Haiti: Mangled Multilateralism

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Haiti: Mangled MultilateralismAuthor(s): Ian MartinSource: Foreign Policy, No. 95 (Summer, 1994), pp. 72-89Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1149424 .

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HAITI: MANGLED MULTILATERALISM

by Ian Martin

On Monday, October 11, 1993, the USS Har- lan County was due to dock at Port-au-Prince. The ship was to disembark U.S. and Canadian troops, the first major contingent of a United Nations military training mission to Haiti. It found its berth occupied, and as diplomats and journalists went to the port, they were con- fronted with a hostile demonstration of armed thugs. The next day, instead of waiting in the harbor while the Haitian military was pressured to ensure a safe landing, the Harlan County turned tail for Guantinamo Bay.

Officials of the U.N. and the Organization of American States (OAS) were aghast. They were responsible for the implementation of the July 1993 agreement between the Haitian commander-in-chief, General Raoul C6dras, and President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which was to culminate in the retirement of the former on October 15 and the return of the latter on October 30. The U.N. and OAS had been nei- ther consulted nor informed of the decision by President Bill Clinton's National Security Council to retreat. The special envoy to Haiti of the U.N. and OAS secretaries-general, former Argentine foreign minister Dante Caputo, publicly referred to the demonstration as "the excuse" for the pullout.

The organizers of the Haitian protest could hardly believe their success. "My people kept wanting to run away," Emmanuel Constant, leader of the right-wing FRAPH (Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti), later told an American journalist. "But I took the gamble and urged them to stay. Then the Americans pulled out! We were astonished. That was the

IAN MARTIN, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endow- ment, was director for human rights of the OAS/U.N. International Civilian Mission in Haiti from April to December 1993, and was previously secretary general of Amnesty International.

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day FRAPH was actually born. Before, everyone said we were crazy, suicidal, that we would all be burned if Aristide returned. But now we know he is never going to return."

Within 48 hours, on Thursday morning, a second component of the international mission, the U.N. police monitors, had been flown out after a decision by the Canadian prime minister, Kim Campbell, who was preoccupied with a devastatingly unsuccessful election campaign. That afternoon, Guy Malary, Aristide's minister of justice, was gunned down in the streets of Port-au-Prince. That evening, U.N. security officials decided to evacuate the third component of the international presence, the OAS/ U.N. International Civilian Mission, whose human rights observers were deployed throughout the island. Within 36 hours they too were gone, with the U.S. commander of the U.N. military component and his advance party hard on their heels.

The Haitian situation had not always looked so bleak. Three months earlier, Aristide and Cedras's signature of the Governors Island Agreement had been hailed as a unique tri- umph: for the first time, a successful restoration to power, by peaceful means, of a democrati- cally elected president ousted by military coup d'6tat. The International Civilian Mission was the first such joint operation by the U.N. and a regional organization (the OAS), and the larg- est human rights monitoring mission ever deployed. Cooperation between the U.NJOAS negotiators and the United States had also been unprecedented. American support was crucial to the success of the multilateral operation, and the operation's success crucial to relieving the Clinton administration of a major domestic political problem.

Success would thus have offered a model of far-reaching significance; failure seems to de- prive us of one. But the international community's strategy could have succeeded. If the operation failed because of mistakes within the strategy, rather than because the strategy was fatally flawed from the outset, positive lessons remain to be learned. One key lesson is that attention to the human rights situation is central to a political solution, not peripheral.

From the earliest post-coup negotiations in

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late 1991 to a plan put forward by Haitian parliamentarians in early 1994, the proposals for a return to constitutional government have included some transitional period under a "government of national consensus," with a prime minister named by Aristide but acceptable to his opponents. The request for an international civilian presence in Haiti was made by Aristide himself in order to pave the way for his return. Aristide was impressed by the successful role that U.N. and OAS election observers had played in ensuring a democratic outcome when he was elected in December 1990. He wanted an international presence not only to end the post-coup killing and torture of his supporters, but also to reopen freedom of expression and association. Since his counterweight to the military's monopoly on arms lay in his overwhelming popular support, only such an open- ing could alter the balance of forces. In Sep- tember 1992, the de facto government installed by the military accepted an OAS team, but re- stricted their number to 18 and did not allow them to operate outside the capital.

