TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/101491/1014000.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 8.9 KB | 196 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 34

HAITI

One Coup Too Many


Haiti's soldiers fail to reckon with George Bush's determination
to preserve -- maybe even restore -- democratically elected
leaders

By BRUCE W. NELAN -- Reported by Bernard Diederich/Port-au-Prince
and Christopher Ogden/Washington


    Even if the world has not fully achieved a peaceful new
order, its tolerance for political mugging is declining
dramatically. A 28-nation coalition sent that message last
February when it drove the Iraqi invaders out of Kuwait. Then
thousands of Soviet citizens, supported by democratic countries
around the globe, physically blocked the August takeover in
Moscow.

    Last week, after an old-fashioned coup ousted Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the entire western hemisphere
focused its outrage on the brazen military bosses in
Port-au-Prince. The Americas were not prepared to let Haiti's
military men get away with it. Their takeover, White House
spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said bluntly, "will not succeed."

    This coup, which sent Haiti's first freely elected
President into exile after eight months in office, was
particularly galling to the U.S. and the Organization of
American States. The OAS had concluded at a meeting in Chile
only four months ago that all 34 of its members were now
democracies. To protect their legitimate governments -- some of
them shaky -- from possible overthrow by military plotters, the
organization's foreign ministers were authorized to "adopt any
measures deemed appropriate" to reverse future coups.

    After rampaging Haitian soldiers opened fire on street
crowds and threatened to kill Aristide, a 38-year-old priest,
Venezuela's President Carlos Andres Perez sent a plane to fly
him to safety. Perez offered Aristide refuge in Caracas and said
his country would be ready to take part in "the severest of
actions" to re-establish a legitimate government in Haiti.

    In Washington, George Bush judged the Haitian coup a
throwback to the violent old days and a violation of the rules
he envisions for a new world order. "I'm very worried about it,"
he said. "Here's a whole hemisphere that's moving the democratic
way, and along comes Haiti now, overthrowing an elected
government." When the old Stalinists made their power play in
Moscow two months ago, Bush observed that "coups can fail." He
intends to ensure the same outcome this time.

    Bush ordered an immediate cutoff of the U.S. aid program
for Haiti, which was to provide $85 million in 1991 and $90
million in 1992. The European Community followed suit,
suspending a $148 million aid package, and France, Japan and
Canada halted bilateral programs totaling about $77 million.

    But Haitians living in the U.S. demanded stronger action,
including armed intervention to restore Aristide to the
presidential palace. Rioters in Miami's "Little Haiti" built
bonfires and threw bottles at police. In New York City, several
thousand Haitians demonstrated outside U.N. headquarters.

    Calls for armed intervention carried little appeal for
U.S. decision makers. Gunboat diplomacy was long Washington's
way of dealing with Latin America, but it is part of the past
Bush now wants to overcome. "I am disinclined to use American
force," he said. "We've got a big history of American force in
this hemisphere, and so we've got to be very careful about
that."

    After the Pentagon announced that it had sent a few
hundred Marines to Guantanamo Bay naval base in case the 15,000
American citizens in Haiti had to be evacuated, spokesman Pete
Williams quickly explained that it was only a precaution. The
U.S. had "absolutely no interest" in using force, he said, and
added, "I don't think we are going to have to carry out an
evacuation."

    Clashes between mutinous troops and Aristide's supporters
had left as many as 100 dead in the first few hours of the
coup, and Western diplomats believe the final death toll could
be in the hundreds. The streets turned quiet after bands of
soldiers began patrolling in unmarked cars, their rifles
protruding from the windows. Haitians mounted a de facto general
strike even before Prime Minister Rene Preval, who is in hiding,
sent out the call for one. "No one is going to work until Titid
returns," a taxi driver said, using Aristide's affectionate
nickname.

    Just what action would be required to reverse the coup was
the question addressed by an emergency session of the OAS in
Washington. Aristide flew to the U.S. capital and urged the
hemisphere's assembled foreign ministers to clamp enough
nonmilitary pressure on Haiti to restore him to office. He
suggested sending a delegation to Port-au-Prince to tell the
army chiefs, led by Brigadier General Raoul Cedras, an Aristide
appointee, "that they must immediately leave the presidential
palace" or face total isolation. For his part, Cedras claimed
he had stepped in only to quiet rebellious troops in what had
begun as a rank-and-file revolt.

    Precisely how the coup got rolling is still unclear, but
the army left no doubt it had been unhappy with what it saw as
Aristide's high-handedness. It had demanded that Cedras and
other senior officers be confirmed by parliament and that
Aristide disband a new 50-man presidential guard intended to
serve under his direct command. The army also accused Aristide
of arranging the execution last week of Roger Lafontant, a
former leader of the hated Tontons Macoutes, who was jailed for
a coup attempt last January.

    In Port-au-Prince last week, there was scant evidence of
who was in charge. The power vacuum was visible at military
headquarters, where a handful of soldiers gazed at Cable News
Network and a burly naval officer was watching Poltergeist II.
He had no idea where Cedras or his aides might be.

    At the OAS meeting in Washington, meanwhile, Secretary of
State James Baker offered strong support for Aristide's
proposals. "This junta is illegal," he said. "It has no standing
in our democratic community. It will be treated as a pariah,
without friends, without support."

    After a discussion that lasted well past midnight, the
organization unanimously approved an 11-point resolution. It
called on the member states not to recognize the military regime
in Haiti and to cut off all economic, military, commercial and
trade ties with it. These sanctions add up to the total
isolation of Haiti within the hemisphere, except for
humanitarian aid shipments, mainly of food and medicine.

    Economic sanctions, though often applied, only rarely
force a determined rogue government to mend its ways. Haiti,
however, is almost without domestic resources. It is the poorest
country in the hemisphere, and 60% of its 6 million people are
unemployed. Without aid from abroad, its economic survival is
in question. An economist in Port-au-Prince says the military
leaders have "grabbed hot steel and they are going to get
burned.''

    To explain the seriousness of the OAS decisions to the
army leaders, a nine-member delegation headed by
Secretary-General Joao Baena Soares of Brazil was dispatched to
Port-au-Prince at week's end. If the junta does not back down,
the organization has resolved to call another emergency meeting
to plan further turns of the screw.

    Aristide went on to the United Nations in New York, where
the Security Council listened to his appeal and gave him a
standing ovation as he declared that the coup had "murdered
democracy" in his country. The council did not, however, provide
him with a resolution of support. Reason: members such as China
and India have domestic problems of their own -- Tibet and
Kashmir, for example -- and do not want to set a precedent for
international action in what they consider internal affairs.

    As part of the pressure on the Haitian junta, there is
talk of a possible multilateral OAS military operation to put
Aristide back in charge. The ousted Haitian President says he
does not favor it, but some countries are not feeling
constrained. Venezuela apparently meant what it said about
taking the "most severe measures." General Fernando Ochoa
Antich, the Venezuelan Defense Minister, announced after the OAS
meeting that he had been ordered to prepare for possible
multilateral action in Haiti. "The armed forces," he said, "are
right now carrying out the planning of a possible regional
military operation." President Perez promised to offer his
troops if the OAS decides to intervene.

    While such warnings should increase the pressure on the
Haitian army to back down, the western hemisphere's leaders hope
they will not have to contemplate military action. The OAS has
traditionally looked with horror on even the hint of
intervention in its members' affairs. The fact that it is
already acting more boldly than usual may well foreshadow the
emergence of a new hemispheric order.