Use Force in Haiti, Black Americans Urge

In a possible signal of new friction between President Clinton and part of his core constituency, a group of black American leaders Wednesday called on the Administration to use military force to restore ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power.

At a press conference attended by Aristide and a dozen or so of the leaders, Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and political activists Jesse Jackson and Randall Robinson urged the Administration and the United Nations to use military muscle to overwhelm Haiti’s army, which overthrew Aristide two years ago and has prevented him from returning to office.

Although Clinton repeatedly has expressed his support for Aristide, the President has made it clear that he is unwilling to use American troops.

Rangel, Jackson and Robinson were among 44 prominent black Americans--politicians, college professors, labor leaders, lawyers and others--who signed a sharply worded statement urging the Administration to tighten economic sanctions by imposing a total embargo on Haiti until the military permits Aristide to return.

Although Clinton has said that he may consider such a step if other measures fail, officials have said that the Administration is reluctant to go beyond the present embargo on petroleum and weapons because tougher sanctions would hit hardest at the island’s impoverished majority.

Harvard University experts in public health charged in a study released this week that even the current sanctions are causing the deaths of as many as 1,000 Haitian children a month. Administration officials challenge those numbers and the study’s methodology.

The black leaders contemptuously dismissed the Administration’s argument against a total embargo: “Many who care not a whit about the majority population in Haiti will lament that the measures we are proposing today will only hurt those whom we are trying to help,” they said in their statement.

Robinson, executive director of the TransAfrica think tank, which sponsored the press conference, said the 44 signers were not polled on possible military action. But none of those who were present expressed any opposition to the use of force.

Aristide, who has said in the past that he does not wish to return to power behind American bayonets, said Wednesday that Haiti’s constitution bars him from actively seeking foreign military intervention. However, he asserted that a majority of the island nation’s population would support any measure needed to restore democracy, even outside military action.

Jackson said former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush sent troops to Panama and Grenada “with less of an excuse” than restoring democracy to Haiti. Referring to the U.S. training that many Haitian military officers received in the past, Jackson said: “The United States is being defied and discredited by troops we funded and trained at Ft. Benning” in Georgia.

In their statement, the black leaders accused the military government of using Haiti as a transshipment point for cocaine destined for the United States. Aristide has said that the drug traffic through Haiti amounts to $1.2 billion a year.

“There is no more compelling social justice issue before the world community today than the crisis in Haiti,” the statement said. “It speaks to the heart of all that is important in the post-Cold War world--the promotion of democracy, the war against drugs, supporting economic and political stability.”