Word: prevalant
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Western planners contemplating the reconstruction of Kosovo might want to look at Haiti. In 1994 Haitians were dancing in the streets after U.S. troops restored democracy. Not anymore. Political squabbling has led to government paralysis, and Haiti's PRESIDENT RENE PREVAL suspended Parliament in January and rules by decree. Although donor countries pledged more than $1 billion in aid, the latest U.N. report notes that $570 million still hasn't been handed over because Haiti lacks the ministerial staff to draft programs for using the money. The report points out that 4% of Haiti's population still owns...
Western planners contemplating the reconstruction of Kosovo might want to look at Haiti. In 1994 Haitians were dancing in the streets after U.S. troops restored democracy. Not anymore. Political squabbling has led to government paralysis, and Haiti's President Rene Preval suspended Parliament in January and rules by decree. Although donor countries pledged more than $1 billion in aid, the latest U.N. report notes that $570 million still hasn't been handed over because Haiti lacks the ministerial staff to draft programs for using the money. The report points out that 4 percent of Haiti's population still owns...
...officials insist that time will transform the raw recruits into an effective authority. Now they lean heavily on 6,000 U.N. peacekeepers, but they will soon be expected to step in for the entire contingent--unless the Security Council approves Preval's urgent request to retain 1,800 for another six months. Even though the peacekeepers may serve only as a psychological deterrent, the Americans have been vital to U.N. credibility. But at the very moment when the country's insecurity is growing, the U.S. is leaving. A senior American diplomat familiar with Haiti says, "Of course...
Though odds are against him, there is a glimmer of hope in the person of Rene Preval. The 53-year-old Belgian-educated businessman comes to office burdened with a reputation as a hard-left radical but seems to approach the job with realism. He could not be more unlike the ethereal Aristide: practical, plainspoken, decisive. "I know we must translate democracy into improvements in everyday life," he told TIME shortly before his inauguration...
...Preval accepts--for now--that privatization is the price he must pay for foreign aid and investment, but he is determined to keep majority ownership in Haiti's hands. He lays out other tough priorities: increasing food production, cutting the bureaucracy, modernizing tax collection. "We have to face the situation as it is," he says. "I know the task seems impossible. But I am not afraid, because in my head my vision is very clear." Preval, says a Port-au-Prince political commentator, "will be lucky if he gets three months" to enact that vision before people revolt. Strikes, protests...