The burly senior officer who strode into Haitian army headquarters in Port- au-Prince last week was greeted by delighted shouts of "Paulo!" But Colonel % Jean-Claude Paul, commander of the 700 elite troops at the Dessalines barracks who make up Haiti's toughest fighting force, is far from universally adored. Critics call him a harsh commander whose soldiers have fired on unarmed civilians, and the U.S. indicted him in Miami last March for drug trafficking. Although Paul denies the charge, the indictment came to symbolize a growing rupture with the U.S. that threatened Haiti's desire to advance from turmoil to democracy.
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