13828: Craig-Article: Haiti Unrest Could Rattle Washington (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <dgcraig@att.net>


 Haiti Unrest Could Rattle Washington
November 27, 2002
By REUTERS
Filed at 1:04 p.m. ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - A wave of unrest in Haiti has exposed
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's shaky rule and if the
situation unravels further could pose an unwelcome problem
for President Bush.

At a time when Washington's focus abroad is on its
continuing drive against terrorism and possible war in
Iraq, the prospect of turmoil in the Caribbean and a flow
of boat people would be awkward for the United States,
analysts said .

Over the past week, dissatisfaction with Aristide and with
a worsening economy has flared, with thousands of people
calling for the president's ouster in rallies in several
cities across the impoverished Caribbean nation.
Counter-protesters have turned out, and violence has
erupted sporadically.

"The big question is whether Aristide is going to
understand that he has no future," said Timothy Carney, a
former U.S. ambassador to Haiti. "Without massive reform,
Haiti is once again headed for kind of chaos that has
intermittently dogged its history."

Henry Carey, a political science professor at Georgia State
University, said he did not think Aristide's rule was
threatened for the moment, but added the government had
again shown it had to use force to quell unrest.

Eight years after sending in troops to invade Haiti and
restore Aristide to power, U.S. policy on Haiti revolved
largely on avoiding avoid a mass influx of refugees, Carey
said. Washington can ensure this as long as the Coast Guard
continues to intercept and repatriate boat people trying to
get to Florida, he said.

"The Bush administration is not going to get involved (in
an intervention) in Haiti," Carey added.

However, some analysts say the United States would be
rattled by a possible boat people exodus. The Coast Guard,
which intercepted some 25,000 Haitians at sea during an
exodus in 1994, has a new focus on security after the Sept.
11 attacks on the United States.

The U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba -- used in
the past as a staging post for Haitian boat people --
currently serves as a prison for Taliban and al Qaeda
suspects from the Afghan war.

INVASION PUT ARISTIDE BACK IN POWER

After years of bloody dictatorships, Haiti's fragile
democracy was barely taking root when Aristide, a former
Roman Catholic priest who had been elected on a wave of
grass-roots support, was ousted in a military coup just
seven months into his first term in 1991.

President Bill Clinton sent in 20,000 U.S. troops in 1994
to reinstate Aristide. But Washington's relations with
Aristide have soured as critics contend he has used a heavy
hand with political opponents and the country has failed to
hold credible elections.

Some argue the U.S. invasion should have been followed up
with more "nation building" -- both to work on reforming
the economy and solidifying Haiti's democracy.

"We shouldn't have just upped and left," said James
Morrell, an advisor to Aristide while in exile and now head
of a policy group called the Haiti Democracy Project. "We
should have stayed to ensure good institutions were
established."

Morrell said the current situation in Haiti "has the look
of the beginning of the unraveling, but that's as far as
you could go. I don't see any evidence Aristide is going to
leave or be pushed out."

Aristide stepped aside as constitutionally mandated in
1996, his place taken by protege Rene Preval. He was
re-elected in 2000 for a second term that has been marked
by a bitter feud with the main political opposition over
the results of parliamentary elections in 2000 and
increasing disillusion among many of the country's 8
million inhabitants as living conditions worsen in the
poorest country in the Americas.

Foreign donor countries have withheld aid worth hundreds of
millions of dollars because of the stalemate over the
elections. Aristide's government has blamed this for many
of the country's current woes.

Washington has been strongly critical of Aristide.

"On virtually all fronts, from the timely accounting of its
actions taken with respect to the political violence of
last December, to ending impunity, to disarmament, to
reparations, to counternarcotics, to election security, the
government has simply not moved with enough purpose or
effectiveness," said then-assistant secretary of state for
the western hemisphere Otto Reich in October.

For Lawrence Pezzullo, a retired ambassador who was special
envoy to Haiti under Clinton and is a stern critic of
Aristide, the 1994 invasion showed military action was not
a ticket to democracy. He said the experience could be a
lesson for Washington if it is to seek to replace Iraq's
President Saddam Hussein.

"I don't think using troops creates democracy," Pezzullo
said. "Before you go talking about knocking over somebody,
you had better think where you're going to go with it."

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-haiti-usa.html?ex=1039425149&ei=1&en=bb706bb708e8cc31
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company