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24874: Craig (news) Boston Globe Editorial



GLOBE EDITORIAL

Backsliding in Haiti
April 25, 2005

FOURTEEN MONTHS ago, armed rebels overthrew the elected Haitian government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the former slum priest who had a checkered record of governance but the support of much of the country's desperately poor population. Since then, neither an interim appointed government nor a force of 7,500 United Nations peacekeeping soldiers and police officers has been able to create the stability needed for economic growth and the development of strong public and private institutions. Elections this fall could produce a government with more credibility, but Haiti will need the peacekeepers and other international assistance long after the elections.

The issue will come to the fore in June at the United Nations, which will decide whether to renew the mandate of the UN force that replaced the American troops who were first on the scene after Aristide departed. The United Nations should not hesitate to extend that commitment. The sporadic revenge killings and random shootings that afflict the country now could deteriorate into far worse violence without the peacekeeping contingent.

The putsch by the rebels was an act of regime change that the United States could have stopped but chose not to. Now Haiti urgently needs the most basic steps of nation-building. Congressman William Delahunt of Quincy, an observer of Haiti's contested 2000 election and a member of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the House International Relations Committee, recently returned from a two-day visit to the island nation. He is critical of the interim government's failure, in his view, to reach out to members of Aristide's Lavalas party and develop the trust that would lead disenchanted Lavalas members to participate in the elections. Without the party's involvement, the elections will do little to knit the deeply divided country together.

Delahunt is trying to interest Haitian political and civil leaders of all political persuasions in coming to Massachusetts for private conversations on neutral territory. He envisions the meetings lasting several weeks, not just a day or two. In such a situation, he said, participants could form informal relationships with individuals from across political lines in an atmosphere free of posturing and concern for personal safety. A model for this is the Grupo de Boston, in which opposing Venezuelan politicians have met informally on Cape Cod and Nantucket at Delahunt's instigation.

The Bush administration should encourage this initiative as one way to begin the reconciliation of Haiti's well-armed factions. An election that is not based on some level of trust is not going to provide Haiti the leadership it urgently needs.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/04/25/backsliding_in_haiti/