18829: anonymous: No Help for Haiti

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Subject: Bob:  Please post this anonymously

Editorial from Washington Post of 2/19/04

                   No Help for Haiti

    ONCE AGAIN a poor nation with strong ties to the United
States is in desperate trouble -- and once again, the response
of the Bush administration is to backpedal away, forswear all
responsibility and leave any rescue to others. Last summer
President Bush refused to commit even a few hundred U.S. troops
on the ground to help end  a bloody crisis in Liberia. Now he
and his administration stand by as Haiti, a country of  7.5
million just 600 miles from Florida, plunges into anarchy.

  Armed gangs are spreading through cities across the country in
a violent rebellion against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
whose own police force is so weak that a group of about 40 thugs
was able to take over a town of 87,000 people on Tuesday. France
and the United Nations have begun exploring the possible
deployment of police or peacekeepers -- which is probably the
only way to stop the killing.  But Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell made clear that "there is frankly no enthusiasm" within
the Bush administration "for sending in military  or police
forces to put down the violence." Mr. Powell rejected "a
proposition that says the elected president must be forced out
of office by thugs." But that, apparently, doesn't mean the
United States -- which has intervened repeatedly in Haitian
affairs during its 200-year history -- is prepared to take any
action to stop it.

 Nor has the administration been willing to take the lead in
seeking a political settlement to the crisis. For several years
it has delegated the arbitration of Haiti's mounting domestic
conflict to well-meaning but powerless diplomats from the
Organization of American States or the Caribbean Community, also
known as Caricom. In particular, it has declined to exercise its
considerable leverage on the civilian opposition parties, some
of which have been supported by such U.S. groups
as the International Republican Institute and which have
rejected any political solution short of Mr. Aristide's
immediate resignation. Apart from Mr. Powell's
statement, the administration's rhetoric has mostly been
directed at Mr. Aristide.  "There certainly needs to be some
changes in the way Haiti is governed," said White House
spokesman Scott McClellan.  Mr. Aristide is guilty of supporting
violence against the opposition and has cruelly disappointed
those who expected him to consolidate democracy. But Haiti's
mess flows in part from U.S. actions. After restoring Mr.
Aristide to power in 1994 and abolishing the army that
previously ruled the country by dictatorship, the
United States failed to follow through. U.S. forces were pulled
out after only two years -- they are still in Bosnia and Kosovo
eight and five years, respectively, after they arrived -- and
all aid to the government was suspended after Mr. Aristide's
party tampered with the results of a congressional election.
Some of the military's former death-squad leaders  command the
gangs that would seize power.  But the Bush administration would
rather leave the answers to Caricom or the United Nations or
France. It's an inexcusable abdication.