By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
QUITO, Jan 23
- Ecuador's new president Gustavo Noboa named
some of his
cabinet members Sunday following 48 hours of
upheaval that
saw the ouster of his predecessor, former president Jamil
Mahuad, in a
bloodless military coup.
However Noboa had yet to name the key figure of defense minister.
"Peace, progress
and justice," Noboa said as he entered Carondelet
presidential
palace in Quito's historic center.
The narrow streets
leading to the presidential palace remained blocked
off late Sunday
by knots of soldiers in combat gear, standing guard
behind giant
rolls of razor wire.
In an emergency
session Saturday, the Ecuadoran legislature approved
Noboa as the
country's new president. The 61-year-old university
professor had
for almost a year and a half been vice president to
Mahuad, who
was ousted in a bloodless military coup, overnight Friday
to Saturday.
Noboa earlier
said that he would maintain a state of emergency
throughout the
country and keep in place Mahuad's controversial
economic program
that replaces the local currency with the US dollar.
At 1 p.m. (1800
GMT) Sunday Noboa, flanked by the heads of the
army, navy and
air force, announced the first seven members of his new
cabinet.
The most important
job of minister of government -- the equivalent of
prime minister
-- was handed to Francisco Huerta, a doctor and former
health minister.
Huerta unsuccessfully
ran for the presidency twice as a member of
Popular Democracy
Party (DP). On becoming minister, he has resigned
his job as assistant
editor of the Expreso newspaper of Guayaquil, one of
the country's
leading newspapers.
Noboa also announced
new ministers of tourism, health, social welfare,
public administration,
education and public works.
Noboa said seven
more ministerial appointments, including the key
positions of
defense and foreign affairs, would be announced by
Tuesday.
Huerta assured
reporters that the new government enjoyed full support
from the armed
forces, and said that freedom of the press would be fully
respected.
He said that
changes among the top military hierarchy would be the result
of "consultations".
The new government had so far made only one such
appointment,
naming General Telmo Sandoval as commander in chief of
the armed forces,
Huerta said.
"Let's not continue
lamenting the past, but rather build the future," Huerta
added, saying
that the Noboa administration "will repress protests" within
the framework
of the law.
Noboa took control
of Ecuador's government early Saturday, after a
three-man military
junta that deposed Mahuad handed power over to
him. He will
remain in office until January 2003, completing Mahuad's
term.
On a picture-perfect
Sunday there was no sign in Quito of the 10,000
mainly indigenous
protestors who had occupied the city for several days.
On Friday the
members of an umbrella organization known as the
Confederation
of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE)
stormed the
congress building and the presidential palace itself, bringing
the Mahuad presidency
to its knees.
Protesters demanded
Mahuad's resignation because of deteriorating
economic conditions
that included a dramatic fall in the value of the
national currency,
the sucre.
CONAIE ended
its protest on Saturday, and by Sunday all that
remained was
leftover trash and smoldering ashes from their camp fires in
the city parks.
After presenting
his cabinet Noboa flew to his hometown of Guayaquil,
the country's
largest city, to cast his vote in a previously scheduled
referendum on
increased provincial autonomy.
The measure was easily approved, according to late Sunday exit polls.
A political independent,
Noboa has a distinguished academic career that
includes ten
years as head of the private Catholic University of
Guayaquil. He
was also briefly the governor of Guayas province.
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company