19627: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Might of U.S. did not make right in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, Mar. 02, 2004

JIM DEFEDE/COMMENTARY

Might of U.S. did not make right in Haiti


Ultimately, it may be a matter of semantics whether Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ''kidnapped'' by American forces, as he has told
several members of Congress, or simply had no choice but to leave with them
early Sunday morning.

The result is the same.

An appropriate analogy might be: If I place you in a house and nail all the
windows shut, and lock every door but one, and then I set the house on fire,
did I force you to run out that unlocked door or did you choose to go out
that door?

Make no mistake. Aristide certainly bears a large measure of responsibility
for the problems in Haiti. He did not do enough to stem corruption or to
curtail the violent actions of some of his supporters.

But my fear is that if we get distracted by the allegations surrounding
Aristide's final hours in Haiti, we will stop examining the very real role
the United States played in the days, weeks, months and even years before
Aristide went into exile.

The United States may deny that it was involved in a coup in Haiti, but no
matter what you call it, this fact is clear: The United States wanted
Aristide out and that is exactly what they got.

Eight years ago, the United States abandoned its efforts to train and equip
a competent police force in Haiti that would have been capable of
maintaining order.

Seven years ago, the United States stopped providing direct financial
support to the Haitian government, even though the country is the poorest in
the hemisphere.

These actions, coupled with Aristide's own failures, slowly raised the
temperature in Haiti until it reached a boiling point a month ago when a
small band of rebels, led by throwbacks of Haiti's ugly past, stormed into
the country from the Dominican Republic.

Rather than defend a democratically elected leader, the United States sided
with Aristide's critics and demanded that he share power with the
opposition. Aristide agreed. Yet when the opposition rejected the U.S.
proposal, rather than chastise the opposition, the United States started
distancing itself from Aristide, further emboldening his opponents.

With the rebels advancing on the capital, Aristide tried to hire additional
bodyguards from the Steele Foundation, a private U.S. company that
specializes in executive security. But as The Herald reported Monday, the
State Department allegedly interceded to discourage the company from sending
in the well-trained former soldiers, further isolating Aristide.

As each day passed last week, the U.S. government, in its public statements,
continued to pull away from Aristide, until finally it made it clear it
wanted Aristide to leave.

Privately, the messages being sent to Aristide were even more ominous.
Several sources close to Aristide said that on Saturday, Secretary of State
Colin Powell talked to former U.S. Rep. Ron Dellums, a lobbyist for Haiti.
The message: The rebels were going to enter Port-au-Prince on Sunday and the
United States would do nothing to discourage them and they would do nothing
to protect Aristide. He could either leave or die. A few hours later,
Aristide was on a plane.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters says she is amazed at the actions taken by her
country.

''I feel as if I have found my way into a side of America and a way that
America operates that most people will never see or understand,'' the
California Democrat told me Monday. ``I feel as if the power America has is
so overwhelming I'm at a loss. All the talk we do about democracy and
fairness is for naught.

``Because when you have a regime-change policy, in many ways we are all
helpless. These guys [in the Bush administration] have orchestrated this
thing in ways that most people will never ever understand. There are a lot
of parts of it that I have stumbled upon and I began to learn. And I feel as
if the awesome power of our government can get away with whatever they want
to get away with and there is not a lot that can be done about this.''

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