By Allen Jennings
"With the president indicating that the military option is still there, we clearly need to be in a position to be ready, should he ask us," said Pentagon spokesperson Dennis Boxx, justifying the massive United States military escalation around Haiti in recent weeks.
Since July 11, when the International Civilian Mission, made up of representatives from the United Nations and the Organisation of American States (OAS), received a 48-hour ultimatum to abandon their human-rights work and leave the country, a US-lead invasion of this tiny Caribbean nation has appeared imminent.
What, however, would the US administration gain from launching a costly and potentially risky invasion in order to reinstate Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country's first democratically elected president and a left-wing Catholic priest who prioritises the poor over US business interests?
Human rights violations, especially political persecution by the military regime which came to power after ousting Aristide, has deteriorated. In the past five months, the UN-OAS mission has documented 350 political murders. Pointing out the reason for the mission's expulsion, its mediator, Dante Caputo said, "they kill, they rape and they don't want any witnesses in the country".
His human rights mission, supporters of Aristide who worked with the grassroots movements, has meticulously collected and published the names, addresses and stories of the regime's victims.
While "democracy" and "human rights" will be the catch phrases of any invasion, the US' record in the region, particularly its long-term support for the former Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti, reveal that its real motives lie elsewhere.
Refugees abandoned
Since President Aristide was ousted from office in September 1991, some 50,000 Haitians have fled the country; almost 20,000 since mid June this year.
As of June 8, refugees are being housed aboard two US ships, one moored at Kingston, Jamaica, and the other at the British colonies of Turks and Caicos Islands, while US officials examine their requests for asylum. Those who can prove they are political refugees are sent to the US naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba, until the US or another country agrees to accept them. The rest are sent back to Haiti to face a regime which is not even recognised by Washington. US officials estimate that only 5% of Haitian refugees meet the criteria for political asylum.
The Clinton administration has begun to create a network of internment camps around the Caribbean. Plans are reportedly finalised for camps in Antigua, Dominica, Grenada and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Guantanamo is currently holding some 16,000 refugees.
Only Panama's President Guillermo Endara dared rock the boat by refusing the 10,000 refugees he had initially agreed to take. "I felt pressured, scorned and intimidated; something I had never experienced before from the US. And it infuriated me because this issue doesn't have any benefit whatsoever for Panama."
Clinton's special adviser on Haiti, William Gray, has said that the US is financing the transportation of the refugees and has denied offering financial incentives to its other willing neighbouring countries.
On July 5, the Clinton administration announced that refugees fleeing Haiti by boat would not be allowed to enter the US. Instead, they would be offered "safe haven" in internment camps around the Caribbean, where they have two options: languish behind barbed wire under military guard for an unspecified stay, or return to Haiti.
The "safe haven" policy has been strongly criticised by human rights groups. "No one has suggested detention camps for Cubans or offshore island prisons for Bosnians," said the Miami-based Haitian Refugee Center. Michael Ratner, an attorney with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, denounced the new policy as a cruel hoax. "What US policy is really about is the usual: keep Haitians out of the US."
Since the expulsion of the UN-OAS human rights mission, international support for an invasion has jumped. According to the Washington Post, some 13 Latin American and Caribbean countries have agreed to contribute up to 5000 troops for a "peacekeeping" force in Haiti, which would stay until presidential elections are held in 1996.
Jamaica's Prime Minister, Percival Patterson, said on July 7 that the organisation of the 13 English-speaking Caribbean countries would support intervention if it were backed by the UN Security Council. Guyana's President Cheddi Jagan said that although he does "not like invasions ... I must support this one".
US right opposes invasion?
Nevertheless, in Washington, support for an invasion seems to be on the wane. "I don't think the case has been made for military intervention, nor do I think we fully understand the consequences of the occupation," said Democrat Lee Hamilton, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on July 11.
Republican Richard Lugar agrees: "We've got to get over the idea that invading Haiti is going to make democracy easier or life for the people easier. And it certainly will make it more difficult for the US, because we will be the government, and we will then be the oppressor". The last time the US invaded Haiti, in 1915, it remained the occupying force for almost twenty years.
Opposition to military intervention, increasingly from the right, appears to stem from the unspoken argument that it would be illogical, from Washington's point of view, to support the return of Aristide, a devout anti-imperialist. This view is supported by a concerted anti-Aristide campaign in recent months.
Now that Washington has managed to "delegate" responsibility for the Haitian refugees, why would it risk US lives to install Aristide as president and be burdened with a "peace mission" in the poorest nation in the Americas?
There are other alternatives. US Secretary of State Warren Christopher said on July 18, "I think we need to see if the sanctions won't work", and hinted at the possibility of an internal military coup which would bring an "acceptable" leadership to power until elections could be held. Aristide would not necessarily play a role in this scenario.
Haitians clearly recall that some 6000 people from the poorest and most active neighbourhoods of Panama City were killed when the US invaded Panama in December 1989.
Residents of St. Helene, in the region of Jeremie, believe that government troops have orders to attack those neighbourhoods sympathetic to President Aristide at the first sign of an invasion. "Total war will break out because peasants will use machetes, knives and other tools to defend themselves against the automatic rifles and grenades of the Haitian military," predicted a church gatekeeper in one such neighbourhood.
The Haitian military, on the other hand, have threatened to "evaporate" into the civilian population and fight the invading troops by poisoning the water, spreading disease and using voodoo to "incinerate the skins" of the enemy.
Aristide's view on the issue is unequivocal. When asked on June 25 if he wanted to return to power by way of an invasion, he replied, "Never, never and never again".
US officials have been eager for Aristide to contribute to a new radio service directed at the Caribbean nation and discourage his people from fleeing the country.
Aristide, however, has other priorities. "Comprehensive measures must be taken to reform the military and the judicial system, ensure economic stability, provide health care and an education for our citizens, reverse environmental deterioration, revitalise the agricultural sector and encourage growth and development in an open market system," he said recently.
It appears, however, that the opinions of Haiti's exiled president and the supposed beneficiary of an invasion, weigh lightly in the current debate. Gray recently said that US interests in Haiti go beyond Aristide; a view supported by Washington's efforts within the UN to force Haiti to elect a more acceptable leader.