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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 13, 1990                   TAG: 9003133585
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI                                 LENGTH: Short

WOMAN TAKES OVER AS PRESIDENT OF HAITI

Supreme Court Judge Ertha Pascal-Trouillot today became the first woman president of Haiti in the Caribbean nation's tumultuous 186-year history.

Pascal-Trouillot was inaugurated a day after military leader Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril, pressured by widespread protests, resigned and left the country.

Pascal-Trouillot will serve as interim president with a 19-member advisory council until after the country's first free elections, which could take place in three to six months.

"She has the capacity to lead the country to the democracy we have all been waiting for," said Chantal Hudicourt Ewald, a lawyer who helped write the 1987 constitution. "It is a great victory for women."

"The men in Haiti have messed up the country so much, we can only expect her to do better," said Pierre Louis Gaillard, 48, an unemployed mechanic.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Government figures last year showed that about 80 percent of the country's nearly 6 million people live in absolute poverty and unemployment is 55 percent.

The choice of Pascal-Trouillot, 46, was announced Monday by an opposition coalition comprising all political affiliations after Avril fled the country. The loosely organized Unity Assembly had spearheaded the nationwide protests last week that prompted Avril to step down.

Avril had come to power in a September 1988 coup led by soldiers who said they were outraged by state-sanctioned murder and corruption under the previous military regime.

Last week, at least 24 people were killed during mass protests demanding Avril's ouster.

by CNB