

Area: Aen_News

Date : Oct 28 '94, 10:00                                             Scn
From : Henry Mcclain                                         1:231/110.0
To   : A;;                                 
Subj : more money                                                            


          U.S. To Give Haiti $216 Million, Jobs for Soldiers

                         Washington(AP)

    The United States will give Haiti $ 216 million over the coming
year and provide jobs for members of the widely hated armed forces,a
top Clinton Administration official said yesterday.

    As PresidentJean-Bertrand Aristide requested, the administration
has agreed to pay the salaries of soldiers not chosen to be part of a
new, 1500 member Haitian military,and ultimately provide them new
jobs, said Briah Atwood, administrator of the U.S. Agency for
International Development.

    The current 7,000 member armed forces will be vetted to see which
ones are acceptable to remain in the new force, a process expeced to
take some time, Atwood said. during that time, the Unitd States will
pay, their salaries and ultimatelyintegrate them into U.S. funded
jobs programs that are expeted to employ 50,000 Haitians overall,
Atwood said.

     AID has allocated $ 5 million of the U.S. funding to pay
military salaries and train them in new jobs. Atwood called the
support for individual soldiers "a very delicate program" that is
controversial but preferable to cutting them loose without
compensation.

     "We don't want them to go back and pick up arms and go into the
hills," he said. "We have to pull the teeth from this dragon."

     Aristide's economic reconstruction program for Haiti call for
guaranteeing jobs to members of the armed forces, many of whom are
reviled by the population for their brutal tactics, Human rights
groups say some 3,000 people died at the hands of the Haitian
military and its civilian allies during the three years of Aristide's
exile.

from: the Manchester Union Leader, New Hampshire  
 
--- GEcho 1.00
 * Origin: Gun Control=Criminals & Gestapo vs. the Unarmed. (1:231/110)
