Haiti's new prime minister chose a Cabinet on Tuesday that did not include any allies of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and which is likely to prolong tensions in the revolt-torn country.
"The government has been selected this afternoon," an aide to Prime Minister Gerard Latortue told Reuters. He said it would be sworn in yesterday at the National Palace.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Not one of the 13 ministries was handed to members of Aristide's Lavalas Family party, a move likely to fire up anger among his supporters, already galvanized by his proximity 185km away in Jamaica.
Moderate Lavalas members, who remained behind after a month-long rebellion and US pressure drove Aristide into exile on Feb. 29, had warned that national reconciliation would be impossible unless they, and the poor majority they represent, were given a voice.
But Latortue said no political parties were represented in the lineup, and that Lavalas had not presented any candidates.
"Had there been an organization that sponsored a Lavalas member, I would have been happy. But there weren't any," Latortue said.
In Washington, the White House blasted Jamaica's decision to allow the former slum priest turned president to visit, a move that made Haiti's new government recall its ambassador and reconsider relations with the Caribbean Community bloc.
Aristide, who returned to the Caribbean on Monday from Africa after being forced out of office on Feb. 29, was in seclusion at a country house northeast of the capital, Kingston.
His spokesman in Jamaica said Aristide had no intention of causing trouble. Aristide "is just hoping that there is peace everywhere, in the region. He wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that," Huntley Medley said.
But in the slums of Port-au-Prince, where many see Aristide as a champion of the poor and believe he was kidnapped in a US-backed coup, the exclusion of Lavalas from the new government was likely to inflame passions.
It might also increase anger at US Marines leading a 2,700-strong UN-sanctioned peacekeeping force.
US Marines raided one of the capital's most dangerous slums on Monday night in a crackdown on gunmen who injured a Marine on Sunday. It was the US force's first casualty.
A column of 120 Marines swept through Belair, an Aristide stronghold, on foot and in armored vehicles mounted with machine guns. Lieutenant Colonel Dave Lapan said they and Haitian police raided two buildings. No arrests were made and the Marines did not open fire.
US forces have fought half a dozen battles with Aristide loyalists -- killing six people -- since they landed hours after Aristide left the country.
Residents in Belair were defiant and angry at the raids.
"This is not Kosovo. This is not Iraq. This is not Chechnya. They have to withdraw their war tanks because we are not terrorists," Wilgo Supreme Edouard said outside a church where huge bullet holes pocked the walls of buildings.
Latortue, selected by a US-backed council of leading Haitians, had pledged to include Lavalas members in order to form a government of national reconciliation.
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