20882: Esser: Danger signs in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

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

GLOBE EDITORIAL

Danger signs in Haiti

3/27/2004

FOUR WEEKS after Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was pushed
from office by armed rebels, signs are mixed on whether the country
will find a path toward reconciliation and honest, constructive
government or go back to the reign of terror of the early 1990s. In
1991, the Haitian Army, with some of the rebels in its ranks, deposed
Aristide for the first time and began a slaughter of civilians that
ended only when President Clinton sent in Marines three years later.
Now the Marines are back, along with other international
peacekeepers, but the country is far from stabilized.

In the vacuum of Aristide's departure, the international community
invited a council of prominent Haitians to choose an interim prime
minister to form a government and rule until new elections can be
held. That leader, Gerard Latortue, has assembled a team that
includes some respected individuals with good credentials. However,
it includes no supporters of Aristide, which could leave a large
portion of the population, especially the urban poor, feeling
unrepresented.

It is also worrisome that Latortue joined in a ceremony in Gonaives
March 20 with some leaders of the armed anti-Aristide rebels who have
appalling human rights records. Latortue infuriated human rights
advocates by referring to the rebels as "freedom fighters." Most of
them have not, as they promised US officials, laid down their arms.

After Aristide's return to power in 1994, he disbanded the army
because of its ugly record of coups and massacres. Now Latortue has
picked as interior minister a former general, Herard Abraham, who
wants to reinstate the army.

In the meantime, rebels say they will guard the most recent shipment
of food to Haiti's second-largest city, Cap Haitien. Several
charitable organizations lost their food supplies to looters in the
collapse of authority brought on by the rebels and Aristide's flight
out of the country. Leaders of such organizations say conditions have
improved somewhat in recent days, but many areas and important roads
remain insecure.

One positive development is a pastoral letter written and circulated
by Haiti's nine Roman Catholic bishops that advocates reconciliation,
not revenge. That will presumably also be the message of France's
foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, who plans to visit Haiti
next week.

France, which once colonized Haiti, and the United States have the
largest contingents in the international peacekeeping force. While
Haiti has to be trusted at some point to chart its own destiny,
representatives of the United States and France should not hesitate
to warn Latortue about setting his country on a course that could put
power once again in the hands of thugs and drug dealers.

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
.