U.S. Hands Over Peacekeeper Role in Haiti to U.N. : Caribbean: Clinton, Aristide praise American troops’ aid in restoring order. But divisions linger, and the President warns that ‘the task ahead will not be easy.’

After six months as guardians of Haitian order, U.S. forces formally turned over peacekeeping duties to the United Nations on Friday, opening a new and risky chapter in the Caribbean nation’s fitful experiment with democracy.

President Clinton joined Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in hailing the U.S. military’s success in displacing a dictatorship and setting a democratically elected government on its course.

With the arrival of 20,000 U.S. troops in September, “the water of violence was transformed to the wine of peace,” Aristide declared as he and Clinton stood partially shielded by bulletproof panels at the Presidential Palace.

The two leaders’ appearance in front of the whitewashed French Colonial-style palace before a color-splashed crowd made a striking tableau. Despite their mutual congratulations, lingering divisions floated near the surface, and there were repeated references to the instability of a country chronically torn by upheaval during its 191-year history.

“The task ahead will not be easy,” Clinton said. “Democracy does not flow naturally like the rivers.”

Democratically elected in 1990, Aristide was forced into exile by a September, 1991, coup and was restored to power only after the military leaders were forced abroad or underground by the U.S. invasion. Friday’s ceremonies gave peacekeeping authority to a 6,000-soldier U.N. contingent that is scheduled to remain on duty until February.

Clinton gently prodded the Aristide government to do more to include the opposition in the nation’s new institutions.

“You must move forward together, with tolerance, openness and cooperation,” Clinton said.

Later, to underscore the point, Clinton met with conservative opposition members who are part of a newly formed commission set up to organize elections in June and December.

The official transfer of power came in an afternoon ceremony outside the palace, with U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali accepting U.N. responsibility as soldiers from some of the 37 national contingents looked on.

Clinton’s visit to Haiti was the first by a U.S. President since July, 1934, when Franklin D. Roosevelt officially marked the end of the Marines’ 19-year occupation of the nation. It also is the first time in 148 years of U.S. troop deployments in Latin America that the United States has backed a leftist-populist regime.

In a private chat with Aristide, Clinton brought up Tuesday’s slaying of a former anti-Aristide spokeswoman, Mireille Durocher, which some witnesses have linked to Interior Minister Mondesir Beaubrun.

Durocher’s slaying has raised alarms about increasing crime and has divided the Haitian administration and some U.S. officials, who have pushed Aristide to move quickly to investigate Beaubrun.

But Clinton strongly defended Aristide on Friday, saying that “as soon as the incident occurred, President Aristide asked for help.”

Separately, U.S. Ambassador William L. Swing suggested that the FBI team that has arrived in Haiti to investigate the murder is taking seriously the possibility that it was the work of right-wing Haitians trying to discredit the Aristide government.

In such “transitional” societies, he said, “people often use high-profile assassinations to . . . derail a process,” he said. “So we’re looking at it very much from that angle.”

The Aristide government and other Haitians have pressed the United States to act swiftly to start rebuilding roads and infrastructure so that an economy that has shrunk 50% in three years can begin regeneration. The Clinton Administration, which spent $1.3 billion on Haiti in 1994 and 1995, has signaled that it cannot continue to spend such sums.

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But Clinton largely avoided any direct reminders of U.S. plans to scale back. He instead stressed the U.S. commitment to help build institutions such as the courts, the electoral system and the police, and to contribute aid through international institutions.

He told the crowd of a planned U.S. program to pave 620 miles of roads. And later this year, he said, he is dispatching the Peace Corps to help replant millions of trees to cover a largely denuded rural landscape.

In his appearance in Haiti, Clinton was celebrating the success of a project that he began reluctantly--and against the wishes of most Americans and most members of Congress. GOP leaders in Congress are watching the situation with eagle eyes, ready to pounce on Clinton if it begins to unravel.

Yet the Haiti mission has become the proudest example of a U.S. intervention in his term, one of the bright spots of his foreign policy.

At a cost of one soldier’s life, Clinton has reinstalled a democratic government and halted a threatened tide of thousands of immigrants. And while most analysts do not underestimate the likelihood of setbacks, many believe that even if the new order erodes, it will do so slowly enough that Clinton will probably escape most of the blame.

Despite complaints that the pace of economic improvement is too slow, Haitians are no longer building boats to flee to Florida.

Clinton used the visit to strengthen his strained ties to the U.S. military. In two visits to the 1,700-troop Warrior Base, a makeshift encampment just outside Port-au-Prince, he lavished praise on the “best . . . fighting force in the world. . . . You kept our word.”

African American politicians, an important domestic constituency for U.S. involvement in Haiti, were well-represented in the delegation that accompanied him. They included Rep. Donald M. Payne (D-N.J.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.), former Black Caucus chairman, and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.).

In his talk with Aristide, Clinton stressed the high priority he attaches to rebuilding the economy, which suffers from 75% unemployment.

Since Aristide’s return, only about 40 of 200 Haitian manufacturing assembly companies have reopened. They employ about 10,000 of the 50,000 people who once worked in the private sector.

Manufacturing and agriculture are the two principal enterprises for the country of 7 million, but many business people in those sectors have balked at reopening their doors, fearing that violence will destroy their investments.

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The new peacekeeping force of 6,000 will ultimately include about 2,400 Americans, along with soldiers from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Canada, Colombia and a smattering of Caribbean and Asian nations. At its head will be an American, Maj. Gen. Joe Kinzer.

Senior Administration officials say they have no illusions about the formidable obstacles to democracy in Haiti. “Political institutions are fragile, about as fragile as its electrical generators,” one said this week.