14907: Knowles: Re: 14889: Benodin: Knowles comment on Stephen Johnson analysis (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Phil Knowles <Phildk@prodigy.net>

That Stephen Johnson/Heritage article is a really excellent review, and
posits some solid suggestions.

But I cannot accept his description of the Cedras coup:   "Within a  year,
his presidency collapsed. He was replaced by a repressive military junta,
sparking an exodus of rafters.."
This hardly hints at the terror throughout Haiti during the Cedras rule. The
estimates of victims range widely - 3,000 to 5,000 people killed. Rape and
torture were commonplace; parents killed or raped in front of their
children.  Dismissing a 3 year reign of terror with one word "repressive"
discredits the author's objectivity.

It is standard conservative US analysis that  "The invasion, misnamed
Operation Restore Democracy, was not the foreign policy slam dunk
policymakers claimed it was".  Well, I think there's only a half truth
there.  He's dead wrong - our intervention did 'restore democracy'.  I was
there, I saw and felt the difference. Signs saying "Yankee, 50 years" were
common.  There were critics who said we did not do enough to find and
collect weapons, though I could never understand how we could conduct house
to house searches. But the intervention restored the elected President to
his office, and banished the rule of terror experienced under Cedras. We
completely changed an atmosphere of fear to a sense of safety and freedom.
We replaced a dictator with a freely elected president and the
Haitian-written constitution. I say "we" loosely - there was substantial
UN/OAS presence when I was there.
But I agree it certainly was not "a slam dunk" in the long run. After
restoring order and building some roads and other infrastructure, we left.
Our 20,000 troops in September were reduced to 6,000 by year end, and down
to 500 later the next year. We said we had no territorial ambitions, and we
meant it. I agree with Mr. Johnson's analysis that we ....."pinned their
hopes on the belief that this charismatic leader, not the painstaking
construction of durable political institutions, could lead Haiti into a new
era of democratic governance".

The history since our intervention has included some efforts to improve
literacy, the beginnings of a decent police force, and most remarkably the
abolition of the army  (an idea proposed by the president of Costa Rica).
But today Haiti is a dreadful basket case, and its president has lost the
loyalty of huge numbers of former believers.  Things seem to get gradually
worse, not better, and the buck stops at the door of the president. No one
can claim a "slam dunk".

Phil Knowles