28007: Hermantin(News)Give Haiti united message from D.C. (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>


Posted on Sun, Feb. 26, 2006



Give Haiti united message from D.C.

BY JAMES DOBBINS
james_dobbins@rand.org

For more than a decade, Washington has been bitterly divided on policy toward 
Haiti. In 1994 the Clinton administration, over virulent Republican opposition, 
sent U.S. troops into Haiti to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to 
power. In 2004, in a move condemned by Democrats, the Bush administration 
spirited Aristide out of Haiti and sent U.S. troops back into that country in 
support of the regime that had overthrown him.

During the intervening 10 years, mixed signals from Washington consistently 
exacerbated Haiti's endemic political divisions. The New York Times recently 
revealed one such episode, in which representatives of the federally funded 
International Republican Institute conducted activities in Haiti that, in the 
view of the U.S. ambassador at the time, undercut his efforts to promote 
reconciliation between Aristide and his domestic critics. Whatever the truth, 
the widespread impression was created in Port-au-Prince that influential voices 
in Washington opposed reconciliation and wished to see a premature end to the 
Aristide presidency.

This month's election in Haiti may finally have broken this pattern. René 
Préval, who served as Aristide's first prime minister in 1991 and who is still 
known in Haiti as Aristide's ''twin,'' was declared the winner on Feb. 16 after 
a retabulation of the vote.

The Bush administration, which would almost certainly have preferred a 
different outcome, nevertheless persevered in seeking to keep the electoral 
process on track to deal responsibly with the many charges of massive fraud and 
to promote an outcome that recognizes the clear choice of the Haitian people. 
Assuming that Préval ultimately gets the clear backing of a conservative 
Republican administration in Washington, the divisive and debilitating American 
debate on policy toward Haiti might finally be brought to a close.

U.S. should take the lead

It is easy enough to see the basis for a bipartisan accord on Haiti. Aristide 
is gone, and should stay that way. Representing the same constituency of 
impoverished, uneducated, desperate Haitians, Préval has emerged and won a 
clear political mandate. U.N. peacekeepers will need to remain for years to 
come as Haiti builds new institutions for public security and the rule of law.

The United States, as Haiti's near neighbor, should take the lead in helping to 
build those institutions and in alleviating the poverty of its long-suffering 
population.

Préval should be encouraged to be inclusive in his choice of cabinet and 
advisors. Opposition leaders should be encouraged to recognize and accept the 
election outcome and to work with the new government. No one in Washington 
should back dissident elements in Haiti that seek to challenge the results. No 
federally funded voices in Port-au-Prince should undercut policies being 
advanced by the American ambassador.

The durability of any such American accord will, of course, depend heavily on 
how Préval handles his new responsibilities. During his last term of office 
from 1996 to 2001, American officials found Préval to be personally honest, 
accessible and willing to act against abuses in his own regime, but rather 
undynamic and unwilling to press forward with necessary economic reforms. 
Without Aristide at his elbow, Préval may prove more decisive this time around.

Much responsibility for the lost opportunities of that earlier period also 
rests with the opposition parties that then controlled the Haitian Parliament 
and which were unwilling to pass the measures need to qualify for billions of 
dollars in international assistance. The Haitian Parliament that emerges from 
this most recent election may well be dominated by those same opposition 
figures.

Only a united message from both sides of the aisle in Washington has any hope 
of getting the various Haitian factions to work together for the good of that 
country. The early call made by President Bush to Préval, congratulating him on 
his victory and urging him to build an inclusive government, could signal a new 
era in U.S. Haitian relations.


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James Dobbins was the Clinton administration's special envoy for Haiti from 
1994 to 1996. He heads the International Security and Defense Policy Center at 
the RAND Corporation.