Is Haiti Worth It?

By Bruce W. Nelan

As night and a frightened silence fall over most of Port-au-Prince, the Champs de Mars, a grimy street a hundred yards from the National Palace, fills with drunken gunmen and pulsating music with a voodoo beat. Through the hours of darkness cars rumble up to the Normandie Restaurant and the political offices next door. Scores of "attaches," the heavily armed civilian auxiliaries to the police, receive their orders and roar away on the violent and bloody missions that keep the Haitian military regime in power.

Shadowy figures carrying rifles and machine guns line the rooftops. Others with pistols tucked in their belts drink and sleep beneath the balconies of shuttered shops. They are ragged and vicious, an army of thugs pulled together by Haiti's uniformed rulers from the remnants of the feared Tontons Macoutes, enforcers who served the Duvalier dictatorships, and hundreds of hangers-on who were fired from menial government jobs when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide took office in 1991.

One of the gang bosses says his name is Charles. A huge, tattooed man, he wears a T shirt with multicolored skeletons across the chest and the label DEAD HEAD. He says he lost his job as a guard at city hall when Aristide took over and now spends his time on the street "waiting for orders." He claims his neighbors called him a Macoute and tried to kill him. "If Aristide returns, I will not live much longer," he says. "They will come for me."

There are thousands like Charles in Haiti. Threatening as they are, they are fearful as well, certain they will die if Aristide returns. They do not intend to give up their jobs again and are prepared to do anything -- killing included -- to hold onto the petty patronage that gives them an edge.

The brutal attacks on the exiled President's supporters are directed by men with similar interests but higher positions: Lieut. Colonel Joseph Michel Francois, the chief of police, and Lieut. General Raoul Cedras, the army commander. Under a U.S.-U.N.-brokered deal struck between Aristide and Cedras last July, the general and the colonel were to resign two weeks ago, allowing Aristide to return to the island and his office this week. Instead Cedras has broken agreements and employed every kind of delay while subordinates terrorize the population. Those who can have fled the capital, hoping the countryside is safer. Like the attaches, the men at the top are determined not to lose the power they have amassed since the coup. They make big money from control of the ports and taxation, and some of them share in the drug trade that moves through Haiti at a brisk clip.

So far, neither Cedras nor Francois, who is judged by many to be the real strongman, has budged. Now the U.S. must decide how far it is willing to go to see Aristide back in power. If the U.S. has interests there, they are not ones that Americans can easily grasp. There may be a moral desire to implant democracy in Haiti, though its bloody history and repressive regimes seem inimical to that form of government. Wanting to help without getting stuck, the Clinton Administration has relied on diplomacy -- but its impact is weak without a credible threat of force.

Sanctions have hurt, but may not be enough. Though impoverished Haitians suffered deprivation under an on-again, off-again embargo, the military bosses prospered from rising prices and trade in smuggled goods. When Cedras reneged on his resignation deal, the U.N. slapped new sanctions on oil and arms shipments, and U.S. and allied warships encircled the island. By week's end almost all gas stations in the capital had shut down. But by most estimates, a three-month supply of oil remains in Haiti, and the army has ordered Aristide's newly appointed Prime Minister Robert Malval to see that it is distributed.

While the latest embargo may eventually push Cedras toward another negotiation, it is not likely to destroy the power of Haiti's military. So how is the U.S. to fulfill its pledge not just to restore Aristide to office but to ensure the growth of lasting democracy? There are those who argue that the only way is by sending in the U.S. Marines.

Few in the U.S. think the risks are worth it. A TIME-Yankelovich poll last week showed that 66% of Americans oppose military intervention. Resistance in Congress is equally strong. Not everyone agrees with Republican Jesse Helms of North Carolina, who has referred to Aristide as "a psychopath" and "a demonstrable killer," alluding to charges that have been around since the 1991 coup that Aristide was mentally ill, approved assassinations and had encouraged mobs of his supporters to kill his political foes with flaming tires called "necklaces." But there are nagging doubts about Aristide's character and ability, reinforced last week when a senior CIA official, at Helms' urging, briefed 13 Senators on the substance of the charges. Senate Republican leader Bob Dole left the secret meeting saying he had found it "very disturbing." Aristide's counsel, Michael Barnes, denied that the Haitian President had ever been treated for any mental problems or authorized the killing of any political opponents. In fact, there is little doubt that on at least one occasion Aristide did encourage necklacing. But even if he was not a full-time democrat, Haiti's overall human-rights record improved during his brief presidency.

The U.S. has always had some reservations about Aristide, a left-wing populist. Bill Clinton's advocacy has been for the democratic process in Haiti and a President elected by a 67% majority. Clinton holds to that position, but Congress has narrowed his options with a nonbinding resolution sponsored by Dole calling on the President to notify Congress before dispatching troops to Haiti.

As of now, there is only one way Haiti makes its problems matter: by sending thousands of desperate migrants out to sea on the 600-mile journey to America. The boat people's efforts resonate loudly in this country, where immigration, especially by the black and the poor, has grown unpopular. Clinton has argued that the best way to keep Haitians at home is to see that democracy and prosperity take root there. That might be correct, but the U.S. Coast Guard has also done an effective job of turning the boats back.

If a functioning democracy is required to keep Haitians at home, establishing one may be beyond U.S. means. The Marines could, in theory, invade the island, arrest the military and police chiefs, and return Aristide to office. The last time the Marines did something like that, back in 1915, they stayed for almost two decades and achieved very little in the way of nation building. Aristide, who knows how sour the word Marine is on Haitian tongues, has not asked for an invasion. Still, the troops could go in.

But then what? Haiti has never had a secure democratic government, and it is not clear that there are enough elements of civil society to provide a foundation for one within a length of time the U.S. public would support. The successors of Cedras and Francois would still be there, the country would still be split between a tiny elite and a vast poor majority, and most ordinary Haitians would still be making less than $100 a year.

Signals out of the White House indicate that in Haiti as in Somalia, Clinton prefers a political settlement to a military one.If the Haitian military and civilian elite cannot be broken, they will have to be drawn into a deal. So when economic sanctions begin to squeeze, the U.S. is bound to increase its pressure on Aristide to compromise and make the coup leaders an offer.

With reporting by Edward Barnes/Port-au-Prince, Cathy Booth/Miami and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington