Source: Boston Globe Contact: Pubdate: 28 Nov 1997 Website: http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/ AS UN FORCES HEAD HOME, HAITI FACES HIGH HURDLES By Nicole Volpe, Reuters, 11/28/97 PORTAUPRINCE, Haiti As United Nations peacekeepers prepare to depart Haiti after a threeyear mission, they leave behind a nation struggling with economic malaise, a political crisis, police corruption, drug trafficking, and plots to overthrow the government. The UN peacekeeping mandate ends Sunday, and the 1,000 Canadian and Pakistani troops who have been patrolling the streets of PortAuPrince will begin shipping out Thursday, leaving security in the hands of the twoyearold national police force. UN Special Representative Enrique Ter Horst told reporters Wednesday he was confident the internationally trained Haitian National Police force would be able to maintain security and fill the void left by peacekeepers. ''The HNP has come to a point where it at least can ensure stability,'' he said. Haitian police officials ominously announced last week they had uncovered plots to destabilize Haiti and to kill President Rene Preval. Police arrested former presidential candidate and interim police chief Leon Jeune for allegedly plotting against the state. They said they found an array of heavy weapons in Jeune's house. Haitian Secretary of State Robert Manuel said rampant drug trafficking on the Caribbean island was linked to the political destabilization efforts. ''It is drug money that finances destabilization, insecurity and coups d'etat,'' he said after the arrest of eight police officers implicated in cocaine trafficking in the southern village of Aquin. The US Drug Enforcement Agency ranks Haiti as a major dropoff point for drugs moving from South and Central America through the Caribbean to the United States. A series of cocaine seizures were made by the Haitian National Police in recent weeks, but the successes were overshadowed by the arrest of at least 20 officers after the cocaine disappeared from police stations in three cities. Ter Horst acknowledged corruption within the police force, which has been trained to replace the army that ousted JeanBertrand Aristide in a 1991 military coup. Aristide disbanded the military shortly after he was restored to power in 1994. The new police force was trained by international police officers over the past two years. A group of 290 multinational civilian police trainers is being left behind when the military mission leaves in the next few weeks, but the trainers said they were not optimistic about their ability. ''We have no ability to sanction the police we are training,'' said one police trainer in the southern city of Miroguane. ''We can only make suggestions, but the police are free to do what they want.'' A village of peasants in the southern village of Aquin proved more effective than the police at seizing drugs when they heisted two tons of cocaine from Colombian traffickers this month. The peasants said they chased the boat's captain away from his vessel, which had run aground on the nearby shore, and stole the drugs. The impact of the cocaine trade on the impoverished country became clear when gunshots and drug traffickers came nightly to the usually peaceful village. One local couple was found dead within days, and another person was killed in a shootout between police and traffickers. ''People here are so poor, and cocaine has become as much a dream as winning the lottery,'' said a local peasant. Haiti's attempts to revive its economy have failed. Insecurity, electricity blackouts and chaos in the staterun telephone company have scared off investors. © Copyright 1997 Globe Newspaper Company.