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- WORLD, Page 41World NotesHAITIFragile as An Eggshell
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- Since soldiers overthrew Haiti's first freely elected
- President five months ago, restoring a functioning democracy has
- not proved easy. Last week, in an attempt to lift the crippling
- economic embargo imposed on the military-backed government by
- the Organization of American States, top politicians of the
- hemisphere's poorest country struck a complex deal at OAS
- headquarters in Washington.
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- The agreement calls for the eventual return to office of
- ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a populist priest and
- champion of the poor; the formation of a Cabinet of national
- unity under Prime Minister-designate Rene Theodore, a former
- Aristide rival and Communist Party moderate; and a general
- amnesty for those involved in the coup.
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- The eggshell fragility of the compromise quickly became
- evident, however, when Aristide promptly declared that the
- amnesty must not cover the top putsch leader, army chief Lieut.
- General Raoul Cedras, whom he labeled a common criminal. The
- vaguely worded accord, which needs to be ratified by Haiti's
- Parliament, was a "miracle," said an OAS diplomat, "but we'll
- need another miracle to make it stick."
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