Manigat Inaugurated, Urges Reconciliation : Controversial Haiti Leader Pledges to Launch ‘New Era of Democracy’ on Strife-Torn Island

In a subdued ceremony that reflected public weariness after months of bitter turmoil, Haiti on Sunday inaugurated a new and controversial president who pledged immediately to end 30 years of totalitarianism with “a new era of democracy.”

President Leslie F. Manigat, a 57-year-old political scientist and winner of a flawed election that most of his countrymen boycotted, promised national reconciliation--liberty and justice without vengeance to this poorest of Western Hemisphere nations.

As Manigat recited his oath of office in sweltering morning sunshine outside the newly-revivedHaitian Parliament, the military officers who were widely accused of rigging his election Jan. 17--after aborting an earlier election attempt amid bloodshed last Nov. 29--saluted smartly and symbolically withdrew from the presidential platform to demonstrate what the new civilian leader called their return to the barracks.

“Their provisional political role is accomplished (and) from the barracks they will occupy themselves with defending the nation,” Manigat said of Gen. Henri Namphy and Col. Williams Regala, strongmen of the army-dominated provisional government that has ruled Haiti since the two-generation Duvalier dictatorship over the impoverished island nation ended two years ago.

Opponents of the outgoing army-led government have charged that Namphy and Regala staged Manigat’s rise to power and plan to direct his civilian rule from behind the scenes.

Manigat gave no hint in his inaugural speech of knuckling under to his military predecessors, but neither did he criticize them. On the contrary, he praised Namphy’s role as president of the outgoing provisional government as “wholly positive” and said that for a civil government to function, “the collaboration of a democratic, modern army is indispensable.” In the future, he said in formal and at times scholarly French, the armed forces will work with the civilian government on public development projects.

While praising Namphy, Manigat said he “deplored” the violence that culminated in a bloody massacre at the polls in which the military was implicated last November. But in a broad policy statement that appeared directed both toward the military and former Duvalier supporters who participated in the bloodshed, Manigat said he would not seek revenge.

‘Peace, Unity, Work’

“A policy of social justice is not a policy of social vengeance but one of social integration,” he said, calling on all Haitians to join him in bringing “peace, unity, work, liberty and justice” to the long-suffering country.

“Let us recognize it, we had a narrow escape in this succession of crises that seemed to be taking us nowhere,” Manigat said, according to an unofficial translation of his inaugural speech. “To my adversaries of yesterday and today I say, let us be frank . . . the only possible strategy is reconciliation and national union.”

In a clear bid for renewed international financial help necessary to the depressed country’s survival, Manigat singled out the United States and Canada, which sharply cut back their economic aid last fall in protest over the Namphy government’s heavy-handed disruption of Haiti’s faltering attempts at democratic elections.

Aid Cutoff Recalled

Expressing satisfaction that despite the punitive cuts, both countries still maintain normal diplomatic relations with Haiti, Manigat plaintively reminded them that his new government was not responsible for the tragic events, which he deplored, that led to the aid cutoff.

Suggesting that the country’s major aid-givers overreacted in abruptly cutting back their economic programs, he complained that Haiti has been victimized by “a campaign of disinformation” concerning widely reported irregularities in the army-run election that brought him to power.

Noting that no Latin American countries followed the U.S.-Canadian lead in criticizing the Jan. 17 election, Manigat said “our brothers in Latin American understand well and do not try to teach others how to behave in their own houses.”

In another bid for U.S. support, Manigat stressed a determination to intensify efforts “against the worldwide plague of drugs.” Haiti has been used, allegedly with the active collaboration of at least some military officers, for the transshipment of drugs from Colombia to the United States.

Finally, Manigat articulated feelings that appeared to be on the minds of many Haitians who acknowledge being wearied and discouraged by their poverty and by two years of lost hopes for a smoother transition from the Duvalier dictatorship to democracy.

“The people can’t take any more,” he said. “They are tired of being hungry, of being sick, of being badly housed, of being without shoes and clothing, of being illiterate, of being unemployed, of being beaten, of being despised, of being badly off--in a word, of not being full-fledged citizens of this country.”

Manigat conceded that he could not promise “immediate abundance” to alleviate the suffering. Instead he offered a policy that he called “progressive austerity” which he said will slowly and steadily put Haiti back on its feet.