16958: (Hermantin) Miami-Herald-U.S. must finish the job in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Thu, Oct. 16, 2003

DEMOCRACY
U.S. must finish the job in Haiti
BY PETER HAKIM and DAN ERIKSON
www.washpost.com

President Bush's national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, declared
regarding U.S. policy in Iraq: ''When Americans begin a noble cause, we
finish it.'' Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright echoed Rice's
words in Foreign Affairs magazine, writing that Democrats ``believe in
finishing the jobs we start.''

The experience in nearby Haiti refutes both of their claims.

Deeper into misery

It has been nine years since President Clinton ordered U.S. soldiers into
Haiti to replace a military junta with elected president Jean-Bertrand
Aristide. During that span, Haiti and its eight million people have fallen
deeper and deeper into misery. Its economy is stagnant, and its political
institutions are broken.

The Bush administration's top Latin American official, Roger Noriega, blames
Haiti's plight on its leadership. He is mostly right. The government of
Haiti -- led by Aristide in 1994 and 1995, then by his handpicked successor,
Rene Preval, and again by Aristide since 2001 -- has been the biggest
culprit in the country's unrelenting deterioration. Indeed, the withdrawal
of most foreign support was provoked by the Haitian government's failure to
uphold the rule of law or conduct fair elections.

Still, no one can argue seriously that the United States came even close to
completing the job that it undertook in Haiti. A recent Rand Corp. study
concluded that the Clinton administration and Congress never put in the
resources required and pulled the plug too early. The United States
essentially gave up on Haiti after only a few years of ``nation building.''

It needs international aid

Just like Iraq and Afghanistan, Haiti desperately needs an engaged United
States to stem its slide toward becoming a failed state. Its rates of
illiteracy, malnutrition and disease put it at the same level as sub-Saharan
Africa's drought- and war-ravaged nations. As food shortages and
unemployment worsen, a refugee emergency for Florida and many Caribbean
countries may be in the making.

A several-fold expansion of international aid will be required to make even
modest progress in controlling widespread hunger and malnutrition, providing
basic sanitation services, preventing the spread of diseases such as
HIV/AIDS, combating illiteracy and reducing joblessness.

There are good reasons for cutting off aid to the Aristide government,
including its manipulation of election results, intimidation of opposition
leaders and endemic corruption. But the extreme destitution of ordinary
Haitians makes withholding support a callous instrument for promoting
political change.

This argument is beginning to take hold in some quarters. With the
encouragement of the Bush administration, the Inter-American Development
Bank is once again lending to Haiti, and the World Bank may soon follow
suit.

True, safeguards are required to ensure that aid money will not be misused,
wasted or stolen by inept and corrupt officials, but that set of problems is
not unique to Haiti. Aid organizations face such concerns in virtually all
of the world's poorest countries.

Perhaps more important than aid, the Haitian Economic Recovery and
Opportunity Act is awaiting congressional approval. This would extend trade
preferences to Haiti's apparel industry -- helping to propel job growth and
economic expansion.

Right now, Haiti's most vital political task is to hold clean and credible
elections. Its constitution calls for legislative elections by the end of
this year and a presidential race in November 2005 -- a little more than two
years away. If the presidential election is conducted lawfully, Haiti will
have a new leader in 2006. Aristide, having served two terms, is
constitutionally barred from ever running again. Sure, his party could win,
and Aristide will almost certainly retain some political clout. But once he
is out of office, his hammerlock on Haitian politics would end.

Haiti is also an important test of whether the governments of the hemisphere
are truly committed to protecting and advancing democratic rule -- an
objective to which they all pledged when they signed the so-called
Inter-American Democratic Charter on Sept. 11, 2001.

Haiti is not just Washington's problem; every nation in the Western
Hemisphere is tarnished by Haiti's deepening distress.

Peter Hakim is president of the Inter-American Dialogue, and Dan Erikson is
the Dialogue's specialist on Haitian and Cuban affairs.

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