19308: Esser: Haiti's terrorists got a free pass (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

The Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com

Feb. 26, 2004. 01:00 AM

Haiti's terrorists got a free pass

GORDON BARTHOS

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is on his knees begging the world to
come to Haiti's aid before chaos and anarchy merge into massacre.

"Should those killers come to Port-au-Prince, thousands may be
killed," he warned this week. "We need the presence of the
international community as soon as possible."

In truth, Aristide should have had that help 10 days ago when a
motley crew of 300 former death squad leaders, cashiered army
officers and street thugs began terrorizing the country.

They could have been stopped. And should have been.

After all, U.S. President George Bush spared no rhetoric or energy
rallying the world against the Al Qaeda killers who struck on 9/11.
He defined the "war on terror" as a global moral crusade against the
dark forces of anarchy. Spent $100 billion chasing Al Qaeda through
Afghanistan and Iraq.

But Bush's moral indignation and crusading zeal were nowhere in
evidence as Haiti fell prey to terror.

Until yesterday, when Bush belatedly mused about despatching an
international "security presence," Aristide's foes had a free pass to
wreak mayhem.

"There is, frankly, no enthusiasm right now for sending in military
or police forces to put down the violence," Secretary of State Colin
Powell said coldly, consigning Haiti to chaos.

And Prime Minister Paul Martin's new government hasn't done better.
The few troops Canada was mobilizing yesterday, like the 50 Marines
the U.S. despatched, will scarcely be able to secure our embassy,
much less help thwart the putsch.

Aristide is undeniably a divisive, imperious figure who relies on
violent gangs of supporters, having disbanded the coup-prone army. He
has failed dismally to bring Haiti the peace and prosperity he
promised.

But he also represents Haiti's democratic breakthrough, having been
freely elected in 1990 and again in 2000. His term ends next year.

Aristide pleaded back on Feb. 16 for help against the "terrorists."
Aid agencies warned of "civil war." Prime Minister Yvon Neptune saw a
"coup d'état machine in motion."

Still, we abandoned them.

The opposition Democratic Convergence drive to oust Aristide is a
naked power grab by Haiti's rich elite, abetted by armed thugs who
have murdered democracy before.

The rebels are led by a seedy triumvirate: Louis-Jodel Chamblain, who
once commanded an army death squad accused of massacring 34 people in
1987. Guy Philippe, a former police chief exiled for plotting a coup.
And Remissainthe Ravix, a former corporal in the discredited,
disbanded army.

"We're not plotting a coup," Chamblain insisted this week. "We're
plotting to liberate the people." Sure they are.

By ousting Aristide, a populist who Haiti's tiny rich class has never
stopped demonizing. By murdering police, torching government offices
and looting a United Nations food depot. And by killing government
supporters.

"The people show us the houses," Claudy Philippe, a rebel, told the
Associated Press. "If they are there, we execute them."

Indeed the Democratic Convergence and their rebel allies flatly
rejected an Organization of American States and Caribbean Community
compromise to keep Aristide in office, but with reduced powers.

The United States supported that plan. Bush should have despatched
troops to stop the madness.

They could have quelled the rebellion in hours, saved democracy,
saved lives. And signalled that Bush is serious about thwarting
terror.

Instead, he let history repeat itself.

In 1991, George Bush senior sat by as Aristide was deposed by some of
the very officers who are gunning for him today. His son has done the
same.

Leaving Canadian and French diplomats scurrying around preaching
restraint to terrorists.

What's in store for Haiti now? Maybe Aristide's ouster. Maybe
massacre. Maybe a "political settlement" that emasculates the
presidency, empowers the elite and brings a new election.

However it plays out, this has been a dismal setback for Caribbean
democracy. And it has exposed Bush's "global" war on terror as a
fiction.

Gord Barthos writes editorials on foreign affairs. gbarthos@thestar.ca


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