The comedians - Clinton administration's flawed and inconsistent policies toward Haiti's military regime - Editorial

National Review, August 1, 1994

THE Clinton Administration's Haiti policy will have changed between the time this is written and the time you read it, but that is not due to NR's publication schedule. It is, rather, because the Clinton policy changes each day, and sometimes twice a day.

We currently see humble American emissaries seeking countries in the Caribbean willing to warehouse a few thousand Haitians. The experience with Panama--which agreed to take 10,000 and then thought better of it--was a model of diplomatic incompetence. Negotiations with Panama were handled by novices from the National Security Council instead of by diplomats who know that country. Why? The State Department's Latin American bureau is excluded from Haiti policy-making, because the experts there (like their counterparts at CIA and the Pentagon) think American policy is daft.

For example, the U.S. has now adopted a form of class warfare that reflects the politics of our ally, exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The United States has frozen the assets here, and cancelled the visas, of all Haitians. No distinction was drawn between those who support democracy and those who oppose it. The Haitian generals and Aristide's former prime minister were treated alike, as was every businessman on the island.

The Clinton line is that this is done to educate and punish "the elites" in Port-au-Prince. Right: we now line up with Aristide and believe that the issue in Haiti is not democrats against dictators, but the Elites against the People--and their Representative, Pere Aristide. Anyone who has any property, and who might travel to Miami, is automatically the Enemy, while the poor are Good. That Aristide takes this view is no surprise; that an American government should back it is revolting. Meanwhile, reports have begun to appear on American TV about the disease, malnutrition, and death among Haiti's poor that our embargo is probably causing, certainly aggravating. It is American policy to destroy the economy of this hemisphere's poorest country, and give the Clintonites credit: it is one foreign-policy goal they actually are achieving.

Will Mr. Clinton order an invasion of Haiti? He seems alternately tempted and terrified. Tempted, because he could then send back all the Haitian migrants, strengthen his political prospects in Florida, and meanwhile show that he too can be tough. Terrified, because an invasion gone wrong would hurt him politically.

Terror is the healthier reaction. Pere Aristide himself has again, very publicly, rejected the idea of invading Haiti. He would certainly refuse to return to Haiti while it was under American rule. Mr. Clinton's in-house hawks (all former doves who have finally found a country to which they want to send the Marines) are telling him we'll be out in a jiffy, handing over to the UN forces. What UN forces? Where-and, in the light of Panama, how firm--are the commitments from other leaders? What if this becomes Mr. Clinton's Somalia? (Or, to be precise, his second Somalia?)

At best, Pere Aristide would refuse to go back and there would be a broad coalition government running the country under UN tutelage. Fine--let's go for that deal now, without the invasion. Alternative policies--all of which include broad political coalitions in Haiti, changes in the military high command, massive food and medicine shipments to the island, an end to the embargo, and an international presence--are possible, without Aristide. So the bottom line is this: Shall we send 15,000 American troops to invade Haiti and risk an indefinite occupation because Mr. Clinton is afraid to defy his party's left wing and the Black Caucus? If so, how many GIs may die persuading Randall Robinson to live?