Why not simply oblige? After the recent setbacks in Somalia, the United States has every reason to be wary of another nasty quagmire. Haiti’s ruling thugs, who have no intention of upholding a signed agreement to give up power, chased away the Harlan County, a tank-landing ship–and with it, seemingly, Washington’s hopes of restoring Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the democratically elected president who was ousted in a violent coup in September 1991. Bill Clinton placed on alert an infantry company at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and ordered six U.S. warships into the area to enforce an oil and arms embargo. Each ship carries helicopters to patrol the areas and coast guard boats to conduct search-and-seizure missions. But Clinton seemed reluctant to put U.S. troops in harm’s way. even to protect the 1,000 Americans in Haiti. Worried that the White House would do nothing at all, the United Nations pulled out most of its personnel.
The United States may find it hard to cut and run. Haiti, which lies only 600 miles from the Florida coast, is not Somalia. Washington has a long and troubled history with Port-au-Prince and has pledged for two years to bring back Aristide, dismantle the junta and help revive Haiti’s all-but-dead economy. “We have an interest in promoting democracy in this hemisphere,” said Clinton, who Is undoubtedly worried about a potential explosion of refugees. His policy of forced repatriation has so far kept a lid on the problem. But a new crackdown by the Haitian military could send tens of thousands of refugees into flimsy boats headed north. Local cynics refer to it as “our atomic bomb.”
Many Haitians can’t understand why the United States isn’t taking a stronger stand. The Clinton administration helped negotiate a deadline for armed forces chief Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras to step down, but now seems unable to hold him to his word. “They’ve been telling Haitians, ‘Be patient, help is on the way’,” says Jocelyn McCalla, director of the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees and an Alistide insider. “This round is over–now wait for the bloodbath.” Some Aristide supporters feared it might come soon, during the upcoming funeral of Guy Malary, Haiti’s justice minister who was brazenly gunned down in the capital’s streets last week. Some of the country’s business elite felt particularly vulnerable to reprisal: originally opposed to Aristide, they later came to support him after tightened sanctions squeezed their enterprises. “Cowardice has given a green light to the enemies of democracy, says a wealthy Haitian who now backs Aristide. “The people who stuck their necks out–and they know who we are–now have three choices: go into exile, get shot or compromise with the military.”
Clinton has reason to feel squeamish about meddling in Haiti. In 1915, U.S. marines landed to restore order after the assassination of President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam–and ended up staving 19 years. America played by the rules of “dollar diplomacy,” policing much of the Western Hemisphere to keep it safe for U.S. trade and free of foreign influence. But intervention proved disastrous. Instead of creating peace. the occupiers stirred guerrilla resistance, exacerbated racial tensions and radicalized a group of black intellectuals. One of them was the young doctor Francois Duvalier who, with; his son Jean Claude. would tyrannize Haiti for 30 years.
What if the renewed sanctions can’t persuade Cedras and police chief Lt. Col. Joseph Michel Francois to step down? After Somalia, neither Clinton nor Congress has a stomach for committing U.S. troops. And American firepower may be no more effective against urban warfare in Port-au-Prince than it is in Mogadishu: the Haitian military controls hundreds of plainclothes hit-men who do their dirty work at 3 a.m. But this time, Clinton can’t just wash his hands of the mess. If be does, it will only follow him home, in the form of thousands more Haitian refugees willing to do anything to get to America.
