Instability continues to wrack Haiti

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Many Haitians thought they had hit rock bottom in February, when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced from power amid an armed revolt fueled by political conflict and economic collapse.

But a new interim government has been unable to keep conditions from deteriorating further in the hemisphere's poorest nation, despite the presence of a peacekeeping mission from the United Nations.

Violence has wracked the capital, Port-au-Prince, since Sept. 30, when several thousand Aristide supporters staged a demonstration that was broken up when police fired into the crowd.

Since then, gunfire has crackled through the downtown most days and the streets are unusually silent at night, as frightened residents hurry indoors at dusk. Haitian police and U.N. troops raid pro-Aristide slums, clashing with gangs of young men in gunfights that have left dozens -- and possibly hundreds -- dead, many of them innocents caught in the crossfire.

The violence has buffeted an already moribund economy. Rising prices and a devalued gourde, the Haitian currency, have especially hammered the poor.

To make matters worse, Haiti has suffered two natural disasters this year, with thousands dying in mudslides and floods.

The country, where 56 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day, according to a recent U.N. report, is getting poorer.

"The government has done nothing in the areas of job creation, production, public works," said Jean-Claude Paulvin, president of the Haitian Association of Economists.

"To their credit, they've only been there for eight months, and they've put most of their energy into getting help from the international community. ... My concern is that if the political situation stays the same, if there is no security, the economy will not take off even with international aid."

Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has criticized the international community for not supplying enough troops and money to quell unrest and to revive the economy.