19586: radtimes: Haiti's 'New Chapter' (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Haiti's 'New Chapter'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18002-2004Feb29.html

Monday, March 1, 2004; Page A18

THOUGH HE BITTERLY disappointed Haitians who hoped he would bring democracy
and development to the hemisphere's poorest country, Jean-Bertrand Aristide
in the end made the right decision. Rather than make a last stand in his
capital, he accepted the offer of an American plane trip to exile and
opened the way for a U.S.-led international force to end the anarchy
overtaking the country. History will likely judge that Mr. Aristide was
mostly responsible for his own downfall: He presided over a corrupt
government that regularly used violence against its opponents and
eventually provoked a violent uprising. But his flight to exile Sunday was
forced by the Bush administration, which refused to support international
intervention or commit U.S. forces until after Mr. Aristide capitulated.
President Bush's declaration yesterday that "the Haitian constitution is
working" offered scant cover for the reality that his decisions over the
past two weeks had led to the departure of an elected president.

  Whether the downfall of Mr. Aristide leads to "a new chapter" and "a
hopeful future" for Haiti, as Mr. Bush suggested yesterday, will depend in
large measure on how the United States conducts its latest intervention in
the country. As a first step, U.S. forces, which were to begin arriving
last night, must stop the looting and lawlessness in Port-au-Prince and
other cities, and they must ensure that the violent gangs roaming the
country -- both pro and anti-Aristide -- are disarmed and disbanded.
Leaders of the armed rebel groups include criminals and former paramilitary
operatives from the military dictatorship that preceded Mr. Aristide; they
must not be allowed to seize a share of power. Instead, the United States
and allies in the Organization of American States and in the Caribbean
Community should help to establish a transitional government and organize
new democratic elections as soon as possible.

There is much to be learned from the last U.S. effort at stabilizing Haiti
a decade ago. U.S. forces left too quickly, and they provided too little
training and aid to the police they left behind. Not enough was done to
help Haitians build democratic institutions. When Mr. Aristide's party
manipulated the results of a congressional election, the United States
suspended all further aid to his government, blocked some other development
assistance, and delegated the job of finding a political solution to OAS
and Caribbean diplomats with little or no leverage.

Without a more concerted effort at nation-building -- comparable to that
which the United States has supported in the Balkans, or Iraq -- the
pattern of crisis and foreign intervention in Haiti will not be broken. So
far, the administration's approach offers scant grounds for optimism. As
the crisis mounted over the past several months, U.S. officials ignored it
until violence had spread across the country. Even when it became clear
that foreign intervention would be necessary, the administration tried to
hand the problem off to France or Canada. Only over the weekend did Mr.
Bush finally accept what should have been obvious from the beginning: that
the United States must lead any rescue of Haiti.

Now that the Marines are once again to be in Port-au-Prince, we can only
hope that Mr. Bush will make a large enough commitment of U.S. resources to
ensure that Haiti's next president is democratically chosen -- and that he
has a fair chance at success.

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