Istwa Nou

Legislative elections on 20 January 1991 passed without incident and with light turnout, leaving Aristide to face a chamber he did not control. Rumours in late January that Lafontant would be freed from jail brought barricades and burning tyres to the poor quarters; four macoutes were lynched and six people died as the army cleared the streets. Aristide left as planned for two days of talks in France with Francois Mitterrand. George Bush stayed away from the inauguration on 7 February 1991 and sent his ambassador and his health secretary instead. Aristide, thirty seven years old and from Port Salut, took the oath and accepted the blue and red sash from a peasant woman, then went to the cathedral for the traditional Te Deum while the ruins of the church burned a month earlier still smoked a few hundred yards away. He retired six of the army's eight generals with thanks for their service and named Raoul Cedras chief of staff. The next day he announced that Fort Dimanche, the Duvalier torture prison, would become a museum.