27485: (news) Chamberlain: Five facts about troubled Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     Feb 5 (Reuters) - Haiti, a Caribbean nation of about 8.5 million
people that shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, is
a former French colony and the world's oldest black republic.

     The first election since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was driven
from office by an armed revolt in February 2004 are scheduled for Tuesday.
Here are five facts about Haiti:

       Founded by freed slaves following a revolt that led to independence
on Jan. 1, 1804, Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas with annual
per capita income of around $400 and it is struggling to establish a stable
democracy following decades of dictatorship and military rule.
        Its first freely elected leader, former Roman Catholic priest
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was ousted from office in each of his two terms as
president; the first in 1991 by a military coup and the second on Feb. 29,
2004 by a bloody rebellion by gangs and former soldiers.
        With 80 percent of its people mired in poverty, Haiti has been
virtually stripped of trees, which are cut down for charcoal. Less than 2
percent of the forest cover remains, leaving a nation of subsistence
farmers vulnerable to soil erosion and devastating floods and mudslides.
        Used by South American drug traffickers as a way station serving
the huge U.S. cocaine market, Haiti ranks near the bottom of Transparency
International's Corruption Perceptions Index; government officials and
police officers have been accused of taking bribes to allow drug planes and
boats to land.
        Although 80 percent of Haitians are Roman Catholic and 16 percent
Protestant, more than half of the people are believed to practice voodoo,
the Afro-Caribbean religion whose roots may go back 6,000 years or more in
Africa.