At the end of 1992, Haitian businessmen proposed an initiative that would lead to the lifting of sanctions, with a civilian mission the centerpiece. They secured the agreement, in principle, of the military leadership; its motives centered on an end to international isolation and resumption of U.S. military assistance. The United Nations Secretariat, meanwhile, had seen in Clinton's election the possibility of a serious American search for a Haitian solution. That view was strengthened when Clinton reneged on his pledge to stop the practice of returning Haitian refugees fleeing by boat without screening; his embarrassment required him to promise an early return to democracy and an end to political repression. Previously content with leaving an unrewarding negotiating role to the OAS, the U.N. now became directly involved, in effect taking the lead.

On January 8, 1993, Aristide wrote to the U.N. and the OAS formally requesting that "a major international presence" be deployed throughout Haiti. His letter portrayed this multinational mission as the first step in an initiative that would proceed to the nomination of a prime minister and formation of a consen-

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sus government; the removal of sanctions and mobilization of financial aid; and international assistance to "professionalize" the military, es- tablish an autonomous civilian police force, and reform other institutions. Emanating from the Haitian business community, cleared with the military, and presented in draft to Aristide by State Department officials who had had responsibility for Haiti policy under George Bush, the letter said nothing about a timetable for the president's return.

The OAS had previously fielded electoral observers, even in Haiti itself, but had less experience in deploying human rights observers. The U.N. already had substantial human rights components in its peace-building missions in El Salvador and Cambodia. The mandate of the U.N. human rights operation in El Salvador had been developed through careful consider- ation and negotiation, culminating in the San Jose Agreement of July 1990 between the governments of El Salvador and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front. Human rights monitors were sent into the field before all aspects of the political settlement had been agreed upon--as was being proposed for Haiti -and the improvement in the human rights situation then enhanced the climate for the remaining negotiations. U.N. negotiators draft- ing the terms of reference that would define the role and powers of the civilian mission in Haiti based them closely on the San Jose Agreement.

Hope for Human Rights The civilian mission was charged with pro-

moting and protecting human rights as guaran- teed in the Haitian constitution and in international human rights instruments to which Haiti is a party. The mission focused on the right to life, to the integrity and security of the person, and to freedom of expression and association. It would be entitled to receive communications about alleged human rights violations, visit freely any place or establishment throughout the country, make recommendations to the authorities and verify their follow-up, undertake a public information and education campaign on human rights, and use the news media for the fulfillment of its mandate. The authorities

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undertook to protect the security of the observers and also of Haitians who were in contact with the mission.

Once the terms of the civilian mission were accepted by the de facto government on Febru- ary 9, 1993, the OAS immediately recruited and dispatched 40 observers to join the 18 already in the country. The U.N., with greater appreciation of the complexities and requirements of a human rights mission, sent three experts (of which this author was one) to make planning recommendations for the mission. Their report proposed a total of 260 observers, equally recruited by the OAS and the U.N. to work in an integrated joint mission. The observers were to be deployed in 13 offices across the country.

Their analysis of the mission's prospects for success concluded that the widespread penetra- tion of human rights observers into the country could initially help dissuade the military, the section chiefs it appointed to police rural areas, and those linked to them from committing human rights violations. It warned that Haitian civilian institutions, especially the judicial system, were so weak that relatively little could be done to bring about redress or prevent violations over the long run without institutional reform. That, however, required a legitimate government in place. And in a frank analysis of likely difficulties, the experts wrote:

We predict the rapid emergence of serious problems for the Mission if many months elapse before a legitimate government enjoying public confidence returns to power. If the Mission is indeed initially successful in raising the confidence of the population, it will lead rapidly to increasingly assertive attempts to exercise freedom of expression. The overwhelming preponderance of freely expressed political, popular and journalistic activity can be expected to challenge the defacto authorities and the human rights record of the military and to demand the early return of President Aristide. On the other hand, we found little indication that the military and de facto authorities are prepared to tolerate such activity in practice.

And so it proved. The military had expected the deployment of the civilian mission to be followed swiftly by the nomination of a prime minister acceptable to it, some easing of sanctions, and the beginning of international assis-

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tance including to the military itself. To the military leaders, Aristide's return lay in the distant future; for some of them, it remained an unthinkable calamity that they could prevent, once they had emerged from their international isolation. The president, on the other hand, was adamant on the ouster of those who had led the coup and presided over the repression. Caputo also made clear that he was committed to Aristide's early return, now publicly backed by Clinton. When in mid-April Caputo told the military leaders that they must quit on the basis of assurances from Aristide for an amnesty, he was rebuffed.

The United States had threatened stronger sanctions, and the negotiators had been quoted in the press as suggesting that the offer to the Haitian military would get tougher, not weaker, if rejected. But U.S. officials, who had been in direct discussion with the military, concluded that the army needed further reassurance of its future. That was a key moment: For the first time, the military learned that the Clinton administration was not prepared to have tough talk followed by tough action. The U.N. was already considering the need for a uniformed international police presence during the transition and for a period after Aristide's return. At U.S. insistence, and despite considerable reluctance from Aristide and from some in the U.N., a mostly American military component was added to the negotiators' proposals. At U.N. insistence, and as preferred by Aristide, it would be part of the overall U.N. operation.

In the negotiations that followed, the differences between Aristide and the military over the role of foreign uniformed contingents were blurred rather than resolved. Aristide wanted to reduce the army from 7,000 to 1,000 soldiers. The Haitian high command, for its part, sought U.S. assistance to ensure the army's future. The generals trusted the framework of bilateral U.S. aid. They mistrusted the U.N. and the proposal for the Canadians and French, both more committed supporters of Aristide than the United States, to take the lead in the police contingent. The United States hoped to preserve the military-an institution it had often assisted and in fact had created for purposes of internal control during the American occupation of 1915-34.

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Washington also wanted a U.S. presence in the army's barracks as a dissuasion against another coup. The administration would have preferred a bilateral relationship, too, but accepted that its military contingent would be part of the U.N. multilateral operation, with an American military commander.

Aristide was torn between a reluctance to publicly sanction any international armed presence and a recognition of the importance of at least the police component to promote a peaceful transition and to create a separate civilian police thereafter. He was suspicious, with good historical justification, of renewed U.S. assistance to the military, especially if it began before he was back in power. The U.N. believed the civilian mission alone would be inad- equate to contain possible violence during the transition and indeed might be vulnerable to it. U.N. "security advisers" had played an important role during the 1990 election. The U.N. therefore proposed a U.N. police contingent and was unenthusiastic about Washington's desire for an American military presence; once the U.N. accepted the U.S. presence, it insisted that the Americans be part of the U.N. operation, under the authority of the special envoy.

In mid-May Caputo and Clinton's special adviser on Haiti, Lawrence Pezzullo, together presented the package to the military. U.N. "police monitors" would be deployed alongside Haitian police in each urban or rural subdivi- sion, monitoring the performance of the Hai- tian army in its policing functions and training the new civilian police that would take over from it. In addition, a small number of military trainers would contribute to the professionali- zation of the army, while a larger construction battalion would work with Haitian contingents on projects that would benefit the army directly by improving its own often squalid facilities, and indirectly by showing it fulfilling a socially useful, developmental role.

The U.S. embassy was now confident that the proposals would be accepted. Instead, the high command firmly rejected the police and military components, publicly questioning "the composition of these forces, their mission, the motives for their presence, their mode of func- tioning on the national territory and the ab-

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sence of any regular and constitutional proce- dure for their establishment." From that point on, the proposed U.N. forces were portrayed in the Haitian media as armed foreign interven- tionists, presented alongside damning reporting about the U.NJU.S. operation in Somalia. The decision that U.N. police (unlike civilian police in many U.N. operations) and military would carry sidearms for self-defense--"little pistols," as the U.S. charge d'affaires characterized them-was too much for some Haitians, while it would prove too little for the Pentagon. It required a Security Council mandate, encourag- ing the portrayal of the police and military as "peacekeepers." Although they would have no mandate for peace enforcement, or indeed to use force in any circumstances other than self- defense, Haitians hostile to the operation were able to link it, however unjustifiably, with scenes of violence in Mogadishu. Return to Suppression

While the negotiations were failing to estab- lish even the starting point for the transition, the civilian mission was encountering the pre- dicted difficulties. Where its presence was visi- ble, the mission had initially discouraged fla- grant abuses. But by late April a marked deteri- oration had been experienced in several dis- tricts. The novelty of the observers had worn off and military irritation at their intrusive behavior grew. The hard line taken by the high command in negotiations was reflected in defi- ant behavior at the local level. Most important, the presence of the mission had indeed encouraged Haitians to assert their freedom of expression. In Gonaives, the town where the unrest that brought down Jean-Claude Duvalier had begun, students attempted to organize demonstrations in support of Aristide's return. Al- though small in number and apparently peaceful in intent, the protesters were beaten off the streets by soldiers and "attaches"--civilian auxiliaries appointed and armed by the military-and some of their organizers were arrested and severely ill-treated. Meanwhile, peasant activists in the Central Plateau emerged from hiding to resume organizational workc They were arrested, severely beaten, and forced to leave their homes again. The high command

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and the Port-au-Prince police chief signaled their refusal to respect the mission's terms when they denied observers access to trade unionists who had been arrested and severely beaten in the capital. After the mission began to deplore those realities publicly-while press- ing the high command about them privately -regional commanders were instructed to check "gratuitous violence." But whatever repression was deemed necessary to subdue a hostile population would continue, despite the presence of human rights observers.

Tensions on the island grew when on June 16, in response to the high command's rejec- tion of the package including military and police contingents, the U.N. Security Council voted to impose an oil and arms embargo. Within five days, Cedras had reversed his initial adamant refusal to participate in negotiations in New York. On July 3 Cedras signed the Gov- ernors Island Agreement. Aristide signed later that day. The pact provided for the nomination of a prime minister by the president; a political dialogue necessary for the prime minister's parliamentary ratification and passage of essential legislation; suspension of sanctions; international assistance for development and adminis- trative and judicial reform, and "the moderniza- tion of the Haitian armed forces and creation of a new police with the presence of U.N. personnel"; an amnesty; passage of a law creating a new police force and nomination of a new chief of police; "early retirement" of C&dras as commander-in-chief, followed by Aristide's designation of Cedras's successor, who would appoint a new high command; and the return of the president to Haiti on October 30.

The agreement was not necgotiated between

the Haitian parties, and probably could not have been: Aristide refused to meet with Ced- ras. Rather, it was shaped by the U.N./OAS negotiators in consultation with the four "Friends of the Secretary-General" for Haiti -the governments of Canada, France, the United States, and Venezuela. The United States was the principal "friend" and did much of the negotiating with the military. Heavy pressure was then applied to both sides to accept the package. Aristide was the more re- luctant party. The four-month period before

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Aristide's return--a compromise from C6dras's initial proposal of six to eight months--was presented to Aristide's negotiators as the mini- mum period for deploying the police and military missions. But Aristide believed the military would have ample time to frustrate his return. His concern deepened when he discovered that negotiators had softened their position on the departure of the military leadership. From the beginning of the talks, it was understood that all members of the high command and the Port-au-Prince police chief, Lt. Col. Michel Frangois, would have to go. Suddenly, on Gov- ernors Island, the U.S. interlocutors proposed that only C6dras would resign, the others being reassigned within the army but outside the high command. The final commitment of Caputo and the Clinton administration to Aristide was that the other high command members would either resign from the army or have to obey the orders of his new commander-in-chief, who could reassign them out of Haiti.

Regrettably, the Governors Island Agreement made no reference to respect for human rights. The extent to which Aristide's supporters would be free to express themselves without becoming victims was a major preoccupation for him. He agreed to sign only after receiving written U.N. assurances that "numerous" human rights violations would cause the reimposi- tion of sanctions.

Confidence in the effectiveness of sanctions was now at a high. They had just succeeded in bringing the army to the negotiating table and gaining C6dras's agreement to step down. But once suspended, the threat of renewed sanctions would prove too blunt an instrument to secure the military's implementation of the agreement. Aristide believed, rightly, that sanctions would be reimposed only in the event of a total breakdown in the process; meanwhile, the military would have stockpiled supplies to reduce its vulnerability. Others believed, also rightly, that a constitutional prime minister could hardly begin to restore effective administration and revive the economy while sanctions remained in effect.

A period of relative calm and optimism in Haiti followed the signing of the agreement. If there was no immediate improvement in the

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military's conduct, there was an impressive breadth of acceptance of Aristide's return in the business community. Aristide named businessman Robert Malval as prime minister, and some cooperation among old antagonists emerged through lengthy and difficult negotiations to secure his ratification by Parliament. Malval's ratification prompted the suspension of sanctions on August 27.

By that date it had become all too clear that the human rights situation since Governors Island had seriously deteriorated. Many hun- dreds at least had been killed in the immediate aftermath of the coup, and the killings continued during 1992; Haitian human rights groups were estimating some 3,000 deaths before the arrival of the civilian mission, and that was probably not an exaggeration. Relatively few killings were reported to the mission in its early months. Then, in July and August, 58 known killings or suspicious deaths occurred in Port- au-Prince. In September alone the toll doubled to more than 60. Some of those killed were political activists in their communities, and some of the killers were identified as soldiers or "attaches." In other cases the killings, concen- trated in poorer areas, appeared random; but the violence was carried out with an impunity implying police complicity, and the purpose seemed to be to terrorize those localities that had been hotbeds of support for Aristide.

As the weeks went on, the political character of the violence grew increasingly clear. When Port-au-Prince's pro-Aristide mayor was rein- stated in his office, his supporters and some bystanders were attacked, with some killed and others savagely wounded. The testimony of people who had resurfaced after being seized, tortured, and interrogated, and the pattern of abductions and killings, afforded growing evi- dence of complicity by paramilitary groups linked to the armed forces or by soldiers themselves. The military's declaration that public political activity would not be permitted was reinforced in a calculated message to the nation when businessman Antoine Izmiry, who had defied the military in organizing peaceful but highly publicized displays of support for Aris- tide, was dragged from a commemorative mass on September 11 and executed in the presence

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of international observers. The civilian mission's investigation found that the assassination team, which included a person identified as a member of the armed forces as well as several "attaches," arrived and departed the scene escorted by police vehicles.

Once suspended, the threat of renewed sanctions would prove too blunt an instrument to secure the

military's implementation of the

agreement.

Outside Port-au-Prince, cases of arbitrary arrest, torture, and ill-treatment continued. If the military had been preparing for a transfer of authority to legitimate government, and was fearful of popular reprisals upon Aristide's return, it should have been relaxing repression. In fact, it showed no greater tolerance for freedom of expression, and threats and harassment of activists prevented any revival of popular organizations. Although the killings prevalent in the capital did not yet pervade the provinces, the mission received numerous reports of in- creased distribution of weapons to "attaches" and threats to murder Aristide supporters in the event of his return.

The military's determination to strengthen rather than ease its control was also evident in the establishment of the neo-Duvalierist political party FRAPH. FRAPH draws on many of the same elements as the military has always relied upon for civilian terror. It was allowed the use of arms, and its intimidatory demonstrations were clearly assisted, and probably directed, by the military.

The civilian mission as well as journalists familiar with Haiti reported the situation in increasingly alarming terms. The negotiators and the U.S. embassy, however, insisted that the process remained on track and that Cedras would respect his commitment to retire on October 15. Their efforts, and the hopes of the Malval government, centered on the deployment of the police and military components of the U.N. mission, which they believed could bring about a crucial psychological shift in the

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country. But the deployments had been delayed by several factors: the time taken for the U.N. Security Council to mandate and finance the operation; the slow dispatch of police contingents, aside from the Canadians; and complicat- ed negotiation of the status of mission agreement with the Malval government and the rules of engagement with the Pentagon. Although the police contingent was to number 567, and its crucial test would come with Aristide's Oc- tober 30 return, no more than 200 police were scheduled to be in Haiti by then and deployment outside the capital would not have begun, leaving the human rights observers the only international presence in the countryside. The military leaders devoted themselves to creating problems for the deployment rather than coop- erating. They saw their opportunity in the congressional and public reaction to the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Somalia, and were handed a final card when then defense secretary Les Aspin, on the defensive as the Haiti mission was characterized as "another Somalia," stated that the arms available to the U.S. military in Haiti included M-16 automatic rifles--hardly the "little pistols" of earlier assurances.

The military also prevented the Parliament from meeting with the quorum needed to pass the law separating the police from the army. That law was the essential prerequisite to the replacement of Frangois. As Port-au-Prince police chief, with links to military hardliners throughout the country, he was as central to the ongoing repression as he had been to the coup itself. Justice Minister Malary's responsibility for that legislation may have been a factor when he was targeted for assassination. His death ended any remaining pretense that the constitutional government could function.

