18835: Slavin: Nightline on Haiti Tonight (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: PSlavin@unicefusa.org

Nightline Daily E-Mail
February 18, 2004


TONIGHT'S FOCUS: We sent troops in to restore the elected government and to
try to rebuild the country. But today, the country is in chaos, violence is
spreading, and the man who was supposed to lead the country into democracy
has been less than democratic. The country is Haiti.

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I've been trying to think about what to say in today's email since
yesterday, when we decided to cover Haiti today. I have been to Haiti many
times, during the late '80's when it seemed that there was a coup every
couple of months, and the last time when U.S. troops went in. Let me be
honest here. It's not my favorite place. The people are some of the nicest
in the world, and they live under crushing poverty, within sight of the
huge mansions up in the hills, mansions owned by some of the people who
have been looting the country for decades. It's a country that just doesn't
work. And it is also a place of unspeakable violence. In a career of going
to bad places at bad times, some of the worst things I have ever seen or
experienced have happened in Haiti. I would be the first to admit that I
don't understand what has gone wrong.

Ten years ago or so, the U.S. sent troops in to try to restore order. The
generals who had taken over, and who had a fair amount of support in this
country, were running a brutal regime. Opponents would disappear, their
bodies found later and left for the animals, their families kept from
recovering them. It was horrible. In a famous scene, a U.S. ship heading
for Port-au-Prince turned back when a small mob appeared at the harbor.
This was right after Somalia, and this country did not want another
military problem. And let's be honest here. What mattered more than the
human rights abuses, the poverty, the tragedy, was illegal immigration.
Haitians were braving the ocean, and many of them died out there, to try to
get to this country. So U.S. troops went in. This was going to be
nation-building. But the troops have been gone for years, and the situation
has deteriorated again.

ABC News correspondent Jeffrey Kofman is in Haiti. A rebellion by opponents
of the government has spread, the opposition controls many of Haiti's
larger cities. The president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whom we restored to
office, is under fire for being undemocratic. But this time Secretary of
State Powell, who helped broker the deal for a peaceful invasion by U.S.
troops, now says that he doesn't see foreign troops going in any time soon.
The French have talked about sending troops, but we'll see. This time there
seems to be no real appetite for any kind of intervention. Why? What has
changed in the last decade? Ted will anchor tonight, and with the problems
we are facing with nation-building in Iraq hanging over us, we'll look at
what went wrong a lot closer to home. I hope you'll join us.

Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff
ABCNEWS Washington D.C. bureau