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| Memorandum to the Press 04.94 |
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Word Count: 1500
Thursday, 9 December 2004
Kofi Annan, Roger Noriega, Colin Powell and Lula of Brazil
have much to answer for failing to implement the UN’s Stabilization Mission
• Embroiled in the oil-for-food scandal and amidst calls for his resignation,
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has failed to give MINUSTAH, the Brazilian-led
UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, the necessary military and political direction
required to halt the post-coup violence plaguing the country.
• Annan apparently made a decision earlier this year to dispense with fair
play and side with Secretary of State Colin Powell’s slanted script for engineering
Aristide’s exodus from the country and refusing to denounce the human rights
violations, lack of rectitude and the gross incompetence of interim-Prime
Minister Gerard Latortue’s regime.
• Powell, Annan, Latortue, Haitian Justice Minister Bernard Gousse, U.S. Ambassador
to Haiti James Foley, Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega along with
President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil are each, in their own
way, culpable of grievously harming Haiti and its people.
• If the Secretary-General continues to lack the will to uphold the integrity
of the UN’s peacekeeping mandate (even if by doing so means further alienating
Washington), then it may be time for him to step down, if there is to be any
hope to restore the good name of the institution he once so admirably served.
Regarding MINUSTAH, by sometimes ignoring and sometimes abetting the Haitian
police in their raids on pro-Aristide neighborhoods, Lula’s forces have allowed
the UN mandate to support Latortue’s corrupt regime and its lawless actions.
Since
the de facto overthrow of the democratically-elected Aristide government on
February 29 of 2004, the international community, along with the UN peacekeeping
force, has either turned a blind eye on the human rights abuses perpetrated
by interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue’s regime or, at best, showered favoritism
on the hapless, extra-constitutional government. Much of the lawlessness now
found in the country is due to the ill-trained and out-of-control police force,
particularly when the peacekeepers tolerate brutal raids on pro-Aristide neighborhoods
and on those calling for Aristide’s return to the country, as well as tolerating
the Gestapo-like tactics of Latortue’s Justice Minister, Bernard Gousse.
The increasing violence being unleashed on the streets of Port-au-Prince and
the squashing of political dissent by Gousse’s goons has ranged from the incarceration
of Aristide supporters (including the country’s just-released and most highly
revered priest, Father Gerard Jean-Juste, as well as former Prime Minister
Yvon Neptune, former Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert, Senator Yvon Feuille
and former Deputy Rudy Herivaux) to shooting protestors in the street without
even the pretense of professional restraint. For such abuses, among others,
the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) all along has refused to restore normal
relations with Latortue, while the Organization of American States’ (OAS)
Inter-Commission on Human Rights has condemned the ongoing abuses now occurring
throughout Haiti with frightening regularity. As one international human rights
monitor has observed, “The contrast between the Haitian government's eagerness
to prosecute former Aristide officials and its indifference to the abusive
record of certain rebel leaders could not be more stark."
Yet, despite the growing international condemnation of the Latortue government’s
kid glove treatment of the country’s armed rebels - the same cabal that Secretary
Powell originally described before the coup as “a gang of thugs” - neither
the arbitrary actions of the armed ex-militias nor the repeated violations
of due process perpetrated by Gousse have attracted the attention of MINUSTAH,
the UN, or the denunciation of the international community.
Surprisingly, not even Annan’s personal representative in the country, the
highly regarded Chilean diplomat Juan Gabriel Valdés, has vigorously
condemned Latortue and his cronies. To the contrary, Annan and his aides have
bestowed a modicum of undeserved political legitimacy on the new government
by acquiescing, at every step, to Secretary Powell’s see-no-evil policy regarding
the egregious excesses of the Latortue regime and its multiple sins of omission.
Annan has shown little intent to protect the legitimacy of the constitutional
process nor has he insisted that Aristide be accorded the respect due to a
democratically-elected president. Annan also joined Powell in demanding that
Aristide negotiate with the opposition (to which Aristide willingly agreed),
thereby eventually hoodwinking the former President into exile. Nor did Annan
raise questions regarding Aristide’s imposed successor, the expatriate Latortue,
who later was to pathetically describe those who Powell earlier had labeled
“thugs,” as “freedom fighters.” Of course, these were the same “freedom fighters”
who terrorized the countryside during General Raoul Cedras’ 1991 – 1994 military
regime, and were responsible for upwards of 5,000 civilian deaths.