Clinton took the decision to withdraw the Harlan County, along with the declaration of a deadline for withdrawal from Somalia, in the midst of a congressional assault on the commitment of U.S. troops that for a moment seemed to threaten the powers of the president. In that assault, both the risks and the objectives of the Haiti operation came under fire.

Smoldering criticism of Aristide burst into full flame with a CIA briefing on his supposed psychological profile. Once scrutinized, that

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profile raised more questions about the CIA and the administration's inability to maintain a coherent policy across its departments than it did about Aristide. But the Pentagon had never been convinced of the desirability of Aristide's return, or been satisfied that the weapons permitted and the rules of engagement would afford adequate protection to its troops. The Pentagon's main concern, however, related to the role of American forces if violence escalat- ed. The U.N. mission had no mandate for peace enforcement, yet American troops might be drawn into an intervention that ran counter to U.S. policy, but for which others might strive. The reaction to the Somalia deaths en- sured that the Pentagon's doubts became those of the White House: The State Department's elaborate design of many months was undone.

The date for Cedras's retirement passed, and sanctions were reimposed, their enforcement carried out by naval blockade. C&dras snubbed a last attempt at further negotiations. The international community's strategy lay in ruins. And the Clinton administration became deeply ambivalent on the strengthening of sanctions, which worsened the plight of Haitians impris- oned on their island by U.S. refugee policy. Thus began a period of unsuccessful attempts to maneuver Aristide into a compromise in which he and his supporters would pay dearly for the international community's weakness.

Lessons from a Lost Opportunity In the spring of 1994, prospects seem ex-

tremely bleak that U.N./OAS and U.S. policy can recover to achieve a solution that fulfills the principles of democracy and human rights set forth at the beginning of 1993. Making that strategy succeed would have required a message of unambiguous determination to be conveyed to the military in words and deeds, particularly by the United States. The withdrawal of the Harlan County was the most stunning, but not the first, breach in that determination. Haiti's military rulers probably always doubted that force would be used against them, but at the outset of the Clinton administration it was a possibility they could not ignore. As it became clear that the use of force was excluded, it became harder to induce the military to do

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more than share a little power for the sake of a constitutional facade and an end to international isolation. The military was more united in opposing the return of Aristide than the negotiators had understood. The exiled president symbolized a shift in power in Haiti that was fundamentally unacceptable to the army. Their resistance was encouraged whenever they per- ceived that the United States, despite its rheto- ric of democracy, was ambivalent about that power shift.

The strategy's success also required Aristide, if he too regarded the use of force as either unacceptable or unrealistic, to maximize his own acceptability and narrow the support for the military hardliners. He can be criticized for failing in that regard after Governors Island, notably by not allowing Malval to form a broader government of "national concord." But he might have been more accommodating if his legitimate concerns had been treated with more respect at Governors Island, and if sanctions had been maintained until the military and its allies had taken actions crucial to the transition.

Human rights protection might seem to have been a central feature of the international ef- fort. The civilian mission was allowed, and fully exercised, the freedom to make prompt public statements on the human rights situation. But the serious violations it encountered and publicized were not made a major issue in the political negotiations. Naturally, the negotiators hoped that their success would lead to human rights improvements. It was inevitable that some human rights violations would continue until institutional reform could eradicate long- standing patterns of abuse. The U.S. embassy had also become conditioned to playing down political repression in order to defend the re- strictive American refugee policy. But a strong line on human rights in the political negotiations, giving emphasis to the mission, would have signaled determination to the military. The January 1994 decision to send back part of the mission to Haiti, without any flesh insistence on respect for its terms of reference, was hardly such a signal, though its return was desired by Aristide and by those in Haiti other- wise abandoned to the repression.

Despite its weak position, the civilian mission

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was able to achieve three things: Without its presence, human rights abuse outside Port-au- Prince would have been worse yet. Many indi- vidual victims were aided-released more promptly from arbitrary arrest, or treated for the consequences of torture and ill-treatment. And in Port-au-Prince, where the mission could not block the death squads, as well as in the rest of the country, the brutal reality of Haiti was internationally exposed.

A crucial lesson for future peace-building efforts is that the failure to view the human rights situation as central contributed to the failure of the political process. The abuses on which the civilian mission reported after Gover- nors Island were important not simply as a toll of victims but as a harbinger of Haitian politics. The mission was the international community's best source on the local political reality. Even if negotiators had recognized that reality and abandoned lingering belief in the good faith of the military leadership, it might already have been too late to apply new pressures to save the process. But without full recognition of Haiti's reality, international efforts were doomed.

