As rebels gain, how to help Haiti?
US ambassador calls for help as diplomatic efforts fail and the
threat of civil war looms.
By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON – As rebels vowing to depose Haiti's president move
closer to their goal, US efforts to resolve the crisis in the Caribbean
country through diplomatic channels appear to be increasingly beside
the point. The advancing rebels have dismissed a US-brokered
power-sharing plan accepted by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The US itself dispatched 50 marines to Haiti Monday to provide
added security for the US Embassy and staff there.
The building storm in America's backyard has some experts saying
that unless diplomatic efforts to address Haiti's long, slow
deterioration bear fruit soon, military intervention may be the only
remaining option. US officials and others are not publicly backing
such a scenario, but the idea of a US-led international intervention
force is emerging as a serious point of discussion among experts
and some members of the international community.
In 1994, the US led a UN-sanctioned force of 20,000 soldiers to
return the exiled Mr. Aristide to power. This time, an international
force would presumably try to head off a violent civil war - and
would also oversee reestablishment of some semblance of governance,
which has all but disappeared from the former French colony. "With
the police melting into the countryside and apparatus of normal
government slipping away, the situation in Haiti requires urgent military
action - but that is not what the US wants to think about right now,"
says Daniel Erikson, director of Caribbean programs at the Inter-American
Dialogue in Washington. "Even if you come up with some diplomatic
accord in Port-au-Prince," Haiti's capital city, "that's not at this point
going to resolve Haiti's crisis."
Indeed, the diplomatic front continues to
be the official US focus. The US was awaiting a response from Haiti's
political opposition - expected as early as Monday afternoon - on an
envisioned power-sharing arrangement that would leave Aristide in the
presidency with a new prime minister from the opposition. But with
the opposition indicating any solution including Aristide is a
nonstarter for them, and with even some US officials quietly
suggesting it is time for Aristide to go, prospects for the
power-sharing plan look dim.
Rebel forces took control of Haiti's second-largest city, Cap Haitien,
on Sunday, and vowed to take the capital of Port-au-Prince within two
weeks.
For their part, US officials are at least publicly keeping all their eggs
in the diplomatic basket. "We're not ready to send forces in. Our
priority is a political settlement," says Adam Ereli, deputy State
Department spokesman.
The US perspective is that Haiti is suffering from two things, the
same two factors giving rise to rival armed gangs, Mr. Ereli says: a
lack of security, and a lack of governmental legitimacy. And the US
believes both of those problems could be addressed by a "change of
government, not a change of regime."
With the US focused on Iraq as well as Afghanistan, the US military
is not anxious to contemplate any additional assignments. As
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in response to a
question on Haiti at a Feb. 10 briefing, "Needless to say, everyone's
hopeful that the situation, which tends to ebb and flow down there,
will stay below a certain threshold.... We have no plans to do
anything." He added, "There's no intention at the present time."
But others are speaking in terms of a multinational force. In a radio
interview Monday, French Foreign Minster Dominique de Villepin said
France is ready to contribute to a UN-sanctioned force to restore
order to the island and help reestablish a functioning government.
"We are ready to give our assistance as long as the international
community is mobilized and in agreement," Mr. de Villepin said.
"Unfortunately we are not yet at this stage."
Despite Aristide's vow to remain in Haiti to serve out his term - which
runs until 2006 - many specialists say the island's history of deposed
leaders suggests exile could once again be Aristide's fate. The
danger there is that he be replaced by a disorganized opposition, or
as former Clinton Haiti envoy Lawrence Pezzullo calls "the people
who have the guns" - the gangs and former military. In recent
commentaries, Mr. Pezzullo says that any "peaceful scenario" for a
Haiti settlement involves stationing international peacekeepers on the
island, either while elections or a transitional government is
organized.
A growing chorus of US voices appears to be saying a peaceful
solution cannot be engineered with Aristide. That view is echoing
from Republican lawmakers who never did support the Clinton
administration's return of Aristide to power.
Rep. Mark Foley (R) of Florida, who says his state fears a mass
exodus from a crumbling Haiti, says, "We cannot change Haiti's
plight without a peaceful change in regime. And we cannot do that
without some international political intervention."