Word: avril
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...other landless peasants to improve their lot. Hope flared briefly in 1986, when Haitians rebelled and forced "President-for-Life" Jean-Claude Duvalier into exile. Since then, the government has changed hands three times, most recently last month, when a coup installed the regime of Lieut. General Prosper Avril. No matter how good Avril's intentions are, however, Haiti is so dirt poor, literally, that it may never flourish again...
Within a week, outrage over that Sept. 11 attack at St. John Bosco Church in the capital of Port-au-Prince provoked an army revolt that installed the new regime of Lieut. General Prosper Avril. The atrocity added considerably to the mystique surrounding the slight, bespectacled 35-year-old Roman Catholic priest, a socialist who is widely called a "prophet." Formerly a little- known worker among the dispossessed of his parish, Aristide is the only authentic leader who has emerged from the Haitian masses during the chaotic period since the despised dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier was overthrown...
Four weeks ago, Aristide came out of hiding to demand that the new Avril regime institute a wholesale cleanup by Oct. 17, including a total "uprooting" of the dreaded Tonton Macoutes and other vestiges of the Duvalier era. "The ball is in your court, and you are playing before a people who do not trust you," he warned Avril. Haitians were soon surprised to learn that the priest had himself been confronted with an ultimatum...
...State Department officials praised the forced retirement but foresaw no resumption of aid until Avril begins to implement long-needed democratic reforms. Among Washington's requirements: a timetable for elections for a civilian government. "This is a good first step," said a State Department official. "We don't want to take away from the fact that this enhances the climate, but we need to see more." Officials noted with relief that Paul's removal "will improve the prospects for increased cooperation in the fight against drugs...
...Avril vowed last week to wipe out the drug traffic. Noting that some officers discharged since the coup have been associated with narcotics, Avril said, "They had blemished the image of the armed forces." Avril has also moved to disarm the remnants of the Tonton Macoutes, the dreaded secret police during the 28-year dictatorship of Francois ("Papa Doc") Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc"), who fled in 1986. Although calling himself only an "accidental and provisional President," Avril pledged to prepare the way for an "irreversible democracy." Said he: "I am a missionary." The President obviously expects...