False U.S. Report Shows Disarray on Haiti Policy

The Reagan Administration’s misplaced eagerness to announce the fall of Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier sent an inadvertent signal Friday to the people of the Caribbean island nation: the United States would prefer to see Duvalier go.

But the Administration’s disarray also disclosed the lack of a clear U.S. policy on Haiti’s future as Duvalier’s position weakens.

The State Department pointedly refused to offer any support for Duvalier or his regime once reports from Haiti made it clear that the dictator still held power. Embarrassed spokesmen said they were unable to provide any public explanation of U.S. policy.

“We have regularly been working with that government,” department spokesman Bernard Kalb said. “There still has been no change in government. And I’m just going to have to let it stand there.”

Several officials called Duvalier “an embarrassment” but indicated that the Administration--taken by surprise when riots against his rule suddenly spread--is still uncertain what the alternatives are.

“If we decide that he ought to be replaced,” one noted, “it’s the kind of thing we may not announce in public.”

The State Department said Thursday that it had decided to cut U.S. aid to Haiti because of the Duvalier regime’s human rights abuses. But officials said that action did not reflect a conscious decision to force the dictator out.

Travel Warning

Kalb warned Americans against traveling to Haiti “until the situation there becomes clearer.”

One problem the Administration will face, should Duvalier fall, is that Haiti’s political opposition is weak and fragmented. Military power is also divided between the security police, which have been accused of torturing dissidents, and the relatively less politicized army.

Speaking unofficially, some officials--as well as several experts outside the Administration--suggested that an army takeover might be the most feasible alternative to Duvalier.

“Without Duvalier, you will almost certainly have a military government,” said Aryeh Neier, executive director of Americas Watch, a human rights organization that has frequently criticized the Administration. “The army is not hated by the people to the degree that the internal security forces are. . . . It’s hard to imagine who else could take power and hold it.”

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee called for a multinational peacekeeping force to oversee a transition to democracy and to protect the estimated 5,000 Americans in Haiti.

‘Important Function’

Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) said such a force, if raised by the Organization of American States, “could perform the singularly important function of preventing the deterioration of the present situation in Haiti into complete anarchy.”

Eventually, Durenberger said, an OAS force could bring about “a transition to democratic rule in a country that has been historically undemocratic.”

The Administration had no immediate reaction.

“The Administration is in a terribly awkward position,” said Georges Fauriol, a Caribbean specialist at Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The policy up until now has been that as long as Haiti didn’t blow up, it was fine. . . . The question now is: How does the United States somehow maneuver elegantly--without embarrassing itself--toward a situation where Duvalier is eased out?

“If indeed the government is on its way out, then clearly the United States should identify, very quickly, an alternative political cast of characters that is sufficiently moderate to be friendly to U.S. regional interests,” he said.

Neier charged that the Administration had supported Duvalier with economic and military aid and had shifted its position only when the regime’s human rights abuses became too flagrant to ignore.

‘Congressional Pressure’

“There has been a shift, but it has been because the Administration was under increasing congressional pressure on the human rights issue,” he said. “The protests within Haiti have become much more widespread, and the government has responded in a very brutal way. . . . For the first time, they felt they couldn’t get away with certifying that there was progress in human rights.”

In its annual report on human rights sent to Congress on Friday, the Administration officially acknowledged that the situation in Haiti had deteriorated.

As a result, officials said, Haiti’s 1986 allocation of $52 million in U.S. aid will be reduced, probably by at least $7 million.

The cut will come out of a $26-million economic aid program but will not affect a $25-million food aid program or the roughly $500,000 in military aid that Haiti receives from the United States.

Kalb said the precise amount of aid given would be reviewed in light of the evolution of Haiti’s internal situation.