12247: Powell's response on OAS diplomatic missions to Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Merrie Archer <MArcher@nchr.org>

FYI
Opening Remarks and Q&A With the Press Following OAS General Assembly

Secretary Colin L. Powell
Bridgetown, Barbados
June 3, 2002

QUESTION: ...twenty missions in Haiti, all of them failed? So what is
your... excuse me, so what is your (inaudible)?

SECRETARY POWELL: It is not the missions that have failed. It is the
political leaders in Haiti who have failed. And the political leaders in
Haiti must take the ultimate responsibility for resolving the political
crisis that keeps the international community from providing the kind of
help that the Haitian people deserve. And so we hope now that once again the
OAS will be able to use its good offices to help bring a political solution
to Haiti. But it's not the failure of the missions; it's the failure of the
parties in Haiti who should be desperately searching for a solution to help
their people.
Meanwhile, the United States will continue to provide quite a bit of aid to
the people of Haiti. It's been over $300 million in the last several years,
$73 million last year; it's going to be $20 million this year, and a total
of about a $100 million contribution to the people of Haiti in this two-year
period upcoming. So we are doing everything we can to give hope to the
people of Haiti, political hope to the OAS delegation, but also financial
assistance.
But Haiti needs more than that. It needs the assistance of the international
financial community, the international financial institutions; but it is
difficult to provide that kind of aid until there is political stability so
that the money will be invested in a proper way in a country that has
political stability and a government that is functioning. Without that, it
is difficult to persuade, and it seems to us to be not the smartest thing in
the world to do to send money into that kind of unstable political
environment. Thank you.