Force Only Answer in Haiti, Officials Said to Conclude

Most Clinton Administration officials have concluded that new economic sanctions imposed against this nation will not work--and only military intervention can drive Haiti’s rulers from power, diplomats here and in Washington said Tuesday.

Diplomats here said they expect President Clinton to give the sanctions several more weeks, and then, at the end of July, to decide on military intervention.

“When the troops move depends at this point entirely on politics and President Clinton’s state of mind,” one diplomat said. The main factor in the decision’s timing, he added, is “to establish a wide enough window for Clinton to say the sanctions had enough time to work but failed.”

In Washington, a senior U.S. official involved in Haiti policy said that most Administration experts believe the sanctions cannot succeed but a few still believe the economic measures could prompt the Haitian military to give up power peacefully.

The issue is still being debated in the Administration’s inner councils, he said. “I don’t think anybody says they (the sanctions) will assuredly work,” he said. “A few say they might--and a lot say they can’t.”

The official said the Administration will keep imposing sanctions--including a ban on commercial air flights and a freeze on international financial transfers announced only last week--for two reasons: on the off chance they may work, but also to convince Congress and other countries that the Administration tried every possible non-military option before turning to the use of force.

The end-of-July decision date, which officials emphasize is not a deadline, coincides with a second major ingredient in U.S. strategy: the assembly of an international peacekeeping force to enter Haiti after the current military regime falls--whether to an American invasion or by peaceful means.

“Once Clinton is assured that this (force) is in place, he will have only two options,” a diplomat said: “to disengage and say only Haitians can solve Haiti’s problems or to give the order to invade. As it stands, he’ll give the order.”

Asked when the Administration realized the newest sanctions would not oust the military regime that seized power from President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991, a diplomat here answered: “There was never any doubt. Everyone knew from the beginning it wouldn’t work.”

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In an interview in Washington, Clinton’s special envoy for Haiti, former Rep. William H. Gray III, heatedly disputed that view. “We believe these sanctions can work, just as sanctions worked in South Africa, once the coup leaders see that we are serious about enforcing them,” he said.

“Most of these sanctions have been in effect for less than four weeks,” he added. “Before May 21 (when the U.N. Security Council imposed a ban on most trade with Haiti), you didn’t have any real sanctions. So it’s too early to tell what the substantive impact is. . . . But already, we have seen some people rush to get out of Haiti and others rush to ship money and packages to their families in Haiti. So they are having both a physical and psychological impact.”

Gray noted that Clinton has not ruled out military action but said the President has decided to make a serious attempt to enforce the sanctions first. “I don’t know what you’re hearing from junior officers in one place or another,” he said. “I am the President’s adviser on Haiti and there is no disagreement on the policy at this level.”

But at lower levels, many U.S. officials are skeptical. “There is absolutely no sign that the military will give up,” said one official in Port-au-Prince. “In fact, they are hardening their position and so are the elite,” a reference to the wealthy families who sought the anti-Aristide coup and have backed the military since.

“Most don’t believe there will be an intervention,” he said. “They don’t think Clinton has the guts or the political support to do it. But if it does happen, they have plans to make it so messy that he won’t stay.”

Another American official said the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, including Ambassador William Swing, is uninvolved in policy planning and has been ordered to simply parrot the Administration’s public stand that the sanctions will work. But most Clinton advisers “have been operating on this assumption (of the need for military action) for several weeks, well before the new sanctions were ordered,” one diplomat here said.

The Americans “knew from the beginning that cutting off air service and stopping financial dealings wouldn’t work,” another diplomat here said. “That was done because Clinton insists on operating with at least the appearance of international support.”

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To get that backing and to offset U.S. congressional opposition, he said, Clinton “felt he had to use every last alternative, even though the Administration’s Haiti experts all advised that the new sanctions would not drive the military out.”

Adding to the consensus that the military option is a priority was an assessment sent to U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali by his special adviser on Haiti, former Argentine Foreign Minister Dante Caputo. Without using the word deadline, Caputo is reported to have said the new international force should be in place by July 31. Caputo has privately and at times almost publicly called for intervention as the only way to restore Aristide.

A foreign military expert here added: “The only question is timing. It could come as early as July 1, but planning is under way for the end of the month or early August.”

One diplomat in Port-au-Prince said any military action will come later rather than sooner. “As things now stand,” he said, “any early intervention would come because of some action by the Haitian military,” particularly if the United States felt its citizens were suddenly in serious danger--one factor Clinton has used to explain American interests in Haiti.

No such danger has arisen yet, despite constant rumors of threats against foreigners and reports the military would close the airport before the June 25 U.S. deadline on passenger flights, thus stranding thousands of potential hostages.

One security expert here pointed out that rumors aside, no American has been seriously threatened, let alone attacked. “I know they don’t want anything to provoke” the Americans, he said.

The foreign military expert declined to discuss how an American intervention might occur but said initial planning for the international peacekeeping force provides for 3,000 troops, made up mostly of soldiers from black Caribbean nations and French-speaking countries.

“This will allow the Americans to begin withdrawing combat forces within a few weeks of the intervention,” the military source said, although some U.S. troops would remain as part of the international force “for several months.”

As the American force dwindled, the international force would increase to about 7,000, probably by December, he said.

Diplomats and other sources said the United States has recruited support from members of the Organization of American States and is confident of convincing traditional Latin American opponents of foreign intervention to at least acquiesce to military action, if not support it.

So far, some diplomats and several Haitian experts said, the new sanctions have only strengthened the military and its allies while piling more misery on the already poor Haitians.

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The effect of the financial cutoff is painfully obvious in the refusal of Haiti’s Central Bank to pay government employees or retirement benefits and in private banks’ limiting of withdrawals to about $75.

While members of the wealthy elite have used the last few months to arrange their financial affairs in anticipation of tightened sanctions, the middle class and poor are now faced with almost no access to cash.

A tour of street markets where most Haitians buy food and other products shows a dramatic drop in goods available. One owner of a small handicraft business told of “firing 15 workers because I can’t get the money to pay them.”

A man who stood in line for three hours at the Central Bank only to be told his pension could not be paid wept as he implored a foreign journalist for help to buy food.

Even the longstanding embargo against fuel has had little effect. The price of smuggled gasoline dropped this week from $9 a gallon to about $7--a clear sign of increased supply.

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Freed reported from Port-au-Prince and McManus from Washington.