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It sounds like once again Colin Powell was the voice of reason in the administration, and once again the adminstration ignored him.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/...aiti/index.html
A betrayal of democracy
The former National Security Council chief on Latin America says that Bush has created a disaster in Haiti.
Exceprts:
Aristide's divided and weak opposition correctly read the U.S.'s indifference as a sign that Washington was hoping that Aristide would implode, allowing them to fill the political vacuum with Washington's support. Only when brutal and unsavory elements from Haiti's recent past threatened to overrun the political leaders on both sides of the political spectrum by force of arms did Washington respond by tabling a sensible proposal for institutional reform and power sharing between Aristide and opposition party leaders. Secretary of State Colin Powell correctly argued that the solution to the Haitian crisis required a respect for the constitutional order and the legitimacy of its elected president.
When the Bush administration quickly caved to the opposition's intransigence and made it clear that it was not prepared to mobilize an international force to guarantee democracy until after the democratically elected president left office, it undermined its own peace proposal and made the president's position untenable. Rather than seeking a solution within the framework of Haitian democracy, the Bush administration rapidly concluded that Aristide was the principal problem, naively assuming that ushering a democratically elected president out of Port au Prince would usher in a better day for Haiti. "I am happy he is gone. He'd worn out his welcome with the Haitian people," proclaimed Vice President Dick Cheney.
By bringing the warring parties into an agreement that they all resisted, the U.S. would have obliged Aristide to accept restraint over his ability to wield arbitrary power and diffuse the armed confrontation between militants. It would have also forced the feckless opposition to think of an effective strategy to advance its own support among the people rather than always looking to Washington to advance its cause. But Secretary of State Powell was overruled and the State Department proposal undermined by the Bush administration itself.
Now the attempt to resolve Haiti's impasse without Aristide brings to the negotiating table individuals who have little real support in the country and don't control the increasingly anomic violence. Rather than a formula aimed at democratic consolidation, the administration's "road map" for Haiti represents a serious step backward from the hard-won if incomplete efforts at institution-building that began to take root in the Clinton administration, opening the door once again for a return to human rights abuses, immigration pressures and a further deterioration of the social and political order. It is a sober reminder that a policy of neglect is no substitute for a policy of engagement, and that a policy obsessed with personalities is no substitute for one that understands the complex forces at work in these troubled times. Unfortunately, the American people will once again be called upon to expend life and treasure to compensate for official missteps.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/...aiti/index.html
A betrayal of democracy
The former National Security Council chief on Latin America says that Bush has created a disaster in Haiti.
Exceprts:
Aristide's divided and weak opposition correctly read the U.S.'s indifference as a sign that Washington was hoping that Aristide would implode, allowing them to fill the political vacuum with Washington's support. Only when brutal and unsavory elements from Haiti's recent past threatened to overrun the political leaders on both sides of the political spectrum by force of arms did Washington respond by tabling a sensible proposal for institutional reform and power sharing between Aristide and opposition party leaders. Secretary of State Colin Powell correctly argued that the solution to the Haitian crisis required a respect for the constitutional order and the legitimacy of its elected president.
When the Bush administration quickly caved to the opposition's intransigence and made it clear that it was not prepared to mobilize an international force to guarantee democracy until after the democratically elected president left office, it undermined its own peace proposal and made the president's position untenable. Rather than seeking a solution within the framework of Haitian democracy, the Bush administration rapidly concluded that Aristide was the principal problem, naively assuming that ushering a democratically elected president out of Port au Prince would usher in a better day for Haiti. "I am happy he is gone. He'd worn out his welcome with the Haitian people," proclaimed Vice President Dick Cheney.
By bringing the warring parties into an agreement that they all resisted, the U.S. would have obliged Aristide to accept restraint over his ability to wield arbitrary power and diffuse the armed confrontation between militants. It would have also forced the feckless opposition to think of an effective strategy to advance its own support among the people rather than always looking to Washington to advance its cause. But Secretary of State Powell was overruled and the State Department proposal undermined by the Bush administration itself.
Now the attempt to resolve Haiti's impasse without Aristide brings to the negotiating table individuals who have little real support in the country and don't control the increasingly anomic violence. Rather than a formula aimed at democratic consolidation, the administration's "road map" for Haiti represents a serious step backward from the hard-won if incomplete efforts at institution-building that began to take root in the Clinton administration, opening the door once again for a return to human rights abuses, immigration pressures and a further deterioration of the social and political order. It is a sober reminder that a policy of neglect is no substitute for a policy of engagement, and that a policy obsessed with personalities is no substitute for one that understands the complex forces at work in these troubled times. Unfortunately, the American people will once again be called upon to expend life and treasure to compensate for official missteps.
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