20211: (Chamberlain) New Haiti prime minister promises better security (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Christie

    PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 10 (Reuters) - Haiti's new interim prime
minister arrived in his revolt-torn country on Wednesday and promised
Haitians he would work to improve security and justice and provide more
jobs.
     Gerard Latortue, a former U.N. official and foreign minister, was
picked on Tuesday by a council of "wise men" charged with steering the
Caribbean country toward political stability after a monthlong armed revolt
that forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile.
     Latortue, who takes over as prime minister until elections can be
held, flew to Port-au-Prince on Wednesday from Florida, where he had been
living.
     In comments to reporters at the airport, he urged national
reconciliation. He added his priorities were to improve security and
justice, to get help from the international community to professionalize
the police force, and provide more jobs for the country's legions of poor.
     Outside, Haitian police in full black battle gear with helmets lined
the front of the airport.
     Aristide went to Africa on Feb. 29 as rebels closed in on the capital,
leaving behind shooting and looting in the chaotic city. A U.S.-led foreign
peace force that now numbers 2,300 arrived soon after to help restore order
in the poorest country in the Americas.
     "We would like the foreign troops here, in cooperation with the
National Police, to help us disarm," said Latortue.
     Latortue, 69, was expected to be sworn in, replacing Aristide
appointee Yvon Neptune, and to select a Cabinet during the course of the
week.
     He said he might set up a committee to study whether Haiti should
again create an army, a key demand of the former soldiers who joined the
armed revolt that swept Aristide from power. Aristide disbanded the army
after he returned to office in 1994, having been overthrown in a coup three
years earlier.
     The new prime minister is an economist and a former senior official of
the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. He was Haitian
foreign minister under President Leslie Manigat, and left Haiti when
Manigat was overthrown in a 1988 military coup.
     He had been living in Florida, working as a business consultant and
hosting a twice-weekly television talk show on the Haitian Television
Network in Miami.
     More than 200 people have been killed in the revolt that began on Feb.
5 and capped months of simmering political tensions in the country of 8
million people.