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Powell sees 'no enthusiasm' for emergency intervention
WASHINGTON As France weighed an emergency intervention in increasingly chaotic Haiti, Secretary of State Colin Powell called Tuesday for dialogue among opposing forces there but said that "there is frankly no enthusiasm" now for sending armed peacekeepers..
A scattered uprising against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has claimed more than 50 lives and pried control of large northern areas, including the major city of Hinche, from government troops..
Saying, "Blood has flowed in Hinche," Aristide pleaded Monday for international help..
The French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, convened a "crisis group" in Paris on Tuesday to examine how best to help the former French colony..
Saying that Haiti was "in a catastrophic situation" and "on the edge of chaos," Villepin told a radio interviewer that France was conferring with its UN partners "to see what can be done urgently.".
The options, he suggested, ranged from providing emergency aid to deploying a peacekeeping force, probably drawing from the approximately 4,000 French troops at Caribbean bases on Guadeloupe and Martinique..
But Powell, noting that he had spoken earlier in the day with Villepin, and last week with representatives of the Organization of American States and of the regional Caribbean Community, said that there was "no enthusiasm right now for sending in military or police forces.".
He told reporters at the State Department that he would like to see a political solution reached through dialogue, as favored by Caricom, before any security force is sent in..
At that point, Powell said, "there are willing nations that would come forward with a police presence to implement the political agreement." He did not name them..
Powell called urgently on Aristide to open such a dialogue - the Haitian leader has said he supports Caricom's trust-building plan - but pointedly rejected the notion raised by some in Washington that the former parish priest should be forced to step down..
"We cannot buy into a proposition that says the elected president must be forced out of office by thugs" and those "bringing terrible violence to the Haitian people.".
Aristide, in an interview Monday with The New York Times, remained defiant in the face of the uprising and said that he alone could prevent civil war..
Haiti's first democratically elected leader, he was ousted in a 1991 coup before being returned to power three years later by a 20,000-strong U.S. force sent to Haiti..
Aristide has found himself increasingly embattled since 2000, however, when Haitian opposition parties boycotted a presidential election following parliamentary elections deemed flawed by outside observers..
Once revered by millions of poor Haitians, Aristide is now accused by critics of having done far too little to help the poor, of having links to militant gangs, and of repressing opposition groups..
In the newspaper interview, Aristide vowed to leave office only on Feb. 7, 2006..
Villepin, speaking Tuesday to France Inter radio, rhetorically raised the possibility of sending a "peace force." He said: "We want to think about what could be done in this emergency situation. Could a peace force be deployed? We are in contact with all of our partners in the framework of the United Nations.".
Referring to France's overseas territories in the Caribbean, he said: "We have important assets close to Haiti. We have skills in the field of humanitarian interventions.".
About 2,000 French citizens live in Haiti. As humanitarian organizations stepped up their aid efforts, the group Doctors Without Borders said it was sending 16 tons of medical equipment..
The Bush administration has sent mixed messages about its support for Aristide, but Powell's defense of the embattled leader seemed clear..
"He is right now the free and fairly elected president of Haiti," Powell said..
A week earlier, Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman, had said that "reaching a political settlement will require some fairly thorough changes in the way Haiti is governed.".
The same day, a senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while the administration wanted to see the Haitian crisis resolved through dialogue, it might support replacing Aristide. "When we talk about undergoing change in the way Haiti is governed, I think that could indeed involve changes in Aristide's position," the official told reporters..
"We have had 32 coups in our history," he said. "The result is what we have now: moving from misery to poverty. We need not continue moving from one coup d'état to another coup d'état, but from one elected president to another elected president.".
Asked whether he would consider stepping aside to prevent further bloodshed in a conflict that has paralyzed much of the country, he replied: "I will leave office Feb. 7, 2006. My responsibility is precisely to prevent that from happening.".
He called for armed opposition groups to lay down their weapons and for political opponents to begin discussions with the aim of having new parliamentary elections as soon as possible..
"It is time for us to stop the violence and to implement the Caricom proposal for elections," Aristide said, referring to that organization's plan to build trust between the government and opposition groups as part of the groundwork for new parliamentary elections..
Former Aristide supporters control Gonaïves, a major city on the main north-south highway between the capital and Cap Haitien, the country's second largest city..
A crisis looms in the arid north, where more than 250,000 people need food assistance to survive..
The flawed elections in 2000 led to the suspension of $500 million in international aid, an act Aristide refers to as an "economic embargo," and he blames this suspension for his failure to transform Haiti's economy, health and education..
"I don't say I am the best," Aristide said. "But think of what I did with nothing in terms of financial resources."
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Haiti asks for aid, says coup looms
By BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
French diplomats were trying to rally a peacekeeping force to quell the bloodshed in Haiti yesterday as the island nation's leaders braced for a coup.
Adding to the panic was word that the anti-government rebels were being led by two notorious figures from the death squads that once terrorized the county.
"We are witnessing the coup d'état machine in motion," Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune said yesterday as he pleaded for international help.
It was revealed yesterday that exiled right-wing militia leader Louis Jodel Chamblain and former Police Chief Guy Philippe, who had sneaked back into the country from the Dominican Republic, were leading about 300 rebels.
The rebels have sparked riots throughout the nation of 7.5 million people. Nearly 60 people have been killed in the unrest, which began two weeks ago.
The rebels have blocked the main roads leading from the capital Port-au-Prince to the northern towns of Port-de-Paix and Cap-Haitien, where local police barricaded themselves in their station house yesterday.
As some officers reportedly abandoned their posts, average citizens were taking up arms, prepared to fight.
"We have machetes and guns, and we will resist," said carpenter Pierre Frandley of Cap-Haitien. "The police might have been scared, but the people got together and organized."
The rebels, mostly former military and police officers, have accused President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of failing to ease the country's chronic poverty, violating civil rights and using armed supporters to muscle opponents.
The UN Security Council condemned the violent rebellion yesterday, and the French were trying to organize a police force to rescue Aristide.
"The international community must increase its mobilization" to deal with the situation, said French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.
French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said the push for an international police for Haiti was gathering steam.
But, so far, the U.S. has resisted sending troops as it did in 1994 to restore Aristide, Haiti's first freely elected leader, to power after he was ousted in a coup.
Secretary of State Powell said Tuesday that the U.S. had "no enthusiasm" for sending troops, but would like to see a political solution worked out.
I would like to win the lotto but what are the odds. They are about as great as Powells wish for a political settlement. IMO the US should back the French in their efforts to form a force to police the situation.
A Way Out for Haiti
By JAMES DOBBINS
Published: February 19, 2004
ARLINGTON, Va.
Ever since President Woodrow Wilson sent in the Marines in 1915, the United States has made intermittent — and sometimes inconsistent — efforts to bring about stability, democracy and prosperity in Haiti. The last decade, especially, has seen striking examples of contradictory American policy, and the cumulative result has been economic stagnation and turmoil in Haiti, where more than 40 people have died during an uprising this month.
American policy on Haiti in the last 10 years has gone from one extreme to another. The Clinton administration strongly supported the ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, sending 20,000 troops in 1994 to restore him to power. The current administration then cut off all American assistance to the Aristide government while giving advice and moral support to Mr. Aristide's opponents. Entrenched in their own economic and political divisions, Haitians tend to regard politics as an all-or-nothing, life-and-death struggle. The more support one side or the other has received from its partisans in Washington, the less inclined it has been to compromise.
If the United States is to help Haiti overcome its crisis through dialogue and reconciliation, therefore, Republicans and Democrats have to reconcile their own differences. And this may indeed be happening.
Secretary of State Colin Powell ended an apparent administration flirtation with a coup in Haiti, stating clearly on Tuesday that Mr. Aristide should finish his term. The Bush administration has concluded that Mr. Aristide, however flawed he may be, is the only legitimately elected leader in Haiti, and perhaps the sole remaining source of stability.
At the same time, Mr. Aristide's American supporters recognize his responsibility for the crisis and would like to see Haiti make a new start. Prominent African-Americans like the Rev. Walter Fauntroy, president of the National Black Leadership Roundtable, have suggested that Mr. Aristide should step down now.
This convergence of American opinion on Haiti offers the prospect of a more united and thus more effective American approach. The next step should be for leaders on both sides of the aisle to collaborate on a new strategy for Haiti. Such a strategy could be based on these elements:
• Mr. Aristide should serve out his term, which expires in 2006. But at the same time, we need to prepare the succession. It will take at least the two years Mr. Aristide has left in office to organize fair elections. Major American and international efforts to do so should begin now.
• The international community, either the United Nations or the Organization of American States, should administer the balloting, not just offer assistance. No Haitian government will be able to organize elections with even minimal standards of fairness.
• Haiti should get much more help. This year the United States will give Baghdad 200 times more economic assistance than it will to Haiti, which is in much worse shape than Iraq even after the invasion. We must pay greater attention to a desperately poor, misgoverned nation in our backyard.
• Some of this foreign aid should go toward strengthening Haitian institutions. Even the Clinton administration preferred to channel American aid through nongovernmental organizations, fearing that any money given to the Haitian government would be misspent. But no Haitian leader or leaders, however good their intentions, will be able to govern wisely if they have no institutions to rely on. We need to begin now to give Mr. Aristide's successors the wherewithal to govern.
• The United States should get directly involved in ending the impasse between Mr. Aristide and his opponents. The United Nations, the Organization of American States and the Caribbean Community, an organization of Caribbean states, can all play helpful roles, but only the United States has real influence in Haiti. A unified American stance could have a decisive impact, and a truly bipartisan diplomatic engagement now might still avoid the need for yet another military intervention.
It's often said that democracies end up doing the right thing only after having tried all the alternatives. We have tried the alternatives in Haiti and failed. Now we can see if doing the right thing will succeed.
Haiti in peril
Yanks flee torn nation; diplos meet with prez
By RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - Americans jammed flights out of Haiti yesterday as violence gripped much of the country, with rebels burning homes and cops abandoning police stations.More attacks were threatened this weekend, but some foreigners vowed to remain despite the danger.American missionary Terry Snow said six truckloads of gunmen loyal to embattled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide torched seven houses in his seaside neighborhood in St. Marc.Then, as the houses burned, residents jumped into the sea and gunmen fired into the air to keep them from returning, said Snow, a 39-year-old Texan."Innocent people are being killed, and houses are burned down every day and night ... and the police are doing nothing," he said.U.S. Ambassador James Foley and diplomats from France, Canada and the Caribbean nations met at Haiti's presidential palace with Aristide to offer a peace plan calling for the appointment of a neutral prime minister and the "disarmament of armed gangs."Outside the palace, Aristide supporters attacked demonstrators chanting "Aristide is a scorpion!" Loyalists to Aristide threw rocks and bottles - and then began shooting, injuring at least 20 marchers.At the sprawling U.S. Embassy nearby, a four-member team from the Pentagon arrived to assess the ability of Marine guards to fend off an attack.The exodus of Americans by air and by convoy into neighboring Dominican Republic included citizens of Canada and France, and 70 Peace Corps volunteers acting on the U.S. State Department's warning to flee the chaos in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.Four of five American Airlines flights out of Toussaint L'Ouverture Airport were fully booked, and the Department of Homeland Security assigned air marshals to all flights to and from the U.S."Our organization has told us it's safer for us to go and not be here anymore," said Nancy McWilliams, a Catholic Relief worker, as she waited in line for a ticket.Diplomats led by the State Department's Roger Noriega were to hold more talks today with government backers and opposition leaders, who have rejected any plan that leaves Aristide in office.State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said, "We see a body politic that's broken" in Haiti, but stressed that "we're not asking for President Aristide's departure, and we will not support change outside the constitutional process."Rebel groups, joined by discredited former army and police officials returning from exile, were in control of several towns in western and central regions.Evans Paul, an opposition leader, said the rebels would march on Port-au-Prince if Aristide refused to go. "If Aristide leaves, it might be under force of arms," Paul said.
All this while the UN and US talk diplomacy. Nero fiddles while Rome burns.
