18782: radtimes: Washington Must Dramatically Raise its Profile Regarding Haiti or Await the Deluge (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Washington Must Dramatically Raise its Profile Regarding Haiti or Await the
Deluge

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb04/Birns-Leight0218.htm

by Larry Birns and Jessica Leight
February 18, 2004

Unlike his U.S. counterpart, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin
has said that his government is considering dispatching French troops to
Haiti as part of an international police force to put down the present
violence in the country. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Colin Powell must do
more than simply say that he is "disappointed" with the quality of
leadership that Jean Bertrand Aristide has afforded Haiti. In response to
Powell's statement, many Haitians could respond that despite Aristide's many
shortcomings, his level of performance compares favorably to the Bush
administration's failed strategy towards the island, which has been based on
freezing all aid to Aristide and waiting for the inevitable chaos to
descend. Throughout Aristide's three-year exile in Washington and after his
restoration to the presidency in 1994 (after a U.S.-led regional force
landed in Haiti), Washington has treated the Haitian president as a
potentially dangerous figure who must be curbed in order to fence off his
radical politics and messianic tendencies. Instead, all along Aristide
should have been viewed as Haiti's most precious political asset, regardless
of his personal failings. Yet, even from a narrowly defined perspective of
serving U.S. national interests and Bush administration reelection concerns
centered on the negative impact that hordes of Haitian refugees sailing to
south Florida would have on the president's campaign, Washington, beginning
with the Clinton administration, has maintained an indefensible policy
towards Aristide since he came into office upon winning two-thirds of the
vote in the 1990 election. Similarly, throughout Haiti's history, Washington
has treated the island with a mixture of low expectations, unrelieved
disrespect and a policy devoid of any desire for constructive engagement or
democratic advancement.

Washington's Carefully Contrived Pretext

At the end of the 1990s, the IDB and other international lending agencies,
along with the U.S. and other international donors, promised Haiti a total
package of some $500 million for relief and development purposes. However,
Washington, at the insistence of Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), then-chairman
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, instituted a policy of
exaggerating the magnitude of disputed legislative elections in May of 2000
and using them to craft a policy of economic denial against Aristide based
on the thesis that pledged donor aid to the country would be frozen until
free elections were staged. About this time, the Democratic Convergence was
formed, representing a coalition of disparate personalities and micro
organizations, including former followers of the Duvalier dictatorship, the
thuggish paramilitary force, FRAPH, and remnants of the harsh military junta
that ruled the country until 1994. More recently, it was joined by the Group
of 184, led by the very controversial André Apaid, a shady and notoriously
opportunistic island millionaire who illegally holds both Haitian and U.S.
passports, and who was involved in a personal tax fraud case with Haitian
authorities.

In recent months, Washington's calculated inaction and the OAS' lack of
political will have allowed the situation in Haiti to rapidly deteriorate.
The Bush administration's new leadership team appointed to implement U.S.
policy toward Latin America, including Haiti, which featured Assistant
Secretary of State Roger Noriega, White House advisor Otto Reich and Noriega
's assistant Daniel Fisk, were all protégés of ex-Senator Helms. It was this
group of zealots and hardliners who, off the record, let it be known to all
concerned, that the Bush administration would countenance regime change in
Haiti and that Aristide might have to be induced to step down in order to
return stability to the country. In the last few days, as the situation in
Haiti began to worsen, Secretary Powell, as he did once before when
Washington had fallen on its face after his keystone cop team led by Otto
Reich had prematurely recognized what turned out to be a failed coup in
Venezuela, seized control of the issue by reversing Noriega and Reich and
clearly stating that the U.S. would not recognize the overthrow of Aristide,
as was also the Secretary of State's position when it came to President
Chávez in Caracas.

A Deeply Flawed U.S. Policy

After months of inaction, the U.S. has continued to base its policy towards
Haiti on its freeze of aid and a series of political conditions that would
have to be met before the freeze would be lifted. It persuaded Ottawa and
Brussels to follow this policy, which also has been adopted by the OAS. Yet
even though Aristide repeatedly has agreed to adopt these conditions,
Washington showed no interest in advancing the pacification of the country
or decisively addressing the now rapidly deteriorating economic and
political conditions on the island. At this point, it is imperative that the
Bush administration replace its present team of ideologues with seasoned
policymakers who would be more responsive to hemispheric realities. At the
present time, something of a crisis exists not only with the carrying out of
U.S.-Haiti policy, but also in the general tenor of Washington's ties with
the rest of the hemisphere. In recent weeks, a flap broke out between
Noriega and Argentine President Néstor Kirchner, in which the latter
insisted that his country would no longer be the "carpet" for U.S.
policymakers and a high level Argentine official characterized Noriega's
statements regarding the country's drift in favor of Cuba as being
"imbecilic".

In Haiti at the present time, armed fugitives from the period of military
rule and notorious figures like ex-police chief Guy Philippe and FRAPH
leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain have teamed up with armed street gangs that
have threatened to expand their activities until they control the entire
country. Any distinction between the André Apaid "polite" opposition and the
violent street gangs that have seized a number of Haitian cities, including
Gonaives, was removed when the U.S. citizen and Haitian millionaire urged
the Gonaives street gang leaders not to turn in their weapons and remarked
that "armed resistance" was a legitimate action.

The prospects for the onslaught of a terrible civil war mounts as
impoverished Aristide supporters, who although they have been disappointed
that their leader has failed to make good on his pledge to improve their
daily lives, prepare to defend the country's constitutional government.

What is apparent is that Washington must install a new Latin American
policymaking team on an emergency basis. The group of ideologues now holding
key positions in the policymaking process is incapable of bringing a
peaceful resolution of Haiti's present grave situation. Realizing the past
ineffectiveness of the OAS' leadership and political will on the Haitian
issue, the United Nations should make the increasingly perilous situation in
Haiti an item on its agenda and quickly decide, on an expedited basis, to
dispatch a collective police force to the island consisting of units from
Haiti's fellow CARICOM countries, as well as France and Canada. Secretary
Powell, at this late date, also should instruct the country's opposition
that it either must participate in the country's electoral process by
negotiating with the government on various processes spelled out by the
CARICOM and OAS initiatives, or be considered irrelevant.
------
Larry Birns is the director of the Washington DC-based Council on
Hemispheric Affairs, where Jessica Leight is a research fellow
(www.coha.com). They can be reached at 1730 M Street NW, Suite 1010,
Washington, D.C. 20036. Phone: 202-216-9261, Fax: 202-223-6035, email:
coha@coha.org.