U.S. Enlists Latin Nations to Mount Pressure on Haiti Military Regime

Attempting to increase pressure on Haiti’s military dictatorship, U.S. State Department officials Thursday asked a coalition of major Latin American nations meeting here to call jointly for the Haitian regime to leave power, and to support military intervention if it does not.

They will get the statement, but not much else.

The 14 Latin American nations, officially dubbed the Rio Group, were scheduled to issue a joint declaration today demanding that the “de facto authorities in Haiti leave power immediately.”

The statement, however, will be virtually the same as one they have released annually since the September, 1991, military coup in which the Caribbean nation’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was ousted.

But the group, which includes Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, refused to back away from its opposition to any military intervention to restore Aristide to power.

“We are staunchly opposed to military intervention,” said Venezuelan Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Burelli Rivas.

Brazil and Colombia also said that they will not back away from their opposition to military intervention.

Of the group’s members, only Argentina, which voted for the July 31 U.N. Security Council resolution that gave President Clinton the authority to invade Haiti, supports the U.S. position.

A few other members, like Chile, said they will support the U.N. resolution but refuse to send troops.

Alexander Watson, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Latin American Affairs, and Ted McNamara, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for political and military affairs, said that, while they wanted to enlist the Rio Group nations’ support for military intervention, it was not the primary purpose of their visit.

“We wanted to fully inform the Rio Group where things stand from our perspective,” Watson said of their 30-minute, closed-door presentation. “We told them that it would be very useful for the Rio Group to unanimously call for (Haitian military chief Lt. Gen. Raoul) Cedras to leave power immediately in order to have a democratic government in Haiti.

“We also asked them to fully support United Nations Security Council Resolution 940 . . . that calls for actions, by all means necessary. We made it very clear that unless Cedras steps down, without any question, there will be military intervention.

“We hope that this will not be necessary. Nobody wants that.”

Foreign ministers from the member nations listened quietly to the presentation but asked no questions at the end of the U.S. briefing.

For the rest of the day, State Department officials held separate meetings with the various national delegations gathered here for the Rio Group’s annual three-day conference. The group discusses political, social and economic issues related to Latin America.

“The American position is the same as it has been since the beginning,” said Colombia’s foreign minister, Rodrigo Pardo. “There was nothing different about it, nothing new.”

Pardo said, however, that he did hear something different from some of the members.

“If peaceful measures to bring an end to the military regime fail, I expect that some of the countries will not actually support an invasion but they will accept it,” he said.

The presidents of the member nations are expected to take up the issue of Cuba when they continue their meetings today.