20485: (Chamberlain) AP: New government (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By IAN JAMES

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, March 16 (AP) -- Haiti's new prime minister formed a
unity government Tuesday, filling 13 Cabinet positions but excluding
members of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas Family party.
   Aides to interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue circulated a list of
names for the new 13-member Cabinet after Latortue met with interim
President Boniface Alexandre at the National Palace.
   Alexandre was to formally announce the Cabinet later. But Leslie
Voltaire, a former Aristide Cabinet member, said no Lavalas Party members
had been chosen.
   Aristide spent his second day in neighboring Jamaica, where he returned
Monday after two weeks exile in the Central African Republic.
   He was given temporary asylum in Jamaica to meet with his daughters.
Aristide's return to the Caribbean, however, caused fears in Port-au-Prince
and Washington that his presence would provoke more unrest in Haiti.
   Chanting "Vive Aristide!" dozens of young men demonstrated in the tense
Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Belair, demanding Aristide's return and the
departure of a U.S.-led international peacekeeping force.
   "One day, Aristide is going to return here. He hasn't done anything
wrong," said protester Edeg Rosier, a 31-year-old electrician. "Aristide
represents something special for us. He represents the poor and the
forgotten."
   Wilgo Supreme Ebouard, leader of a neighborhood group, angrily
complained that peacekeepers patrol the slum from dusk to dawn and that
residents are afraid to leave their homes.
   "Belair is not Kosovo or Iraq or Chechnya," Ebouard told the crowd. "We
are not terrorists. We are just poor people who want to live a normal
life."
   Peacekeepers reported no incidents overnight in Port-au-Prince, in
contrast to clashes that killed six Haitians and wounded a U.S. Marine over
the past week.
   Belair is an Aristide stronghold where Marines shot and killed two
residents on Friday and where a Marine was shot in the arm late Sunday, the
first U.S. casualty since Aristide fled a popular rebellion Feb. 29 and the
peacekeepers arrived.
   Maj. Xavier Pons, a French military spokesman, said plans were under way
to divide the country into four peacekeeping sectors. Each of the armed
forces on the ground now -- American, French, Chilean and Canadian -- would
patrol a separate area.
   "We still don't know who will control where, but we should know by the
end of the week," Pons said.
   In accordance with a U.S.-backed plan, Latortue's new Cabinet must be
approved by Alexandre.
   Earlier Tuesday, an official involved in the process said 11 ministers
had been chosen and that they didn't include anyone from Aristide's
administration.
   The official said the list included Yvon Simeon as foreign minister;
Bernard Gousse, an anti-Aristide lawyer, as justice minister; Henri Bazan,
president of the Haitian Association of Economists, as finance minister;
and former Gen. Herard Abraham as interior minister.
   Aristide, a former slum priest who survived several assassination
attempts under military rule, became Haiti's first democratically elected
president in 1990. When he was ousted in a 1991 coup, paramilitary death
squads sprayed Aristide's slum strongholds with gunfire.
   Some of his current supporters were orphaned by the killings, which
eased in 1994 when U.S. troops restored Aristide.
   Aristide has accused the United States of abducting him and forcing his
March 1 departure from Haiti. Washington denies the claim, but the
15-member Caribbean Community, chaired by the Jamaican president, has
called for an investigation into his ouster.
   Latortue protested Aristide's presence in Jamaica and suspended Haiti's
participation in the Caribbean Community, which has said it will decide at
a summit later this month whether to recognize Haiti's interim government.
   Jamaica says it is allowing Aristide and his wife, Mildred, up to 10
weeks' respite to reunite with their two daughters, who were sent to New
York for their safety, and to decide on a permanent home in exile.
Unofficially, Jamaican officials say Aristide wants to go to South Africa.
   Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered asylum Tuesday to Aristide, who
initially fled to Caracas after the 1991 coup.
   "We don't recognize Haiti's new government. The president of Haiti is
named Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and he was elected by his people," said
Chavez, who also accused the United States of removing Aristide.
   A street gang that used to terrorize Aristide's opponents started
Haiti's rebellion Feb. 5. The uprising was spread by former Haitian
soldiers. More than 300 people died before Aristide left the country on a
U.S.-supplied plane that took him to the Central African Republic.
   Aristide appeared to be staying at a Jamaican government residence in
the rural community of Lydford, reached by gravel road about 80 miles
northwest of Kingston.
   Officials speaking on condition of anonymity would confirm only that he
was staying in St. Anne's parish, which includes Lydford. Residents of the
farming community said they heard two helicopters land nearby on Monday
afternoon.