18711: Esser: Don't lose time Uncle Sam (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

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

Don't lose time Uncle Sam

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

We are only mildly encouraged by what appears to have been tentative
US support for the initiative by Caribbean Community (Caricom) states
aimed at ending the worsening political crisis in Haiti.

Frankly, we had hoped for far more.

We had expected that the United States would have grasped the
opportunity to help pull Haiti back from the brink and vigorously
throw the full force of its weight and moral authority behind the
rule of law and the democratic process in that country.

That did not happen. Instead, Mr K D Knight and other members of the
Caricom delegation who visited Washington last week to pitch their
initiative to the State Department, were, it would seem, largely
humoured.

They came away with nothing concrete and bankable from either
Secretary of State Powell or the Assistant Secretary for Western
Hemisphere Affairs, Mr Roger Noriega.

As it now stands, the lukewarm signal from the US is that the
Kingston Accord - which President Jean-Bertrand Aristide undertook to
fulfill - will do little to halt the attempt at a coup d'etat against
Haiti's elected leader and that unhappy country's relentless lurch
towards civil war.

Indeed, the true character of the violence in Haiti is becoming more
and more apparent. It has, for example, emerged that Louis-Jodel
Chamblain, who in the late 1980s headed an army death squad, is now
operating in Gonaives, the port city that is in the hands of thugs.

This is the same Chamblain who headed the militia called Front for
the Advancement of Progressive (FRAPH) that massacred hundreds of
people in the early 1990s during the period leading up to the
toppling of Aristide's first presidency and afterwards. Guy
Phillippe, a former police chief, who attempted a failed coup against
Mr Aristide in 2002, before fleeing to the Dominican Republic, has
also been seen in Gonaives.

These two notorious figures are hardly teaching Sunday school in the city.

The official opposition, so-called, has occasionally, and
half-heartedly, sought to claim distance between themselves and those
who are behind the violence. Yet they do not seem averse to being its
beneficiary.

In this regard, their behaviour, in several respects, is more
egregious than those who pull the trigger. For the embrace of
violence and events such as Gonaives runs counter to the logic of
democracy.

Moreover, there can be no morality in this violence. It is impatient
of argument that despite flaws in Haiti's election process President
Aristide's victory in November 2000 by and large represented the will
of the Haitian people.
There is legitimacy to his presidency.

We believe that Mr Aristide has not been expansive enough in his
approach to building Haitian institutions.

But the removal of a president who has lost popular support is to be
done in democratic elections, not by being shot out of office and the
fomenting of civil war. Indeed, the United States, after their own
flawed presidential election in 2000, demonstrated that there are
ways other than through violence to resolve conflicts in democratic
society.

It is time, we feel, for the United States to speak in more than
non-specific generalities about Haiti. And what it says should affirm
democracy rather than a round-about, shadowy encouragement to the
opposition for illigitimate overthrow of an elected leader.

There is a perfectly workable set of initiatives outlined by Caricom
and Secretary Powell should tell the opposition that it should get
onboard - and quickly. It should be pellucid that there will be no
reward for violence.

In any event, Mr Powell should hardly want to be on the same side as
those unsavoury pieces of work - Chamblain and Phillippe.

.