Haiti: The New Old Policy The Clinton Administration's announcement in early May of a dramatic shift in its Haiti policy appeared at first glance to signal that the government had resolved to live up to its promise to restore democracy in Haiti. To begin with, Lawrence Pezul- lo, Clinton's point-man on Haiti, was replaced as special envoy by William Gray, a former ranking member of the Congressional Black Caucus with no previous for- eign-service experience. Whereas senior policy advisors had informed me, at the end of January, that the embargo against the mili- tary regime in Haiti was "stronger even than that against Cuba," Clin- ton was now proposing to give the embargo real teeth by including the previously exempt U.S.-owned assembly plants, sealing the Dominican border, and freezing the assets of Haitian military leaders. The same advisors had also claimed that the in-country asylum review process was safe and effec- tive. Clinton was now proposing to allow offshore hearings to ensure due process for applicants. Further- more, only three months prior to the policy shift, the very idea of using military intervention to restore democracy to Haiti had been categorically dismissed. Now, in what appeared to be the most substantive shift, military interven- tion-albeit as a last resort-was openly proposed. These developments notwith- standing, it has become gradually apparent that both the policy itself and the way it is being implemented remain constant. The Administra- tion sent Gray to ask Dominican President Joaquin Balaguer for his cooperation in closing the border. Balaguer promised to cooperate in exchange for U.S. promises to dis- regard massive fraud in his recent reelection. Despite Balaguer's pledge, however, the border has not been effectively sealed. Further limiting the effectiveness of the new embargo, the assets only of the top officers in the Haitian military have been frozen. Even though direct financial transactions and commer- cial flights between Haiti and the United States have been banned, these moves are at best irritants to wealthy Haitians who can still access their funds or travel to the United States via third countries. A closer look at the change in refugee policy is even more dis- heartening. Asylum hearings have been permitted outside of Haiti but only on board a special ship anchored off Kingston, Jamaica, and at a beach site on the Turks and Caicos Islands. Refugees not prescreened for a full hearing in the United States are still being sum- marily repatriated, and the percent- age of asylum claims accepted will a priori remain the same. If the policy shift on Haiti turns out to be little more than a public- relations offensive, why did it hap- pen at all? In spite of mounting human rights violations, pressure for some sort of change became irresistible only when Aristide finally went on the offensive, branding the Clinton policy racist. TransAfrica Executive Director Randall Robinson's highly publi- cized fast in protest against the refugee policy coupled with grow- ing Congressional pressure, partic- ularly from the Black Caucus, also required a response. What better way to defuse and co-opt the race issue than to appoint a respected black public figure as special envoy? The new posture seems designed to deflect criticism, and to keep the original policy intact. That policy, carried over from the Bush Admin- istration, consists of: cultivating a "stable political center"; maintain- ing access to a cheap labor force for U.S.-owned off-shore assembly plants; "professionalizing" the police and military to reduce human rights abuses while still controlling the popular movement; and preventing, at all costs, a mas- sive exodus to South Florida of Haitian refugees. The Governor's Island Accord was tailor-made to meet these objectives. Clinton's pledge to restore Aristide to office would have been honored, but he would have served out his term with little power to carry out his original pro- gram. The Haitian military and police would have been left largely intact, and the Lavalas movement, already weakened by repression, would have been progressively marginalized by massive U.S. funding for right-wing organiza- tions and political parties. The fly in the ointment was the intransigence not, as alleged, of Aristide, but of the U.S.-trained and funded military. Now Clinton has to hope that the tough new pos- ture will force the putschists to allow him to save face, by agreeing to an eleventh-hour return of the deposed president and the holding of elections in 1995 from which Aristide would be constitutionally barred. If not, unilateral military inter- vention by the United States, for which the ground is already being laid, might be the only recourse. Despite appearances, an invasion would not be primarily to "end human rights abuses and restore democracy." Although it might indeed end the bloodletting, the main purpose of any military action would be to get the original policy back on track. And, as icing on the cake, a "surgical" intervention might pay Clinton, as it did Reagan and Bush, the political dividends of an easy military victory.
