UN appeals for $35m to aid Haiti

THE United Nations yesterday launched an urgent appeal for $35 million to help Haiti after a bloody revolt against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide left the impoverished country facing a humanitarian crisis.

UN resident co-ordinator Adama Guindo said the funds would feed and care for three million of Haiti's eight million people for six months.

"The situation in Haiti is one of chronic crisis," Guindo said.

With a 2,300-strong international force patrolling the sprawling capital, a Haitian council considered candidates for prime minister in another tentative step toward establishing a government in the Caribbean country.

The panel, which included members of the opposition and remnants of Aristide's government, yesterday interviewed candidates to replace Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, an Aristide appointee.

The first step to a new administration in the deeply polarised nation followed the bloodiest day since Aristide was flown to the Central African Republic on February 29, driven out by US pressure and a revolt that killed more than 200 people.

Militant supporters of the former priest on Sunday fired on a crowd celebrating his departure, killing at least six. In their first engagement, US Marines killed one attacker.

Aristide, who helped unseat the Duvalier family dictatorship in the late 1980s but was himself accused of corruption and autocratic rule in recent years, insisted from exile that he remained Haiti's first democratically elected leader.

He called on his supporters to "peacefully" resist what he termed a US occupation. Washington criticised him for fuelling tensions.

Aid agencies say a third of the population in Haiti is suffering from chronic malnutrition and at least a quarter of a million are dependent on hand-outs.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in development aid and loans were suspended after parliamentary elections in 2000 were declared flawed.