Press Releases 2004

What Happened in Haiti, by Sue M. Cobb, United States Ambassador to Jamaica

March 5, 2004

As the crisis in Haiti grew, CARICOM calmly provided a pathway forward for the international community’s involvement. CARICOM requested peace enforcement and peacekeeping missions under the United Nations, and offered a Plan of Action for the parties in conflict to find a way to address Haiti’s constitutional crisis. In those weeks preceding the departure of President Aristide, the United States served as a partner with CARICOM, France, and Canada in efforts to follow the CARICOM path. However, through those efforts it became abundantly clear that no nation, the United States included, was inclined to send forces to sustain the failed political status quo in Haiti.

From the series of meetings and consultations among the partners, from decisions made (and from those not made), and from the rapidly deteriorating conditions in Haiti, came last weekend an unmanageable vortex and the imminent collapse of the government of Haiti. That is when President Aristide concluded that the only path to take to prevent massive bloodshed and innumerable casualties was to resign as President. He made the decision to resign. He requested the help of the United States to leave the country and he received it. Then he called us “kidnappers”.

Those words were heard by willing ears, resulting in surprisingly inflammatory rhetoric and an environment of hostility that I can only call markedly disappointing and unsophisticated in analysis. I do not take lightly the veiled assertions or the direct attacks on the veracity and integrity of our Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega.

Cooler heads might have wished to have a better understanding of all the facts and circumstances prior to leaping at allegations made by the ex-president following his resignation and search for asylum.

For the record, Aristide resigned doing, in the view of many, his only real service to the people of Haiti in a dozen years. We know that Aristide was considered the constitutional president. But, we know other things about Aristide, learned over the course of the last decade of his leadership, that influenced my government’s decision making:

His use of mob violence and hit squads as a policy for several years and his endorsement of assassinations of journalists who dared to criticize his actions sowed the seeds of his downfall;

The very same group that rose up in Gonaives – the so-called Cannibal army – was a central part of his own network of thugs until six months ago;

He politicized and corrupted the Haitian National Police, systematically driving out honest people and putting his thugs in charge;

He failed to abide by most of the commitments he made to the international community including several OAS resolutions;

His regime distributed arms to his political supporters while the police were left defenseless - and those armed mobs were responsible for most of the violence in Port au Prince during the last few weeks.

Based on that spectacular track record, and after any hope of a ‘shared government’ was quashed, we made a conscious decision not to put American lives at risk for the sole purpose of buying Aristide more time to perpetuate such policies. I do not recall, previously in this Hemisphere, anyone demanding that the UN or the US invade Bolivia to keep Sanchez de Lozada in power, or in Argentina to keep DeLa Rua in power, or in Ecuador to keep Mahuad or Bucaram in power. They resigned for the good of their respective countries. Even Aristide’s best friends should want him to have as his lasting legacy that he, at long last put the interests of his people ahead of his own in his last official act. The US made a tough decision, but I am certain it was the right decision for Haiti’s future.

Around the world, all but Aristide’s most loyal supporters understood that he would have to depart or Haiti would drown in bloodshed. Those who wish to can scream about “a coup”. When Aristide realized that the few US Marines in the country to protect the US Embassy and personnel would not protect him, his family and his entourage as well, he requested US assistance in obtaining passage to safety.

US officials spent an hour and a half – during the emergency flight out of Haiti – trying to find a country willing to provide asylum for Aristide. It remains curious to me that no country, including Aristide’s presumed friends, had agreed to provide for Aristide’s safety.

Let us be clear about the future: (i) The United States has been and will continue to be a firm supporter of democracy in Haiti; (ii) Aristide’s departure was never a US demand; (iii) the US government has been and will almost certainly continue to be Haiti’s leading provider of economic aid (contrary to some claims aid to Haiti was never cut off or suspended. Between 1995 and 2003, the US provided close to a billion dollars in assistance to Haiti); (iv) we have helped to normalize relations with the IFIs and we will continue to support IFI loans to Haiti based on their technical merits; (v) the US does not recognize Guy Phillipe or his followers in the rebel army as representatives of the political opposition in Haiti. Faced with the realities of US Marines and other enforcers from the United Nations, Phillipe has promised to disarm his followers. We must ensure that this happens.

There have been meetings this week with the interim Haitian government, the opposition and the international community. A Tripartite Council – as called for in the original CARICOM plan - has been formed, and there is progress toward selecting the Council of Eminent Persons to nominate a new Prime Minister. It is now the job of diplomats and leaders to mitigate the real or perceived damage of disagreement or of miscommunication and to build on every positive aspect of the relationship among nations. It is decidedly not the job of leaders and diplomats to fan flames, seize upon rumors, or promulgate distrust through inflammatory language and exacerbation of a ‘north-south’ divide.

The international community should now focus on how we can work together to rebuild Haiti.