery in recent years.