HAITI: Fignole Falls

"Cote li, cote li?" cried the black workers of Port-au-Prince last week, tears in their eyes. But Daniel Fignole, their idol, could not tell them where he was. He had gone. Nineteen days after he vaulted to power as Provisional President, the silver-tongued mathematics professor, who boasted he could unleash a "steam roller" of black supporters, fell without a shot fired. He went meekly into exile, and was replaced by a military junta.

Fanatic Daniel Fignole suffered the disability of excessive ambition. Lunging too fast for power, he postponed the presidential elections originally set for June 16, then maneuvered to...