
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 7, 1991                   TAG: 9102070219
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI                                LENGTH: Short

HAITIANS PREPARE FOR ARISTIDE INAUGURATION

Haitians swept streets, filled potholes and painted bright murals Wednesday on the eve of the inauguration of the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the nation's first democratically elected president.

Dignitaries from 22 nations, including former President Jimmy Carter and Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, were expected for an event hailed by the leftist priest as "Haiti's second independence."

Today's inauguration comes on the fifth anniversary of the fall of dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. He fled into exile in France on Feb. 7, 1986, after a popular uprising, ending the brutal dynasty founded by his father, Francois "Papa Doc," in 1957.

In preparation, volunteers of all ages were sprucing up Port-au-Prince, the rundown capital of 1 million people.

Aristide, 37, who campaigned on a radically anti-Duvalierist platform, was elected Dec. 16 with two-thirds of the vote in the Caribbean nation's first fully democratic election since independence from France in 1804.

In an interview last week, he indicated his government would work to end decades of corruption and political turmoil.

- Associated Press

by CNB