Saving Aristide's skin
Haitian insurrectionists take another town as the embattled Haitian president begs Washington to intervene militarily to save his regime, writes Gamal Nkrumah
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Pro-insurrectionists chant anti-America slogans in the Haitian rebel-controlled city of Gonaives
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Gonaives is not like Bouake. The first is located in the Caribbean island nation of Haiti, the second is in Ivory Coast, West Africa. However, both cities are not in the hands of their respective governments. Gonaives and Bouake are under the control of armed opposition forces bent on toppling their elected governments. Insurrectionists took over Bouake as part of a failed coup d'état in September last year. France militarily intervened and dispatched troops augmented by 1,300 West African auxiliaries in a bid to restore peace.
In both Ivory Coast and Haiti, regional economic groupings are spearheading the effort to stop the war and end the political impasse that has had dire economic consequences on the country.
In Ivory Coast, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is leading peace efforts. In Haiti, both CARICOM -- the 15-nation regional economic grouping -- and the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) are engaged in peacemaking efforts to end the civil war. The parallels do not end there. The two Francophone countries and former French colonies are increasingly looking to the United States to resolve their respective crises.
Geographical proximity is the overriding factor that US policymakers take into consideration when deciding whether to invade Haiti and bolster the rule of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The same American officials argue against military intervention in other more distant trouble spots like Ivory Coast.
France has taken up the thankless task of tidying up the mess in Ivory Coast where the US left off. There are an estimated 4,000 French troops to keep the fragile peace in Ivory Coast. However the presence of French military has failed to end the deadlock over the political future of the country where northern and predominantly Muslim insurrectionists are pitted against the Christian president of the mainly animist and Christian southerners. Despite this impasse, the French are now toying with the idea of intervening militarily in Haiti to restore law and order.
France's potential military intervention in Haiti is overtly conditional and presupposes a "spurt of effort by Haiti's political class, that President Aristide commits himself to a respect for civil peace. That is his first responsibility," declared French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin in Paris when asked by reporters if France is to send troops to quell the fighting in Haiti.
"This implies that President Aristide, who over the years has let things degenerate, can find the strength to move towards dialogue [with the armed opposition]," added de Villepin.
Haiti's neighbours appealed for peace in the war-torn nation. "We must not abandon Haiti," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said in his speech at the ACS meeting held in the Cuban capital Havana last week.
"We should not forget that 200 years ago the struggle of our Caribbean and Latin American people for their freedom began in Haiti."
The ACS was founded in Cartagena, Columbia on 24 June 1994 and is made up of 25 full-fledged members, 11 associates and 15 observers.
The US has taken an uncompromising stance vis-à-vis the Haitian insurrectionists. "We will accept no outcome that in any way illegally attempts to remove the elected president of Haiti," US Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters in Washington. Powell disclosed that the US is discussing with Canadian and Caribbean leaders the possibility of sending foreign troops to Haiti in order to assist the beleaguered Haitian president and his 5,000 police force who are deemed ill- equipped to deal with the task ahead of them.
Gonaives, a city of 200,000 people and the fourth largest city in Haiti, is the stronghold of the insurrectionists. As the war intensifies, the humanitarian crisis is imploding on a fearsome scale. Some 300,000 people are dependent on food aid in Haiti and the Dominican Republic has stated officially that it cannot cope alone if there is a mass influx of Haitians.
Dominican troops have also warned that they cannot effectively patrol the 360km border between the two countries which has been temporarily closed. Previously Haitians were permitted to cross the border into the Dominican Republic to shop on Mondays and Fridays.
The insurrectionists have expanded their sphere of influence and have recently taken the strategic town on Hinche 130kms northeast of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. They now control 11 towns and cities in Haiti, a country that occupies a third of the landmass of the rugged Caribbean island of Hispaniola.
Haiti's 5,000-strong police force is widely seen as being incapable of quelling the uprising, and the insurrectionists have been joined by exiled Haitian paramilitary leaders. They accuse Haiti's President Aristide of rigging the 2000 elections.
"I have already asked and will continue to ask the international community and prime ministers of the region to move faster on this issue," Aristide pleaded in a desperate bid to attract international assistance in ending the Haitian uprising.
"It is time for the international community, multilateral lenders and friendly governments to act with a greater sense of urgency to the [Haitian] crisis which could endanger the entire region," Foreign Minister Francisco Guerrero Prats urged world leaders.
