Randall Robinson Randall Robinson
THE MEDIA in Jamaica recently quoted Prime Minister P.J. Patterson as stating that CARICOM may be considering imposing sanctions on the Aristide Government.
I hope that the Prime Minister was misquoted. If not, history will judge Caribbean governments rather harshly for failing in their responsibility to uphold and preserve democracy in its most basic and sacred elements in Haiti.
A review of the facts will show that it is the absolute refusal of Haiti's Opposition to participate in elections over the past three years that has prolonged, complicated, and intensified the crisis in Haiti. And a crisis that began during the Preval administration over whether seven senate seats should go to be a run-off has spiralled, at the instigation of the United States, into a litany of never-ending conditions being placed on the Aristide Government. This constant moving of the goal post was designed to (i) render the Government of Haiti ineffective (ii) induce Haiti fatigue throughout the region, and (iii) lead to Aristide's eventual and complete isolation.
BANANA REPUBLICS
Will CARICOM allow itself to be party to this, or will they stand firm, as they meet in Jamaica, in defence of democracy in Haiti? CARICOM member-states are not 'banana republics' they are legitimate democracies. In defence of their own interests, they must not introduce to the region the destabilising precedent of validating and empowering those who reject the sanctity of the ballot box.
The horrendous political impasse in Haiti would not exist today if (i) the Opposition had agreed to participate in elections, or, more importantly, (ii) the international community had allowed elections in Haiti to go forward with or without the Opposition. It is these facts that must be borne in mind as CARICOM heads attempt to chart the way forward for Haiti.
For those tempted to think that 'even the United States' has changed with regard to Haiti: The 'United States' that led the 1994 multinational effort to restore Aristide's Government no longer exists.
The players have all changed. Significantly, however, precisely those U.S. politicians who vehemently opposed Aristide and the restoration of democracy to Haiti in October 1994 won control of the House and Senate one month later. And they have had 10 years to methodically undermine anything and anyone associated with Lavalas in Haiti.
HAITI'S OPPOSITION
Haiti's Opposition has made it clear that it wants Aristide to step down. Indeed, some have been openly calling for his violent overthrow. In a move that should outrage democratically-elected Caribbean governments, Haiti's Opposition has for years refused to name their representatives to Haiti's electoral council, thereby blocking elections, since the international community has taken the position that if the Opposition does not participate in elections in Haiti, then there can be no elections. Imagine that lovely idea catching on in St. Lucia, The Bahamas, or Jamaica.
Haiti's Opposition has demonstrated that it can put together large demonstrations in Port-au-Prince. But so has the Government's supporters skewed coverage by the international media notwithstanding. What CARICOM must now make clear is that Haiti's Opposition will participate in elections or elections will go forward without them.
If CARICOM imposes sanctions on the Aristide government, it will have tragically, validated the Opposition's rejection of elections as the path to political power. Politicians from Jamaica to Trinidad and from Guyana to the Bahamas have a healthy tradition of competing with all of the resources at their disposal mental, material, spiritual, psychological, cultural to win the votes of the people. Why would any elected CARICOM politician exempt Haiti's Opposition politicians from having to earn their power at the polls?
In Dominica for the funeral of Prime Minister Pierre Charles, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent & the Grenadines explained to the press that CARICOM had to assume the role of 'impartial mediator' and 'honest broker' in Haiti. The media's characterisation of Prime Minister Patterson's 'sanctions' comment would suggest that, far from being an impartial mediator, there may be some within CARICOM willing to embrace the Bush administration's policy of placing all blame and all demands on Aristide, while allowing the Opposition's role in the intensification of the crisis to go unremarked.
A SAD DAY
If this is the case, this would indeed be a sad day for the Caribbean. A lifetime of sustained and effective foreign policy analysis and advocacy on behalf of Africa and the Caribbean tells me that CARICOM leaders must stand together in support of sacred, time-honoured democratic principles and elections, and they must admit the Opposition's role in the creation and prolongation of the crisis.
Without this, in an increasing hostile global environment where the powers and prerogatives of ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) governments are being steadily eroded and compromised, the political grave CARICOM leaders dig may not be only for Haiti. It may indeed be their very own.
Randall Robinson (rr@rosro.com), an American foreign policy advocate, is the author of The Debt - What America Owes to Blacks, Quitting America, and other works.
