U.S. Strategy for Haitians Falls Apart

The Bush Administration’s hope that a carrot-and-stick policy could induce a compromise to end the crisis here appears to have been crushed by nose-thumbing actions by both sides of the Haitian conflict, American and Haitian experts say.

“They broke the stick a long time ago,” said one source about the military and right-wing civilians who combined on Sept. 30 to overthrow Haiti’s first democratically elected president, “and now they’ve eaten the carrot.”

The American strategy has been to blend a punishing economic embargo with the enticement of future aid and international legitimacy--if the “moderate” army, political and business sectors agreed to restore ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The aim also was to persuade Aristide, a Roman Catholic priest whose demagogic, anti-American and leftist policies made Washington uneasy at best, to accept a diminished role as the price for his return.

“I don’t think anyone of either side was ever serious” about the American plan, said one foreign official. “I think the chances for a negotiated settlement are dead.”

From the beginning, the American plan was stymied not only by the refusal of army, government and legislative leaders to carry out agreements but also sometimes by Aristide’s reversal of promises to accede to proposed settlements.

The latest blow came on Wednesday when the government suddenly withdrew permission for the Coast Guard to continue repatriating thousands of Haitians intercepted while fleeing to America. The denial, based on a claim that Haitian officials were unprepared for the influx, came hours after a State Department announcement that the Americans planned to relax their economic embargo.

American officials said later Wednesday that the Haitians will permit the repatriation to resume today.

Some saw the Haitian stalling as a defiant gesture, underlining the belief of many Haitian military leaders and their supporters that the United States lacks the will to carry out its policy or does not want Aristide to return.

A major rationale for easing the sanctions, which had nearly destroyed Haiti’s already ragged economy, was to induce authorities to negotiate seriously.

“I don’t know about that,” said Sen. Thomas Eddy Dupiton, an anti-Aristide leader, “but there are no plans for new talks” about Aristide’s return.

This followed a statement by Aristide from his exile home in Venezuela bitterly attacking the American refugee policy and a renewal of his demand that Army commander Brig. Gen. Raoul Cedras be fired as a condition of his return.

Cedras, viewed as a moderate by the U.S. Embassy, was the key to the success of the American plan. It provided for Cedras’ continuing in command, in exchange for supporting the creation of a new, conservative government and a weakened role for Aristide.

The theory for the approach: That Cedras, an honest and moderate man, represents elements of the army who oppose other military figures who are thugs and thieves more interested in running drugs and other contraband than in establishing a legitimate, professional military.

Cedras did not initiate the coup but ultimately joined it and has been the subject of bitter Aristide tirades. But Aristide had stated that he could accept a compromise to retain the general in his post; Cedras has told American officials and Haitian politicians that he could live with Aristide’s return.

So “it is destructive” when Aristide “calls for Cedras’ removal,” said a key Haitian politician.

But Cedras has sent mixed signals and has frustrated the Americans by failing to heed their suggestion that he act against his enemies in the army and establish his leadership. He also dismayed American officials when he all but dared the United States to intervene militarily here. He said his troops would defeat the Americans, just as Haitian slaves destroyed French armies in 1803.

Close aides told reporters on Wednesday that the American plan to appoint Rene Theodore, a moderate anti-Aristide figure, as prime minister, with Aristide to return at an undetermined time, “is dead.” Further, they said, the United States no longer has any influence in Haiti. “The Americans are caught in a pigsty and don’t know how to get out.”

This attitude is causing some officials to begin considering what many skeptics have said for some time--that Cedras has played the Americans for fools and has used his alleged differences with other more radical officers to buy time. In this view, if Cedras and his supporters hold out long enough, the world will accept the status quo and drop the idea of Aristide’s return.