Greenlighting the Coup
The death knell for Aristide’s unruly but democratic regime occurred the moment
Powell - soon echoed by Annan - declared that the peacekeeping force would
not intervene until a political settlement was reached between Aristide and
the opposition. In Powell’s words, “There is, frankly, no enthusiasm right
now for sending in military or police forces to put down the violence that
we are seeing." He continued, "What we want to do right now is find
a political solution, and then there are willing nations that would come forward
with a police presence to implement the political agreement that the sides
come to.”
This statement was tantamount to green-lighting the coup because even though
Aristide agreed to every stipulation made by Powell and the CARICOM states,
the main opposition party, the Group of 184, would not budge from its rigid
commitment to the “zero-option” policy, defined as a refusal to negotiate,
at any cost, with the beleaguered Haitian President. Therefore, the anti-Aristide
opposition knew that once the U.S. took this stand, it would be in de facto
control of the country. For his part, even after Aristide’s ouster, Annan
would still not denounce the violent opposition and found it difficult to
describe the coup d’etat by its rightful name. In Annan’s language, “Haiti
was a peculiar situation, but the change in leadership there was not a coup
d'etat...It was a deteriorating situation.”
Annan’s Deliberate Disregard and Lula’s Complicity
There is no apparent reason why Annan’s often dissenting voice has been so
amenable to Washington’s scandalous coddling of Latortue, whose incompetence
is so glaring that he lacks the support of almost all of Haiti’s political
movements, regardless of their orientation. However, speculation is rife that
the Secretary-General’s days are numbered, depending on how the current oil-for-food
scandal plays out. But even before that scandal fully matured, some believed
that Annan was anxious to heal the wounds with the U.S. caused by Iraq, and
that sacrificing his purity over Haiti was the price he was prepared to pay.
Sen. Norm Coleman, chairman of the Senate subcommittee investigating the scandal,
along with prominent conservative columnists and political commentators, already
has called for Annan’s resignation. While many of these calls are undoubtedly
premature, politically motivated UN bashing pot-shots, Secretary-General Annan
should, in any case, perhaps consider resigning since he has abdicated his
longstanding penchant for principled positions in favor of mere political
survival.
As for Lula
The terms under which Lula dispatched his troops to Haiti, namely, that Brazil
command the international peacekeeping force, may have been too prestigious
a recognition for Lula to resist. But MINUSTAH’s performance, led by Brazilian
commander Augusto Heleno Ribero Pereira, looks more like a Faustian bargain
struck between Lula and Annan to advance the international standing of the
former and to woo Washington on the part of the latter, rather than a sincere
attempt to alleviate the suffering of the Haitian people. The operation also
seems to be managed by an incompetent and unruly police force. As noted by
famed international human rights lawyer Brian Concannon, the UN troops “do
not have the stomach to confront the rebels or anybody with a gun, but are
very courageous in surrounding radio stations to help the arrest of three
unarmed legislators. . . they're very courageous about going into poor neighborhoods
and shooting people.”
Lacking the political will to go after the rebels, MINUSTAH bears an uncanny
resemblance to the ineffective “blue helmets” of the UN in the early 90s during
the Bosnian crisis. In Haiti, as in Bosnia, the so-called peacekeeping force,
far from living up to its mandate, actually made things worse by bestowing
a patina of legitimacy over the status quo. Though the Haiti mission increases
Brazil’s status as a rising regional star, Lula has in effect given Powell
or, in this case, the real puppeteer behind Powell’s Haiti policy, Assistant
Secretary of State Roger Noriega, an escape hatch; for it is now the responsibility
of the Brazilians to deal with the wretched mess that characterizes daily
Haitian life and, as of yet, they do not seem to be up to the job.
This commentary was authored by COHA Director Larry Birns and COHA Senior Research Fellow, Seth R. DeLong, Ph.D.
December
9, 2004
COHA
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