20392: Esser: Regime change in Haiti seen as policy blunder (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

AxisofLogic.com

Mar 14, 2004

U.S. News/Comment
Regime change in Haiti seen as policy blunder

By Jim Lobe

March 14, 2004-Last week's US-backed "regime change" in Haiti could
yet backfire against the administration of President George W Bush,
according to independent analysts and Democrats who are describing
the US role as another major foreign-policy blunder - or worse.

Despite the administration's continued insistence that President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide voluntarily departed Haiti aboard a US-
provided aircraft on Feb 29, a growing number of lawmakers here are
expressing doubt about that version of events.

While not explicitly endorsing Aristide's version that he was
essentially kidnapped by the US government, the Congressional Black
Caucus (CBC) and Senate Democrats are now charging that Washington
was at the very least complicit in an effective coup d'etat.

"Whatever the specifics of his Sunday morning departure from Haiti, I
can't blame him for holding the belief that his departure was
involuntary," said Connecticut Sen Christopher Dodd, the Democrats'
senior Americas' expert, before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee on Wednesday.

Along with the Caribbean Community (Caricom), whose efforts to
mediate between Aristide and his opposition were abruptly terminated
when the president was flown to the Central African Republic, and the
African Union, Democrats and the CBC are demanding an investigation
of the circumstances of his exile.

Other analysts are expressing growing concern that the administration
is not prepared either for the aftermath of Aristide's exile to the
Central African Republic (CAR) where he met on Wednesday with South
Africa's deputy foreign minister.

"Those who were working in Washington toward either emasculating
Aristide politically or ousting him had a very definite and well-
crafted strategy," said Robert Maguire, a Haiti expert at Trinity
College, who testified before the Senate Committee on Wednesday.

"But they didn't clearly didn't count on the level of violence that
has occurred, and now it seems to have become a very improvizational
strategy," he told IPS, noting in particular the expanding role of
some 1,500 US Marines who have been sent to Haiti along with soldiers
from France, Chile, and Canada.

As the Marines have expanded their patrolling beyond Port-au- Prince,
armed rebels - many of whom are led mainly by former military
officers and paramilitary officials who terrorised Haiti in the early
1990s during Aristide's first exile - have not disarmed as they had
pledged to do one week ago.

They have instead moved into towns in the countryside, so that
insecurity continues to make the transport of food aid and other
relief supplies to more-remote parts of the country difficult or
impossible. At the same time, pro-Aristide forces are also armed,
although their strongholds are centred more in urban slums in the
capital and other cities.

The CBC has called for setting up US and foreign troops to urgently
establish "humanitarian corridors" to needy areas.

Florida Democratic Sen Bob Graham charged that the Bush
administration was pursuing "an Afghanistan solution" by
concentrating Marines in the capital "with everyone else in the
country pretty much naked". He and Ohio Republican Sen Mike DeWine
both criticized the administration for not sending in more troops to
stabilize the situation.

"There are lots of weapons," said Dan Erickson, a Caribbean
specialist at the Inter-American Dialogue (IAD), a hemispheric think
tank here. He added that he believes the rebels intend to "wait out"
the 90- period while the Marines are deployed and then assess the
strength of any UN peacekeeping operation that takes their place as
of June 1.

He described the overall situation as "terrible", in part due to the
sharp reduction in international and US aid that was largely
orchestrated by Washington since the Bush administration took power.

"Haiti simply demands more resources than what the US and the
international community are willing to give," he said. "The reality
is, we're not engaged in Haiti as we much as we need to be."

In testimony on Wednesday, retired ambassador James Dobbins, who was
Washington's top envoy to Haiti after Aristide was restored to power
by the last US intervention in 1994, noted that Iraq is currently
receiving more than 30 times more US aid than Haiti received in the
mid-1990s when US assistance was greatest.

In an implicit stab at the administration, Dobbins, who, as a RAND
Corp analyst has advised Washington on Iraq, noted that reducing aid
to Haiti was "quite unwise" and contributed to the disintegration and
chaos that followed that in turn led to the intervention.

But while Haiti's aid requirements could prove much more costly to
the US Treasury than the administration originally thought, its
credibility as a supporter of democratic governments may have
suffered the most, according to a number of analysts.

"The Caricom countries feel deceived by the US", said Maguire, who
noted that Washington's inability to "convince the opposition in
Haiti to accept their (mediation) plan when the US had agreed to it
and all the cards were stacked in the opposition's favour constitutes
a major failure of US diplomacy".

A number of Caricom governments have themselves faced opposition
movements that have used confrontational tactics and election
boycotts as the Haitian opposition did, noted Maguire. "It sets a
very disturbing precedented for the entire region," Michael Shifter,
a Latin American specialist at IAD, told IPS.

"There are a lot of Latin American governments that are very shaky.
People who aren't happy with their governments will see this as a way
to get rid of them if the Bush administration doesn't like them
either," he said.
.