19087: Esser: U.S. abandons Haiti's democracy (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Chicago Sun Times
http://www.suntimes.com

U.S. abandons Haiti's democracy

February 24, 2004

BY JESSE JACKSON

Haiti, the poorest nation in the hemisphere, 500 miles off the coast
of Florida, is under siege by thugs and assassins. The Bush
administration, after pursuing polices that helped fuel the crisis,
has been reluctant to help resolve it. As was once said of Mexico,
pity Haiti, so close to America and so far from God.

Last weekend a gang of thugs, armed with assault weapons, took over
the second-largest city in Haiti, freeing prisoners and setting off
widespread looting.

The United States is deeply implicated in the crisis. The story
begins in 1990, when Jean Bertrand Aristide was elected president
after 30 years of a hated, but U.S.-coddled, Duvalier dictatorship.
Aristide, a priest who led a movement of Haiti's poor, was openly
opposed by the first Bush administration. One year later, the Haitian
army overthrew Aristide, assuming it would gain approval from the
United States.

But the U.S. leadership changed. In 1994, President Bill Clinton sent
20,000 soldiers to Haiti to restore Aristide and democratic rule in
Haiti. But excoriated by Republicans for using the military for
peacekeeping and nation-building, Clinton pulled U.S. forces out in
less than two years. Haiti was never provided the aid nor the
reconstruction of basic infrastructure that might have put it back on
its feet.

Bitter and violent Haitian divisions revived -- pitting the country's
ruling elites against Aristide's Lavalas party forces. In 2000,
Lavalas swept the legislative elections in voting international
observers condemned as flawed. The Bush administration led the
international community in suspending foreign assistance.

When Aristide was re-elected in 2000, the Bush administration made
clear its opposition. The International Republican Institute aided
his opponents, some of whom are connected to the gangs now
terrorizing the country. By 2003, the opposition began sponsoring a
wave of protests calling for Aristide to resign.

Initially, the Bush administration signaled it was ready for
''changes'' in the leadership of Haiti. Now, faced with a potential
flood of refugees fleeing to Florida, a key battleground state in the
2004 election, the administration is backpedaling, while denying any
responsibility.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has said there is ''no enthusiasm''
for sending in an armed peacekeeping force, leaving it to the French
to begin mobilizing the international community to intervene.
Belatedly, Powell did state that the administration wants Aristide to
finish his term. But an attempt to mediate between Aristide and the
democratic opposition leaders failed last week, when the latter
insisted on Aristide's resignation. The Bush administration added
humiliating insult to injury Monday by sending in 50 Marines -- only
to protect our embassy.

Haiti's desperate poverty lies at the root of this conflict. Eighty
percent of its people are impoverished; 90 percent are illiterate; 60
percent lack clean water. The years of dictatorship and misrule
devastated basic infrastructure: sewerage, health care delivery,
roads, electricity.

Aristide roused the poorest of the poor to take the country back from
the Haitian elites who had looted it for years. But without
sufficient U.S. and international assistance, he has been unable to
overcome the entrenched poverty.

The result has been continued political violence, in which Aristide
himself is implicated. Today his capitol is defended, if at all, more
by armed gangs of his supporters than by the police.

The Bush administration would prefer Aristide out and the Haitian
elite back in control. But the United States cannot stand idly by and
watch a democratically elected government in a neighboring country,
however flawed, be overthrown by thugs and assassins.

An administration committed to rebuilding Iraq and implanting
democracy there, halfway across the world, surely can afford to
defend democracy and help to rebuild tiny Haiti. But today, Haiti
suffers, too close to America and too far from oil.
.