Last March, a group of high-level diplomats traveled to Haiti to deliver an ultimatum to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide: Complete long-promised reforms now, or face consequences.
The reforms were aimed at making the country safer for new legislative elections — the widely favored solution to Haiti’s political crisis.
But time passed, and the diplomats frowned at the Haitian government’s response to their demands. Today, they will gather at an Organization of American States meeting in Chile to decide what to do next.
But several diplomats involved say not to expect much action.
After three years of trying to mediate a compromise, the OAS is running out of options to put pressure on the Haitian government and the opposition.
“They are working in a very difficult political environment and are left with very few recourses,” said Dan Erikson, director of Caribbean programs at the Inter-American Dialogue, a hemispheric policy forum based in Washington.
CRISIS PERSISTS
Meanwhile, the country is no closer to easing a crisis that started when Aristide’s party swept a disputed legislative election in May 2000. And the OAS risks losing credibility.
The current debate centers largely on security issues. In part to satisfy the opposition’s demands, the OAS asked the government in March to make the country safer for campaigning for new elections, by taking illegal guns off the street, reforming the police and arresting a well-known fugitive.
The Haitian government, for its part, says the country is ready for a vote.
“The security circumstances in Haiti aren’t perfect, but they are far better than the security circumstances that existed in El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia and many other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean where elections have been held,” said Ira Kurzban, the government’s U.S.-based lawyer.
The small and fractured opposition manufactured the issue, Kurzban said, because the parties fear they will lose, again, in new elections.
ACCUSATIONS MADE
The Haitian government and its supporters also have accused the OAS of meddling in internal issues, particularly when the head of the mission complained that the OAS wasn’t consulted about the country’s first choice for a new police chief.
The OAS also has made demands of the opposition, saying it must agree to participate in elections if the government makes the reforms. The opposition hasn’t agreed. The result is the ongoing stalemate.
Tough sanctions were already applied against Haiti, when the hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to the government were blocked after the disputed 2000 elections. The OAS later realized that cutting off the money was only crippling the fledgling democracy further, so last summer the group asked international financial institutions to resume lending. (The money hasn’t actually reached Haiti yet because the government owes back pay on payments.)
But as a compromise with the OAS, the government agreed to a series of reforms, including those on security. Several OAS representatives have said the government has failed to make key changes, which Haiti disputes.
The Haitian government’s most ardent critics say that tack, too, has failed, and they want the diplomats to move toward suspending Haiti from the OAS — a drastic, unprecedented decision required only when a government has broken the constitutional order, according to the OAS charter.
Some, but not all, of Haiti’s fractured opposition advocates this.
U.S. INTENTION
But Caribbean diplomats and a U.S. official said that option isn’t seriously being considered. The United States, which will be busy with other pressing issues at the meeting, officially plans to continue to work with the government in the framework agreed to last summer, a State Department official said.
In general, the United States has been walking a cautious line, trying to be tough on Aristide, but not so much that the country is destabilized, sparking a massive wave of migration. Caribbean leaders, meanwhile, have voiced restraint, said Fred Mitchell, foreign minister of the Bahamas.
FURTHER ACTION
“Do you exacerbate the situation by going any further than you are now? Because we know that every time, at least as far as the Bahamas has been concerned, any further action leads to a mass exodus from the north of Haiti,” said Mitchell, whose country is a stopping point for Haitian migrants. “Our country can’t withstand those kind of economic shocks.”
Mitchell advocates continuing to work with the government and continuing verbal pressure.
Some analysts don’t fault the OAS for not being able to bring the two sides in Haiti together.
‘There’s the old saying, `You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink,’ ” said Erikson, of the Inter-American Dialogue.
“They’ve led the government and the political parties and civil-society groups to water, and no one’s drinking. And there’s not much the OAS can do on that front.”
By Marika Lynch, The Miami Herald
