Security Council Suspends Its Sanctions Against Haiti

With a new prime minister about to be sworn in by elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti, the U.N. Security Council on Friday suspended an embargo that had crippled the economy of the Caribbean’s poorest nation.

Robert Malval, a wealthy publisher, is scheduled to take the oath of office in a ceremony Monday at the Haitian Embassy in Washington. Aristide, the island’s only democratically elected chief executive, has lived in Washington since being driven into exile two years ago in a military coup.

Under a U.N.-brokered peace agreement signed July 3 by Aristide and Gen. Raoul Cedras, the military commander who deposed him, Aristide is scheduled to return to power Oct. 30, once Malval’s government has a chance to begin functioning.

The same pact calls for suspension of the U.N. embargo once a prime minister was in place and for its repeal after Aristide returns to the island.

The Security Council approved the suspension in a 15-0 vote Friday, concluding that Malval’s inauguration Monday is merely a formality. The council warned, however, that it would reimpose the embargo if Haiti fails to make steady progress in ending the human rights violations that have marked the military’s two years in power.

The vacation White House press office issued a statement in Edgartown, Mass., lauding “steady progress toward achieving President Clinton’s firm goal of restoring democracy in Haiti.” It said the Treasury Department was moving to suspend U.S. trade restrictions on Haiti and permit new transactions with the newly formed government there.

The Security Council had imposed the embargo June 16 after sanctions imposed by the Organization of American States had proven ineffective in restoring Aristide to office. The U.N. measures, which included a worldwide oil and arms embargo and a freeze on Haitian financial assets abroad, is credited with forcing Cedras to agree to yield power.

Nevertheless, Aristide has complained that human rights abuses by the military have gotten worse since the July 3 agreement. The Haitian president said he will ask the Security Council to reimpose the embargo if the situation does not improve promptly after Malval takes office.

U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali on Thursday proposed sending a team of 1,100 U.N. police and construction experts to Haiti to restore law and order and begin rebuilding the economy.

The U.N. force would include 500 police monitors to help train a new civilian police force to replace the military-dominated security forces, which have been accused of severe human rights abuses.

About 60 other military advisers and 500 military construction experts are expected to help reform the army and train Haitians in road and other public engineering projects.