19494: radtimes: Hands-off policy toward Haiti is simply wrong (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Hands-off policy toward Haiti is simply wrong

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/8067873.htm

Feb. 29, 2004
By JIM DEFEDE
Miami Herald

Last week, during a Senate hearing, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson questioned
Secretary of State Colin Powell on U.S. policy toward Haiti.

''When you were with us in our Senate Foreign Relations Committee two weeks
ago,'' Nelson began, 'I asked you the question, `Is it the policy of the
government for regime change?' And you said, 'No, it is the policy of the
government that it is not for regime change.' And I want to suggest to you
that what appears to be the hands-off policy of the United States
government with regard to Haiti is, in effect, going to bring about regime
change.''

''Now, we might agree, at the end of the day, that Aristide is a bad
character who has been corrupt and very ineffective,'' Nelson continued,
``but, in effect, when the United States government lays hands off and
allows the violence and the bloodshed to increase, that's going to bring
about the regime change and Aristide is going to go.''

Powell denied the Bush administration has had a hands-off policy during the
recent crisis, saying it has been actively involved in the negotiations to
bring a peaceful solution to the problem.

Nelson, however, is right. By refusing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's
pleas for international help, the Bush administration has made it clear it
is siding with a group of rebels, a point reiterated by Democratic
presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.

''This administration has been engaged in very manipulative and wrongful
ways,'' Kerry said. ``They have a theological and an ideological hatred for
Aristide. They always have. They approached this so the insurgents were
empowered by this administration.''

And who are those insurgents? Their leaders have a history of human-rights
violations and alleged ties to drug traffickers. One senior Washington
official told The Herald recently that if the rebels take control, there is
a genuine fear Haiti will be turned into a ``narco-state.''

And yet we do nothing.

Actually, I'm mistaken. We are doing something. We are picking up Haitians
at sea and returning them to Port-au-Prince, a city in the midst of untold
violence and mayhem.

Perhaps someday we'll find out how many of the 867 Haitians we repatriated
last week will be killed when the rebels enter the city and slaughter
Aristide supporters.

''I think it will be a bloodbath,'' said Ira Kurzban, the Miami attorney
who represents the government of Haiti.

Kurzban says Aristide is intent on staying in the country because he is
afraid that if he flees, no one will protect his supporters against
retribution by the rebels. According to Kurzban, Aristide believes that if
he were to resign, within a month or two of his departure, the
international community would lose interest in Haiti, as will the foreign
press, and the killings will begin.

''All the people that supported him will be dead in three months,'' Kurzban
said. ``Aristide knows that. That's what happened after the last coup.
That's why he's not going anywhere.''

Kurzban believes forcing Aristide from office is exactly what the United
States wants. ''This is all about bringing back the old alliances, bringing
back the old guard,'' he said. ``This is a marriage between the elite and
former members of the Haitian military. The United States is more
comfortable dealing with them than they are with Aristide.''

Eventually, Kurzban said, people will start asking the right questions,
such as:

Where are the rebels getting their guns and money? Is it simply a
coincidence that the United States recently sold the Dominican Republic
20,000 M-16s and that rebels are now toting M-16s and rocket-propelled
grenade launchers? Where did those weapons come from?

The rebel leaders were inside the Dominican Republic for months before
crossing the border and seizing the northern part of Haiti. And yet the
Dominican government did nothing about these men who were wanted in Haiti.
Apparently, the Dominican Republic had the same hands-off policy as the
United States.

.