Mixed goals confound U.S. efforts in Haiti; contradictions surface as U.S. faces question: reform or status quo? - includes related articles on Jimmy Carter's relations with Haiti and Haitian religious activists' reactions to US intervention

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 30, 1994 by Leslie Wirpsa

In the aftermath of President Clinton's temporary resolution of the crisis in Haiti, deeply rooted contradictions about U.S. policy and Washington's long-term goals in relation to the tiny country -- and to the region as a whole -- are once again surfacing.

There is relief in many circles that Clinton's appointed negotiating team reached an agreement with Haiti's military junta, avoiding a violent invasion by U.S. troops. But many analysts and experts on Haiti have gone beyond the rhetoric of Clinton's "victory for diplomacy." They continue to raise debate about Washington's broader agenda for the future of the island.

Although President Clinton has touted the "restoration of democracy" in Haiti as one of the United States' primary goals, analysts consulted by NCR insist the administration does not really want to see Haiti's legitimately elected president, Fr. Jean-Bertrand Aristide -- or any of his proteges -- wielding power and implementing long-term reforms.

A poignant illustration of the contradictions underlying the Clinton agenda on Haiti, says Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, was the about-face made in a matter of days by representatives of the administration when characterizing the Haitian military junta.

"Last week, Clinton described a heinous Gen. Cedras who was responsible for the raping of women and the killing of orphans. Now Carter is calling (Cedras) an honorable man," Birns said hours after the news conference given by the negotiators, former President Carter, retired Gen. Colin Powell and Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., in Washington.

Detroit's Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, a longtime analyst of Haitian issues, agreed.

"Cedras and the others have all of a sudden become honorable people who are going into honorable retirement for the good of the people of Haiti. Two days before, Clinton called them thugs. It really makes you want to throw up," Gumbleton said.

Paul Farmer, a physician and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School who has conducted research on health issues with the rural poor of Haiti for almost a decade, raised similar concerns. Farmer, author of The Uses of Haiti (NCR, Aug 26), a moving analysis of U.S.-Haiti policy, said the double-speak surrounding recent events shrouds the truth about the United States' historical and continued relationship with the powerful in Haiti.

Relief, then revulsion

"I watched the victory narratives with some kind of horror. Although I did feel relief that the 82nd Airborne didn't jump into Haiti," Farmer said, "this relief was immediately followed by revulsion about the way the officials were speaking about events. They described 'a great victory for American diplomacy' instead of acknowledging the causes of the present crisis and how it relates to U.S. foreign policy.

"The officials were speaking of the Haitian army as our historical enemies, when in fact the Haitian army has been our historical ally. And we are not talking about ancient history."

The presence of several thousand U.S. troops was expected to discourage some of the gross abuses of human rights by the Haitian military. However, the image Sept. 20 of a pro-Aristide protester being beaten to death by Haiti's militarized police as U.S. forces watched has stirred doubts about whom the U.S. troops really aim to support in Haiti.

Widening the scope, analysts say there are few indications that the Clinton administration plans to significantly alter the U.S. government's historical alliance, overt and covert, with the military, economic and political elites in Haiti.

Vivid in the historical memory of the Haitian poor are scenes similar to the Sept. 20 beating of participants at a prodemocracy rally. When the United States first invaded Haiti in 1916, setting up the country's military institution, U.S. troops not only watched but joined the Haitian army in a bloody attack against impoverished peasants who led an uprising. Since then, the narrative has never been altered: The United States has persistently supported Haiti's military with funds, training and guns, with only cosmetic interruptions.

"Eightypercent of Haitian military officers have received training in the United States," Wilfred Suprino, an exiled Haitian sociologist said from Pax Christi's U.S. headquarter. "The United States created this army that has prolonged a reign of terror."

Even though the U.S. government politically condemned the bloody 1991 coup that forced Aristide into exile, U.S. assistance to the Haitian military was not fully suspended even then. Farmer wrote that, according to reports in the general and Catholic press in October and November 1993, Cedras proteges were being trained in the United States as late as fall 1993 -- about the time officials in Washington were beginning to condemn the human rights record and a full two years after the coup. Church sources reported seeing Haitian military officers at Fort Benning, Ga.

CIA perks for Haiti army

Key officers from Haiti's modern army, including many of the recent coup leaders, have consistently received perks from the Central Intelligence Agency.