NEPTUNE. I don't see how it will work for reconciliation

Haiti's new prime minister, Gerard Latortue, tried to form a unity government yesterday to replace that of ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, but a tentative Cabinet list excluded members of Aristide's Lavalas Family party.

Following a US-backed plan, Latortue met with political leaders to form a new transitional government that must be approved by interim president, Boniface Alexandre, who is the chief justice of Haiti's Supreme Court.

An official involved in the process said 11 of 13 ministers had been chosen and no one from Aristide's administration was among them. The official said the list included:

. Yvon Simeon as foreign minister;

. Bernard Gousse, an anti-Aristide lawyer, as justice minister;

. Henri Bazan, president of the Haitian Association of Economists, as finance minister; and

. former general, Herard Abraham, as interior minister.

Aristide's former prime minister, Yvon Neptune, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that ignoring the Lavalas Family party would further split the country.

"There should at least be a sincere expression of accepting Lavalas as an organisation," Neptune said. Without Lavalas, he added, "I don't see how on that basis it will work for reconciliation. ... The plan was to try to set the stage for reconciliation."

Neptune, like most of Aristide's Cabinet, is in hiding. He said he was under the protection of peacekeeping forces. He resigned March 10 and was replaced by Latortue.

Jamaica's minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade, K D Knight, last night said while he had heard that a new Cabinet had been formed in Haiti, he was not sure of its make-up and had no official comment until he had been briefed.

He told the Observer, however, that he expected that any Cabinet selected would include members of the Lavalas Party which, he noted, was the majority party in the last elected Parliament in Haiti.

And yesterday, as Aristide and his wife, Mildred, spent their first full day of a 10-week visit in Jamaica, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered asylum to the ousted Haitian leader. Aristide had initially fled to Caracas after the 1991 coup.

"We don't recognise Haiti's new government. The president of Haiti is named Jean-Bertrand Aristide and he was elected by his people," said Chavez, who also accused the United States of removing Aristide.

In Haiti, Major Xavier Pons, a French military spokesman, said plans were underway to divide the country into four peacekeeping sectors. Each of the armed forces on the ground now - American, French, Chilean and Canadian - would patrol a separate area.

"We still don't know who will control where, but we should know by the end of the week," Pons said.

Police on Sunday arrested a dozen people, including key Aristide partisans, for alleged crimes ranging from murder to drug trafficking. No attempt was made to arrest convicted assassins among the rebellion leaders.

Neptune lamented that those rebels were "roaming free." He said it appeared that "there is some form of working relationship between them and the police force and that is very, very dangerous."

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