19030: Erzilidanto: Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister must Lead as well as Follow on Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com


*
Bill Graham’s recent remarks yesterday on Haiti indicates that he is
depending upon U.S. policymakers to orient Canada while not having a clue as to what
is really happening there.
 
Foreign Minister Graham is outdoing even his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of
State Powell, who he is otherwise closely aping, in subscribing to a confused
and tough, if not hostile line towards Haiti’s President Aristide.  In doing
so, he seriously distorts reality.  In following such a surprisingly one-sided
and prejudicial approach on the cause of the conflict there, Graham is in
danger of rendering Canada irrelevant to any eventual solution on the crisis-ridden
island.  In contrast to French diplomacy, which at least is exhibiting some
spunk and creativity on the issue, Mr. Graham is dragging Canada back to its
tradition roost of "me-tooism" when it comes to U.S.-sponsored initiatives.  The
Foreign Affairs Minister would be well served if he recalled the independent
regional policy that was engaged in by two of his predecessors, Joe Clark and,
in particular, Loyd Axworthy, which brought Canada great lustre when they
held office.
 
The tone and language which the Canadian Foreign Minister has been using in
recent days regarding the current situation in Haiti is very unfortunate. 
Graham argues that Aristide must live up to “his obligations,” suggesting that
the Haitian president hasn’t.  In fact Aristide has accepted every condition
pressed upon him by CARICOM, the U.S. and the OAS.  The bedrock problem regarding
Haiti is that the country’s opposition refuses to negotiate with Aristide and
will not consider taking up their seat on the Provisional Electoral Council,
without which no elections can be held.  How can a new prime minister be
jointly appointed by the opposition and the government, when the former refuses to
participate in the process?  While Graham recognizes that “Obviously, we
can’t allow this [the violence] to continue to develop…” it is equally obvious
that the Haitian government is attempting to pacify the country through repeated
offers of negotiation and conciliation.  Meanwhile the opposition---now
increasingly controlled by the discredited former members of the country’s brutal
military and paramilitary forces that terrorized the country from 1991-94, has
obdurately refused in any way to join in a process of reconciliation. 
Pacification has failed to occur up to now because at the root of the opposition’s
strategy is the need to create the very chaos that Mr. Graham somehow appears to
attribute to Aristide, the peacemaker, rather than the country’s increasingly
violent opposition.  There is where Mr. Graham’s outrage appropriately
belongs.
 
One could also add the thought that Canada and the U.S. should have done a
more effective job in carrying out their responsibility to professionalize the
Haitian police force and establish a reliable court system for which they were
responsible from 1994-96. Had this been accomplished, maybe the island’s
security authorities would have been able to have done a better job in upholding a
system of law and order after the U.S.-led intervention in 1994, which was
aimed at overthrowing the military and FRAPH. Transgressors are now returning to
the country to seize its major cities due to their superior weaponry.

Issued 20 February 2004
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