The police station in Cite Soleil, Port-au-Prince's vast slum, no longer exists. Haitians smashed its walls to find newly buried bodies: Blood still stains the ground. In anger they destroyed homes of military backers who fled when President Jean- Bertrand Aristide returned. Antoine Elvey, a jobless mason, says: "Aristide told us we have no right to go after the bad guys, but we've suffered so much we feel we have to do it."
This grim legacy poses the No. 1 obstacle to a quick exit of the 16,000 U.S. troops now acting as Haiti's police. Before they leave, a civilian police force must be created and United Nations peacekeepers deployed to watch over it. Stabilizing Haiti also requires economic recovery, functioning courts and a bureaucracy. Otherwise, confidence in the nascent democracy may vanish as soon as the Americans go home. "The first 100 days," says U.S. Ambassador William Swing, "are extremely critical." By year's end, the United States hopes to have only 6,000 troops in Haiti, with 3,000 to stay on as part of the U.N. force. But some business leaders believe that only Americans can do the job. "People will not accept a Latin or a Caribbean [peacekeeper] telling them what to do, because those countries have had the same corrupt system that we've had," explains Richard Sassine, president of a shipping company. "But U.S. soldiers, they are professionals."
The United States wants to retrain 3,000 soldiers as police officers while retaining some members of the old police force. "You can't simply disarm everyone," says Gen. Richard Potter Jr., commander of U.S. Special Forces in Haiti. "You can't have a void." Yet the Rev. Antoine Adrien, a confidant of Aristide, doubts that many soldiers can be successfully reshaped into cops. "Even those who are good people have seen themselves first of all as members of an army."
Businessmen complain that looting impedes economic recovery, and some government ministries are still plagued by armed civilians. Yet quick action, especially to create jobs for the 80 percent unemployed, is crucial -- both to give Haitians hope and to take them off the streets, where temptations for looting and vengeance still run strong. A U.S.-funded jobs program is expanding to 50,000 slots. But Aristide's budget reform calls for eliminating 20,000 civil-service jobs and 5,000 soldiers and cutting food and fuel subsidies. "What leader has been able to implement the toughest economic reforms and still remain popular?" asks Ross Mountain, U.N. coordinator of the international aid program in Haiti. Another danger lurks: While donors have discussed $555 million in aid over 12 months, only Washington has promised $200 million. Others won't make formal pledges until next year.
