15309: Hermantin: Sun-Sentinel-A civil solution to crisis (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

A civil solution to crisis
By James R. Morrell

April 8, 2003

Once again, the Lavalas regime in Haiti has failed to meet the Organization
of American States' most recent deadline to demonstrate its good faith by
taking substantive action to establish minimum conditions of public security
and confidence. These measures would have finally permitted the formation of
a credible Provisional Electoral Council and the initiation of a transparent
electoral process, leading to free and fair national and local elections, as
called for by the OAS Permanent Council.

Government maneuvering since the recent visit of a high-level OAS delegation
has been universally decried as a series of empty gestures. Indeed, some of
the regime's putative "responses" -- including the appointment of the
president's unqualified personal cronies to command positions within the
Haitian National Police -- seem expressly aimed at making a mockery of both
the growing outcry against impunity from within Haiti and the international
community's mediation efforts. Meanwhile, the continuing repression of
peaceful dissent, the persistence of threats against civic and opposition
leaders, the ongoing suppression of a free press and a series of
well-documented attempts to unduly influence the judicial process give the
lie to the regime's disingenuous protestations to the contrary.

A comprehensive report from the OAS's own Special Mission for Strengthening
Democracy in Haiti documents this latest failure. Consideration of the
report has been deferred until later this month.

Clearly, the time has come for the OAS's Permanent Council to invoke Article
20 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter , and move to convene a special
session of the General Assembly to consider the suspension of Haiti from the
exercise of its right to participate in the OAS.

By invoking Article 20, the Permanent Council would explicitly acknowledge
that an unconstitutional alteration of Haiti's constitutional regime has
seriously impaired democratic order in that country, and that its diplomatic
initiatives have thus far proved unsuccessful in fostering the restoration
of democracy.

After more than two years of fruitless effort and in response to the
regime's continued recalcitrance, such an acknowledgement is appropriate.
Its effect will be to increase the urgency of diplomatic efforts to resolve
the Haitian crisis and to focus those efforts on changing the behavior of
the principal actors responsible for the continuing impasse: the Haitian
state and its single-party governing apparatus.

Simultaneously, the Permanent Council should resolve to advocate the
formation, and support the efforts, of a transitional administration in
Haiti, charged with addressing the country's immediate humanitarian,
economic and security crises. Perhaps as much as two years may be required
to achieve this objective, but there is simply no other alternative if Haiti
is ever to return to the path of democratic reform.

Modeled on the OAS-brokered formula that provided the consensual basis for
constituting a new Provisional Electoral Council, any new formula for
creating a transitional government would be anchored by a preponderance of
civil society participation and oversight, although it might well include
limited political party involvement as well.

The creation of a credible and internationally sanctioned transitional
administration would have sufficient impact to jump-start the long-delayed
electoral process, by overcoming the reticence of civil society and
opposition groups to authorize their delegates' participation on the
Electoral Council while the Lavalas party retains control.

Moreover, the Permanent Council's charting of such a course at this juncture
would have the additional virtue of recognizing that the international
community's most important ally in the effort to restore democratic
functionality to Haiti must be Haitian civil society itself, which in recent
months has demonstrated that it is able to transcend the internecine
political wrangling and ready to act in the higher interests of the nation.

Not only the recently formed civic coalition known as the "Group of 184,"
but other organized elements of Haitian civil society from across the
ideological spectrum, including the established churches, should immediately
be called upon by the OAS to become full partners in the search for a
lasting solution to this persistent crisis -- a crisis whose origins are
clearly political, but whose resolution must, finally, be civil.

James R. Morrell is the executive director of the Haiti Democracy Project,
an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.


Copyright © 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel


_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail