24874: Craig (news) Boston Globe Editorial

[sak-pase@bimini.ws]

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/