The early decision to have human rights observers joined by a uniformed U.N. police contingent was well-conceived: Their presence throughout Haiti soon after the Governors Island accord could have significantly aided its implementation. The inability to deploy police rapidly demonstrates the gap between the needs of international operations and the capacity of the U.N. and its member states to deliver.

The police link with the military component, and the decision that both should be armed, were unhelpful. Uniformed but unarmed U.N. military personnel were well accepted as "security advisers" during the 1990 election. If the U.N. police had been unarmed in 1993 as well, it would have been harder fbr the military and ultranationalists to object. It was highly unlikely that the police would be physically attacked. Armed military and police components were portrayed as unacceptable foreign intervention; an unarmed police contingent on its own could not easily be so labeled.

The military component was a serious blun- der. Intended to respond to the Haitian military's need for reassurance, and to support

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a cooperative military leadership against possible rebellion in the ranks, it ended up providing duplicitous generals with one of their strongest cards in blocking the transition. The U.N., the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon, the Haitian armed forces, and Aristide all differed on the roles of the military component and its operational requirements. Those differences proved fatal to the success of the operation. Securing the transition should have been left to a U.N. police contingent. The Haitian military's need for assurance could have been met by U.S. bilateral assistance, but commencing only after it had ceded power and as conditioned by Aristide.

The U.N. shares in the responsibility for the failure of the strategy towards Haiti it developed with the United States. It would, however, be ironic if blame is directed at the U.N. in the American policy debate, for the U.N.'s most serious mistake was to link itself too closely with the United States. The U.N. as an institution became directly involved in the initiative because its secretariat believed that the new Clinton administration offered a real pros- pect for tough U.S. pressure for Aristide's return. The administration wanted U.N. in- volvement because of its compelling domestic need for a solution that would stem the refugee flow. The U.N. could achieve nothing without U.S. support. But the U.N. became dependent on U.S. dealings with Haiti's army leaders; the United States was consistently too optimistic about them and always saw an interest in pre- serving the military institution that the U.N. had no reason to share. Moreover, the administration's treatment of Aristide resulted in his losing confidence in U.N. as well as U.S. negotiators. In the end, it was the U.S. disengage- ment from a military mission the administration had wished on the U.N. that precipitated col- lapse. Haiti as well as Somalia poses hard questions about whether a U.N. operation can afford to accept the participation of U.S. troops, given the current state of U.S. public and congressional opinion.

Hard cases give hard lessons. Is Haiti not just a hard but a hopeless case? It may indeed have been possible in 1993, had key errors not been made, to dislodge the Haitian military from

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power without the use of force, although the credible threat of force would have made it more likely to accomplish that aim without its actual use. But the international failure has rendered the military's peaceful removal from power in 1994 extremely unlikely.

Military intervention by one country to re- solve the internal woes of another is undesir- able under most circumstances, and doubly un- desirable against a history of military occupation. In a better ordered world, the U.N. could sanction the multilateral use of force according to strict principles where democracy is over- thrown and human rights grossly violated. Haiti is surely the clearest case today where multilateral armed intervention would be justified, to remove a military almost devoid of support and capable only of repressing its own people. Al- though the U.N. Security Council has already, quite implausibly, declared the situation in Haiti a "threat to international peace and security," the omnipresent threat of a Chinese veto and the reluctance of other member states will not allow that statement to be interpreted as mandating military action to restore democracy.

The main difficulty of such a military operation would not be in fighting Haiti's military but in saving it from popular vengeance. It would involve far less human suffering than sanctions. But if the initial operation would not be too onerous to contemplate, a heavy commitment to longer-term international support would still be needed, including a U.N. police force until a Haitian law and order system was established. It would be foolish to think that after decades without the development of political and governmental institutions--a legacy of actions by the United States and other coun- tries as well as by the Haitians themselves-any easy path could lie ahead. But the international community has a responsibility, deepened by its failure in 1993 and by the suffering that eco- nomic sanctions have inflicted, not to turn its back on Haiti before democracy and human rights are respected, even in this most difficult of cases.

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Haiti: Mangled Multilateralism

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