19863: Esser: And now, Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

The Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com

And now, Haiti

3/5/2004

FOR THE SECOND time, the Bush administration has deposed a foreign
leader it does not favor and then found itself unprepared for the
chaos and looting that followed. It happened in Iraq, and it has
happened again in Haiti.

Not until Wednesday did the US Marines in Port-au-Prince start
patrolling and restoring some order in the vacuum created by the
US-engineered departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide early
Sunday morning. By that time the toll of Haitians killed in the
month-long unrest had risen to more than 100 and many more businesses
and warehouses had been looted. This hesitant start of the latest US
intervention in Haiti does not bode well for the long-term nation
building that the United States and the broader international
community must now commit to.

Unless foreign forces quickly restore order, power will move to the
anti-Aristide rebel forces that Secretary of State Colin Powell has
accurately described as "thugs." Their leader, Guy Philippe, has said
they will lay down their arms. He will be much more likely to keep
that promise if a foreign force of substantial strength leaves him no
choice.

The next step in will be to help Haiti's politicians agree on some
form of interim government until new elections can be held. Such a
government would presumably include elements both from Aristide's
Lavalas party and the peaceful opposition.

Such power-sharing was the goal of a compromise backed last month by
both the US and the Caribbean Community, when the Bush administration
was still saying it did not favor regime change in Haiti. The
compromise failed when opposition politicians said they would not
support it as long as Aristide stayed in power. For some reason the
Bush administration quickly gave in to the opposition's demands and
decided to abandon Haiti's elected, if flawed, president. The Senate
Foreign Relations Committee should investigate these events.

That committee, as well as an international body like the Caribbean
Community or the Organization of American States, should also explore
Aristide's charge that he was abducted by US officials on Sunday.
This might be just the face-saving accusation of a leader unable to
accept the fact that he had to flee to save his skin, but if the
charge is not credibly investigated it could take on a life of its
own in a region only too willing to believe the worst of the United
States.

One further step would also demonstrate American seriousness about
lifting Haiti out of its poverty, the most severe in the Western
Hemisphere. For years, US subsidies to American rice farmers have
made it difficult for Haiti's rice farmers to compete in their own
and foreign markets. Changing that policy would help show that this
time, the United States knows what nation building in Haiti really
requires.

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
.