Suddenly There’s Some Give in Haiti : Generals are feeling the sanctions pinch

Last week, when the U.N. Security Council set a deadline to impose economic sanctions against Haiti’s military government, Gen. Raoul Cedras blinked for the first time.

The surest sign that the Haitian strongman knows the United Nations is serious came in his letter to the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, Argentine diplomat Dante Caputo. In it Cedras referred to Jean-Bertrand Aristide as “Mr. President” and called for an urgent meeting in which “the survival and life of the nation” could be discussed.

Apparently, the U.N. sanctions--an oil embargo, a freeze of assets of the Haitian oligarchy and a prohibition on arms sales--proved to be too powerful even for Cedras. Only a few weeks before, he had rejected a similar meeting.

Although neither the letter nor the meeting alone can solve Haiti’s problems, which were generations in the making, this is a hopeful sign for an impoverished nation that has had precious little hope since Aristide was ousted in 1991. Aristide, Cedras and Caputo will meet this weekend to begin discussing a solution to the crisis. The first order of business must be the full restoration of Aristide.

Even while the talks take place, the United Nations should follow U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s recommendation and maintain the sanctions in order to keep pressure on the military and the oligarchy until Aristide returns to power. To lift them prematurely would be a severe mistake. Previous sanctions against Haiti, which were much weaker and halfheartedly enforced by the Organization of American States, did nothing to budge the junta.

Once Aristide is back in full command, the United States should lead a worldwide campaign to rescue Haiti. Both the United States and the United Nations must work on a strategy to ensure that aid reaches the millions of poor Haitians who need it and will not fall, as it has in the past, into the hands of the same oligarchs who created what may well be the most grossly unequal society in the Western Hemisphere.

The possibility of a U.S.-led military intervention in Haiti, which given the stubbornness of the Haitian military does sound appealing, should not be considered for now. In the 1920s U.S. Marines occupied the island, and that made little difference in what followed. There is no reason to assume another intervention would be any more successful.

Furthermore, U.S. military action, even if carried out to restore democracy in Haiti, would send the wrong message to Latin America, where sensitivity to U.S. interventions remains high. Most important, a military intervention is not needed now that the sanctions are finally starting to work.