Haiti's improved police force

December 6, 1994

The opinion-page article ``Haiti Needs Police From the Community,'' Nov. 23, contends that our agents in Haiti didn't involve its people in setting up a new police force. Instead, the US relied on the old attaches operating under the military junta.

In a primitive country like Haiti, people are poor and uneducated, with no democratic experience. There aren't many men with appropriate backgrounds just running around loose.

But the US has done a better job in Haiti than most people expected. It is interesting to note that anything going wrong down there gets a play in the media (riots, killing, corruption) whereas any quiet success and slow improvement is ignored. Bruce Stewart, Ashland, Ore.

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