Haiti,
the poorest nation in the hemisphere, 500 miles off the coast of Florida, is under
siege by thugs and assassins. The Bush administration, after pursuing polices
that helped fuel the crisis, has been reluctant to help resolve it. As was once
said of Mexico, pity Haiti, so close to America and so far from God.
Last
weekend a gang of thugs, armed with assault weapons, took over the second-largest
city in Haiti, freeing prisoners and setting off widespread looting.
The
United States is deeply implicated in the crisis. The story begins in 1990, when
Jean Bertrand Aristide was elected president after 30 years of a hated, but U.S.-coddled,
Duvalier dictatorship. Aristide, a priest who led a movement of Haiti's poor,
was openly opposed by the first Bush administration. One year later, the Haitian
army overthrew Aristide, assuming it would gain approval from the United States.
But
the U.S. leadership changed. In 1994, President Bill Clinton sent 20,000 soldiers
to Haiti to restore Aristide and democratic rule in Haiti. But excoriated by Republicans
for using the military for peacekeeping and nation-building, Clinton pulled U.S.
forces out in less than two years. Haiti was never provided the aid nor the reconstruction
of basic infrastructure that might have put it back on its feet.
Bitter
and violent Haitian divisions revived -- pitting the country's ruling elites against
Aristide's Lavalas party forces. In 2000, Lavalas swept the legislative elections
in voting international observers condemned as flawed. The Bush administration
led the international community in suspending foreign assistance.
When
Aristide was re-elected in 2000, the Bush administration made clear its opposition.
The International Republican Institute aided his opponents, some of whom are connected
to the gangs now terrorizing the country. By 2003, the opposition began sponsoring
a wave of protests calling for Aristide to resign.
Initially,
the Bush administration signaled it was ready for ''changes'' in the leadership
of Haiti. Now, faced with a potential flood of refugees fleeing to Florida, a
key battleground state in the 2004 election, the administration is backpedaling,
while denying any responsibility.
Secretary
of State Colin Powell has said there is ''no enthusiasm'' for sending in an armed
peacekeeping force, leaving it to the French to begin mobilizing the international
community to intervene. Belatedly, Powell did state that the administration wants
Aristide to finish his term. But an attempt to mediate between Aristide and the
democratic opposition leaders failed last week, when the latter insisted on Aristide's
resignation. The Bush administration added humiliating insult to injury Monday
by sending in 50 Marines -- only to protect our embassy.
Haiti's
desperate poverty lies at the root of this conflict. Eighty percent of its people
are impoverished; 90 percent are illiterate; 60 percent lack clean water. The
years of dictatorship and misrule devastated basic infrastructure: sewerage, health
care delivery, roads, electricity.
Aristide
roused the poorest of the poor to take the country back from the Haitian elites
who had looted it for years. But without sufficient U.S. and international assistance,
he has been unable to overcome the entrenched poverty.
The
result has been continued political violence, in which Aristide himself is implicated.
Today his capitol is defended, if at all, more by armed gangs of his supporters
than by the police.
The
Bush administration would prefer Aristide out and the Haitian elite back in control.
But the United States cannot stand idly by and watch a democratically elected
government in a neighboring country, however flawed, be overthrown by thugs and
assassins.
An
administration committed to rebuilding Iraq and implanting democracy there, halfway
across the world, surely can afford to defend democracy and help to rebuild tiny
Haiti. But today, Haiti suffers, too close to America and too far from oil.
