AS UN FORCES HEAD HOME, HAITI FACES HIGH HURDLES

By Nicole Volpe, Reuters, 11/28/97

PORTAUPRINCE, Haiti As United Nations peacekeepers prepare to depart
Haiti after a threeyear mission, they leave behind a nation struggling
with economic malaise, a political crisis, police corruption, drug
trafficking, and plots to overthrow the government.

The UN peacekeeping mandate ends Sunday, and the 1,000 Canadian and
Pakistani troops who have been patrolling the streets of PortAuPrince
will begin shipping out Thursday, leaving security in the hands of the
twoyearold national police force.

UN Special Representative Enrique Ter Horst told reporters Wednesday he was
confident the internationally trained Haitian National Police force would
be able to maintain security and fill the void left by peacekeepers.

''The HNP has come to a point where it at least can ensure stability,'' he
said.

Haitian police officials ominously announced last week they had uncovered
plots to destabilize Haiti and to kill President Rene Preval.

Police arrested former presidential candidate and interim police chief Leon
Jeune for allegedly plotting against the state. They said they found an
array of heavy weapons in Jeune's house.

Haitian Secretary of State Robert Manuel said rampant drug trafficking on
the Caribbean island was linked to the political destabilization efforts.

''It is drug money that finances destabilization, insecurity and coups
d'etat,'' he said after the arrest of eight police officers implicated in
cocaine trafficking in the southern village of Aquin.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency ranks Haiti as a major dropoff point for
drugs moving from South and Central America through the Caribbean to the
United States.

A series of cocaine seizures were made by the Haitian National Police in
recent weeks, but the successes were overshadowed by the arrest of at least
20 officers after the cocaine disappeared from police stations in three
cities.

Ter Horst acknowledged corruption within the police force, which has been
trained to replace the army that ousted JeanBertrand Aristide in a 1991
military coup.

Aristide disbanded the military shortly after he was restored to power in
1994. The new police force was trained by international police officers
over the past two years.

A group of 290 multinational civilian police trainers is being left behind
when the military mission leaves in the next few weeks, but the trainers
said they were not optimistic about their ability.

''We have no ability to sanction the police we are training,'' said one
police trainer in the southern city of Miroguane. ''We can only make
suggestions, but the police are free to do what they want.''

A village of peasants in the southern village of Aquin proved more
effective than the police at seizing drugs when they heisted two tons of
cocaine from Colombian traffickers this month.

The peasants said they chased the boat's captain away from his vessel,
which had run aground on the nearby shore, and stole the drugs.

The impact of the cocaine trade on the impoverished country became clear
when gunshots and drug traffickers came nightly to the usually peaceful
village.

One local couple was found dead within days, and another person was killed
in a shootout between police and traffickers.

''People here are so poor, and cocaine has become as much a dream as
winning the lottery,'' said a local peasant.

Haiti's attempts to revive its economy have failed. Insecurity, electricity
blackouts and chaos in the staterun telephone company have scared off
investors.

© Copyright 1997 Globe Newspaper Company.