18806: (Craig) Article: A Way Out for Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>

A Way Out for Haiti
February 19, 2004
By JAMES DOBBINS

ARLINGTON, Va.
Ever since President Woodrow Wilson sent in the Marines in
1915, the United States has made intermittent - and
sometimes inconsistent - efforts to bring about stability,
democracy and prosperity in Haiti. The last decade,
especially, has seen striking examples of contradictory
American policy, and the cumulative result has been
economic stagnation and turmoil in Haiti, where more than
40 people have died during an uprising this month.

American policy on Haiti in the last 10 years has gone from
one extreme to another. The Clinton administration strongly
supported the ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
sending 20,000 troops in 1994 to restore him to power. The
current administration then cut off all American assistance
to the Aristide government while giving advice and moral
support to Mr. Aristide's opponents. Entrenched in their
own economic and political divisions, Haitians tend to
regard politics as an all-or-nothing, life-and-death
struggle. The more support one side or the other has
received from its partisans in Washington, the less
inclined it has been to compromise.

If the United States is to help Haiti overcome its crisis
through dialogue and reconciliation, therefore, Republicans
and Democrats have to reconcile their own differences. And
this may indeed be happening.

Secretary of State Colin Powell ended an apparent
administration flirtation with a coup in Haiti, stating
clearly on Tuesday that Mr. Aristide should finish his
term. The Bush administration has concluded that Mr.
2Aristide, however flawed he may be, is the only
legitimately elected leader in Haiti, and perhaps the sole
remaining source of stability.

At the same time, Mr. Aristide's American supporters
recognize his responsibility for the crisis and would like
to see Haiti make a new start. Prominent African-Americans
like the Rev. Walter Fauntroy, president of the National
Black Leadership Roundtable, have suggested that Mr.
Aristide should step down now.

This convergence of American opinion on Haiti offers the
prospect of a more united and thus more effective American
approach. The next step should be for leaders on both sides
of the aisle to collaborate on a new strategy for Haiti.
Such a strategy could be based on these elements:

* Mr. Aristide should serve out his term, which expires in
2006. But at the same time, we need to prepare the
succession. It will take at least the two years Mr.
Aristide has left in office to organize fair elections.
Major American and international efforts to do so should
begin now.

* The international community, either the United Nations or
the Organization of American States, should administer the
balloting, not just offer assistance. No Haitian government
will be able to organize elections with even minimal
standards of fairness.

* Haiti should get much more help. This year the United
States will give Baghdad 200 times more economic assistance
than it will to Haiti, which is in much worse shape than
Iraq even after the invasion. We must pay greater attention
to a desperately poor, misgoverned nation in our backyard.

* Some of this foreign aid should go toward strengthening
Haitian institutions. Even the Clinton administration
preferred to channel American aid through nongovernmental
organizations, fearing that any money given to the Haitian
government would be misspent. But no Haitian leader or
leaders, however good their intentions, will be able to
govern wisely if they have no institutions to rely on. We
need to begin now to give Mr. Aristide's successors the
wherewithal to govern.

* The United States should get directly involved in ending
the impasse between Mr. Aristide and his opponents. The
United Nations, the Organization of American States and the
Caribbean Community, an organization of Caribbean states,
can all play helpful roles, but only the United States has
real influence in Haiti. A unified American stance could
have a decisive impact, and a truly bipartisan diplomatic
engagement now might still avoid the need for yet another
military intervention.

It's often said that democracies end up doing the right
thing only after having tried all the alternatives. We have
tried the alternatives in Haiti and failed. Now we can see
if doing the right thing will succeed.

James Dobbins, director of the International Security and
Defense Policy Center at RAND, was President Bill Clinton's
special envoy for Haiti from 1994 to 1996.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/19/opinion/19DOBB.html?ex=1078171818&ei=1&en=ec67825e0c607ef4
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company