18649: Esser: Our Haitian dilemma (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dominique Esser torx@joimail.com

Our Haitian dilemma

The Jamaica Observer
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com
Columns

David Jessop
Sunday, February 15, 2004

ARISTIDE. under pressure

Nearly 200 years ago Haiti's slaves overthrew their colonial masters.
Today the republic is again on the verge of a revolution. There is a
sense among opposition groups in Haiti that they can depose President
Aristide over time.

Violence has been steadily escalating. The Organisation of American
States' (OAS) monitoring team has all but removed itself on the
grounds of safety. Caricom's initiatives aimed at reconciliation
appear to be running into the ground and violence seems set to remove
any vestige that is left of Haitian democracy.

In the last week, the views of the various factions have been
polarising. There is a fear that recent events in which major cities
were taken by the opposition and then retaken by armed gangs loosely
associated with President Aristide, will be repeated. There is a
danger of civil war or the complete breakdown of what little order is
left. As a consequence, a view evolving is that to avoid a
substantial loss of life, an external intervention may be necessary.

For its part, the US has been consulting quietly at the United
Nations but is clearly reluctant to act in an election year. It fears
that whatever it does will be viewed politically in the light of the
implied failure of its previous intervention in 1994. Just as
problematic for the US administration are the continuing divisions in
the US Congress between supporters of President Aristide in the Black
Caucus and those in the Republican Party who see the need for the US
to exhibit leadership and policy coherence in what they believe is
the US' own hemisphere.

The result is that US officials are, for the time being, backing
diplomatic efforts to restore civil order and are stating that they
have no plans to intervene unilaterally. Their approach up to now has
been to seek hemispheric or regional solutions, but there are some
signs that if the violence escalates the US may find itself seeking a
multilateral intervention backed by the UN.
"Everyone is hopeful that the situation, which tends to ebb and flow
down there, will stay below a certain threshold ... we have no plans
to do anything," the US secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, is
quoted as having said.

France's foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, has been busy
apprising his counterparts in the EU, the US, Canada and elsewhere of
the need for a clear international stance. In an indication of the
waning international support for President Aristide in both Europe
and the US, the French minister in charge of European affairs, Noelle
Lenoir, told the French Senate that the Haitian president was not
honouring the many commitments he had made to the international
community. France was working with its main partners at the United
Nations, including the United States, to resolve the crisis, she told
senators.

The dangers are many. Haiti's economy is in ruins. Its government's
ability to provide even the most basic services is limited. It is
poor beyond belief when compared with the rest of the region. It has
an HIV/Aids epidemic that is the worst in the western hemisphere.
There is no security. It is already a centre for narcotics
trafficking and has the makings of a failed state with a location
that offers extraordinary opportunities for terrorists wishing harm
to the US and the Caribbean.

If the internal situation were to deteriorate further, the potential
for a humanitarian crisis is enormous, as is Haiti's ability to
destabilise the region through an exodus of economic refugees and
asylum seekers. All of the republic's near neighbours, including
Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Puerto
Rico already have more Haitian refugees than they know what to do
with; which is to say nothing of the problems the United States
faces. In recognition of this, the US is already preparing its base
in Guantanamo for an influx of refugees.

While Haiti's problems are unique in the western hemisphere, they
point as well to the difficulties that disparities in wealth, the
absence of development and the process of economic globalisation are
causing across the world.

In Europe for instance, the issue of economic refugees and asylum
seeking now comes close to the top of the political agenda in almost
every single member state of the European Union (EU). Opinion polls
show that electorates across much of Europe are concerned that EU
enlargement after May 1, and the admission of 10 new member states
may result in large numbers of citizens from the less well-off
nations of eastern Europe seeking to migrate to the EU's wealthier
member states.

While most studies by reputable bodies suggest the nature of any such
problem has been vastly exaggerated, popular opinion is leading many
EU governments to adopt policies that contradict some of the basic
elements of a single market. The consequence is that the majority of
existing member states are changing their minds about opening their
labour markets. They are opting instead to maintain control quotas
for periods of between two and seven years, despite knowing that
immigration is likely to become a necessity as aging populations
reduce the numbers available for the workforce.

The Caribbean is little different. The region accepts the principle
of the free movement of labour and for the most part, enacted during
2003 the necessary legislation or regulations to enable the free
movement of university graduates, artistes, media workers, musicians
and sportspersons. However, there are still many bureaucratic hurdles
to be overcome and little sign of the extension of such rights to
other categories of workers.

The Caribbean and the OAS need to find a way to resolve Haiti's
seemingly intractable political problems. It may now be too late. If
the hemisphere cannot do so with all interested parties, the region
may be faced once again with an externally-organised and -led
intervention with uncertain long-term consequences for the republic's
long-suffering people.

- David Jessop is the director of the Caribbean Council and can be
contacted at david.jessop@caribbean-council.org

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