Drifting toward Haiti - US policy towards Haitian immigrants - Editorial

National Review, May 2, 1994

PRESIDENT Clinton is not far from being backed into a comer on Haiti from which only a military operation can rescue him. The President campaigned against Mr. Bush's policy, calling it immoral to return Haitian immigrants to their poor, violent, and authoritarian country. Restoration of Haiti's deposed President Aristide was Mr. Clinton's solution to the refugee problem, since it would permit him to send them back to a poor, violent, but democratic country. But the Haitian military refused to yield. Then Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore met and negotiated with Aristide, and like their predecessors--found him impossible, unreliable, and arguably unbalanced.

Our Haiti policy has been frozen in failure for months. Now, Haiti is becoming the center of attention for the Congressional Black Caucus, the lobbying group Transafrica, and wider leftist circles. Within days it will, no doubt, be taken up by the usual clutch of Hollywood stars, starved for causes. This is the coalition that, with help from various old-line civil-rights and liberal organizations, attacked Reagan Administration policy on South Africa, and its political clout is not derisory. Its goal is to end the exclusion and return of Haitian immigrants, and Randall Robinson, head of Transafrica, has started a hunger strike to that end.

How will Mr. Clinton react? By reimposing a strict policy, while Randall Robinson's body weakens and his anti-Clinton rhetoric strengthens? By accepting all the Haitian immigrants, in the tens or hundreds of thousands, no matter the reaction in Florida--with its 25 members of the House and one senator up this year, and 27 electoral votes in 1996? Or by restoring Aristide--by force if need be?

Of course, the Administration could distance itself from Aristide now and broker a political deal in Port au Prince without him; but it has shown little taste for taking on difficult and politically unrewarding tasks today just to ward off trouble tomorrow.

We should not shirk from policing the Caribbean, but an intervention under current circumstances would tie our efforts entirely to Aristide. Stability in Haiti requires building up a center. That is what the U.S. should be working toward, instead of getting into a corner where Marines must be sent down to play bodyguard to Aristide and solve Mr. Clinton's domestic political problem.