19129: (Chamberlain) US-Haitian Dilemma (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By KEN GUGGENHEIM

   WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (AP) -- The Bush administration faces tough choices
in Haiti: whether to help a president it blames for political violence and
corruption or stand by while a democratically elected leader is threatened
by rebels.
   Those choices could get even tougher if all-out civil war erupts and the
most dire predictions come true: the massacre of innocents, widespread
starvation or a massive flight of refugees from a country 650 miles from
Miami.
   U.S. officials say they have no plans to send U.S. troops to intervene
in a Haitian war, especially while U.S. forces are already stretched thin
with deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
   But a Republican senator who has long followed Haitian politics, Mike
DeWine of Ohio, said the United States eventually may have no choice,
especially if thousands of U.S. citizens living in Haiti are endangered.
   "We have to see what happens on the ground in Haiti, but we'll have to
take whatever steps are necessary, which could include military," DeWine
said in an interview.
   The Bush administration says it hopes a peace plan can be worked out. A
U.S.-backed international proposal calls for President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide to share power with rivals and hold new elections. Aristide
supported it, but opposition leaders oppose any plan that allows Aristide
to remain in power.
   Yet the prospects for a political solution are dim because "the armed
opposition smells weakness and they think that they can get (Aristide)
out," said Bernard Aronson, the State Department's top Latin America
official in the first Bush administration.
   "I don't think there are any good solutions really," he said.
   Democratic lawmakers say the Bush administration doesn't seem to have
any alternative plan if diplomacy fails. The State Department's top
official for Latin America, Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega,
privately briefed a small group of senators Tuesday. Noriega, who led a
U.S. delegation to Haiti last weekend, declined to comment after the
meeting.
   Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said the administration's message is "we
have nothing to say, but we'll see how things unfold." Sen. Bill Nelson,
D-Fla., said it "is pretty clear: There is no strategy." Nelson said the
administration's "hands-off policy" seems to be aimed at driving Aristide
from power.
   The United States sent 20,000 troops to Haiti to restore Aristide to
power in 1994, three years after he was toppled by a coup. But since then,
Aristide has been criticized by the United States for flawed 2000
legislative elections, violence against his political opponents and failing
to improve conditions in the impoverished country.
   Aristide, though, is a democratically elected leader. Any U.S.
acceptance of an overthrow would run counter to its support for democracy
in the hemisphere -- the basic tenet of U.S. policy in a region where coups
were once common.
   On Tuesday, a U.S official said that if a political settlement is
reached in Haiti, the United States may seek a United Nations resolution
authorizing international peacekeepers.
   But some Democratic lawmakers say the United States can't wait that
long.
   "If we wait for a political settlement, we will be tolerating more
scores of people being killed and more deaths due to the meager food
supply," Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said on the Senate floor. If Haiti
becomes controlled "by armed gangs, drug dealers and thugs," that will
create a national security threat to the United States, he said.
   Graham, Nelson and Dodd have separately called for a police force
--either U.S. or multinational -- to restore order. With Haitian factions
lightly armed, such a force would likely meet little resistance, they said.
Nelson said just the threat of an international force may be enough to stop
the violence.
   Yet any plan to send U.S. troops to Haiti -- beyond the 50 Marines sent
to guard the U.S. Embassy -- would be a tough sell.
   The Bush administration has no desire to send American soldiers into the
chaos of Haiti, asking them to risk their lives to separate rival gangs.
And the American public probably would be wary of shedding soldiers' blood
for the unlikely prospect of bringing stability to a country that has known
little but turmoil.
   Some continue to hope bloodshed can be averted without U.S.
intervention. Stephen Johnson, a former State Department officer who now is
a Latin America analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think
tank, said he doesn't believe large-scale violence is inevitable if
diplomacy fails.
   "I think you will find that some of Aristide's supporters will be
hedging their bets and shifting their allegiances," Johnson said.