DON BOHNING
             Herald Staff Writer

             Sending a signal of discontent with recent events in Haiti, a bipartisan group of four
             senators is urging the Organization of American States to convene an emergency
             foreign ministers meeting to ``consider joint actions to bring about a return to
             democracy'' in Haiti.

             The appeal is contained in a Senate resolution, sponsored by Sens. Michael
             DeWine, R.-Ohio, Bob Graham, D.-Fla., Jesse Helms, R.-N.C., and Paul
             Coverdell, R.-Ga., is a response to Haitian President Rene Preval's Jan. 11 action
             ending the parliamentary term. The controversial move evoked charges of
             dictatorship against Preval, who is expected to name a new government by
             decree, perhaps as early as this week.

             A similar resolution sponsored by Reps. Benjamin Gilman, R.-N.Y., chairman of
             the International Relations Committee, and Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the
             Select Committee on Intelligence, is expected to be introduced in the House of
             Representatives when it reconvenes next week. Congressional sources said the
             House is also dispatching a fact-finding team to Haiti.

             Preval's decision to end the parliamentary term culminated a political confrontation
             between the president and Parliament, sparked by disputed April 1997 Senate
             elections, which in turn brought on the resignation of Prime Minister Rosny Smarth
             in June 1997. That has left the country without a functioning government and has
             cost it hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid.

             In introducing the resolution in the Senate last week, DeWine cited ``deep concern
             over the deteriorating situation in Haiti.''

             DeWine noted that despite efforts by such high-level Clinton administration
             emissaries to Haiti as First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State
             Madeleine Albright and former national security advisor Anthony Lake, Preval
             ``refused to accept any solution to this crisis that left Haiti's Parliament in place.''

             The resolution, said a congressional aide who follows Haitian affairs, ``reflects the
             deep concern among the leaders in Congress'' and is ``a clear signal that the line
             has been crossed in Haiti.''

             In appealing to the OAS, the Senate resolution cited the Santiago Declaration of
             1991, which calls for joint efforts ``to deter irregular interruptions of the
             democratic political institutional process within countries having democratically
             elected governments.''

             The OAS resolution was first used in late 1991 after the Haitian military overthrew
             democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It was then invoked in
             Peru in 1992 when President Alberto Fujimori dissolved Congress and the courts;
             in 1993 in Guatemala when President Jorge Serrano dissolved Congress and the
             courts; and in 1996 in Paraguay during an unsuccessful coup against President
             Juan Carlos Wasmosy.

             In addition to condemning Preval's action, which the Senate resolution calls a
             ``serious blow to democracy in Haiti and a serious threat to democracy n the
             Caribbean region and the Hemisphere,'' it appeals to the Haitian government to
             ``fully restore an elected national assembly . . . ''

             Preval's action also appears certain to ensure that any new Clinton administration
             aid request for Haiti would run into congressional resistance. The administration
             had requested $140 million for the current fiscal year and wound up with about
             half that, which was not specifically earmarked for Haiti but taken from the overall
             aid budget for Latin America and the Caribbean.

             The administration had intended to seek $140 million again this year, according to
             an internal Nov. 2 memo by James Dobbins, the top Latin America and Caribbean
             specialist on the National Security Council staff. He acknowledged in the memo
             that the situation in Haiti ``has [unfortunately] not changed in any significant way
             over the past year.''

             That prompted Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to
             advise Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Appropriations
             Committee, in a Dec. 2 letter, that the administration ``wants to reward Haiti for
             lack of progress.''

             ``The Haitians' record,'' Helms added, ``certainly does not merit such reward.

             ``As we consider the President's budget request, we should bear in mind that $3
             billion spent on military action and assistance in Haiti since 1994 has not produced
             significant progress,'' Helms said.

             ``Rather than looking for ways to deceive the U.S. Congress, the NSC should be
             demanding concrete results from Haitian leaders before asking for another penny
             of U.S. aid,'' he concluded.
 

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