22738: Durban: Wash Post - Haiti's Slim Chance (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Lance Durban <lpdurban@yahoo.com>

Lead editorial for Washington Post of July 19, 2004:

                  Haiti's Slim Chance

   AS THE BUSH administration pours billions into econstruction
in Iraq and Afghanistan, a third nation-building effort is
precariously proceeding on a shoestring 600 miles from Florida.
Early this year Haiti lived through a revolution that resulted
in elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide being transported
into exile on a U.S. military aircraft; a day later, 1,800 U.S.
Marines belatedly arrived as part of a U.N.-sponsored effort to
restore order. Now the Marines have left, replaced by an
untested force of Brazilians and other South Americans.
Meanwhile, an interim government is struggling to gain control
over the country. This week at a Washington conference the
United Nations and other organizations will seek $900
million in new funding to jump-start the economy and rebuild
shattered institutions. Success might open a modest window of
opportunity for the hemisphere's poorest country -- which is why
the Bush administration and Congress ought to be doing more to
help.

   Optimists point to a slight rebound in Haiti's miserable
conditions in the last month, following the violence of the
winter and devastating floods in June.  Electricity and a
measure of security have returned to the capital. The interim
government, after a shaky start, has drawn up a plan for
elections next year, taken steps against rampant corruption and
drug trafficking, and won the support of international lenders.
Neighboring Caribbean nations, which refused to recognize the
new administration because of claims by Aristide that he was
forced to leave Haiti by the United States, appear close to
changing their position.

   Haiti's recovery nevertheless remains precariously weak --
largely because of an underpowered international effort. The
small number of peacekeepers in the country -- 2,200, compared
with the more than 6,000 that a U.N. plan calls for -- means
that large parts of the countryside remain in the hands of armed
gangs, some of them led by former members of the since-disbanded
army that once ruled the country by force. In the effort to
disarm them, the Brazilians have resorted to staging
an appearance by their famed soccer team and requiring
disarmament as the price of admission.

   The new administration's ability to effectively make use of
international aid is also open to question -- many donors still
remember the experience of the 1990s, when a nation-building
program backed by the Clinton administration essentially failed.
But foreign officials say the interim government has taken some
promising steps to account for spending and ensure that it goes
to projects that will have an early impact, such as the creation
of 44,000 jobs.

   What's clear is that Haiti will have no chance at all unless
rich countries, led by the United States, step up. Last month
the Bush administration announced $100 million in new aid, on
top of the $50 million already in the budget; its total pledge
for the next two years stands at $200 million. That is less than
10 percent of what was spent on Afghanistan this year, and
barely more than 1 percent of the reconstruction aid voted by
Congress for Iraq. Such parsimony is foolish:  It only
strengthens the odds that the next administration in Washington
will find itself facing, once again, a crisis in Haiti.