Gareth Stewart, ContributorTHE GLEANER reported last week that Jamaica's Prime Minister, on behalf of CARICOM, had requested the United Nations' Security Council to dispatch a peace-keeping force to Haiti.
CARICOM's request struck this native son as quite puzzling, none the least because everybody knows that the UN maintains no standing army or similarly organised security forces.
Personnel for the UN force CARICOM requested would have to be supplied by member states, The UN has no means to conscript or dispatch such a force, although certainly, under its auspices, a military force could be assembled and dispatched to Haiti.
In any event, CARICOM's institutional failure to assist President Aristide would not have prevented, say Jamaica, from deploying its own military forces in response to Aristide's plea for assistance.
Minimally, the failure of CARICOM to come to President Aristide's assistance militarily, undermines its request to the UN. And CARICOM's request was practically flawed, to the point of wilful blindness or political immaturity. For two rather obvious reasons, CARICOM's request could not have been entertained by the UN Security Council.
First, the military forces CARICOM was urging the UN to deploy to Haiti could not have been, or for long remain, "peacekeepers". A worsening civil strife existed in Haiti, with daily deterioration in President Aristide's control of and ability to govern the country.
Restoring Aristide's authority in those parts of Haiti already controlled by armed rebels, or even to stem the burgeoning revolt, would eventually have required "peacekeepers" to train their weapons on rebels and protesters who would have understandably disregarded the peacekeepers' orders to lay down their arms and end the rebellion.
Aristide was a non-vested combatant on a slippery slope. Rebel control of the country was proceeding relentlessly, with no Haitian national army available to impede or even to contest the rebel's creeping strangulation of Aristide.
In these circumstances, purported UN peacekeepers would really be or very soon become combatants. So first Aristide's removal from office, and then peacekeepers to Haiti. CARICOM's public position had it exactly backwards, but it's no mystery what happened here: politicians nowhere request abolition of their offices, and they are not inclined to advocate their removal from office or power.
NO VIOLATION
Second, CARICOM's claim that President Aristide's removal from office taints Haiti's constitutional governance and implicates the rule of law, extravagantly overstates the case. Haiti's constitution actually provides for the resignation of the President, the rebellion's stated objective, and it stipulates a successor in that event (the Chief Justice).
It thus makes little sense to claim that President Aristide's removal from office, before expiration of the constitutionally prescribed length (he claimed year 2006), is unconstitutional or otherwise a violation of Haitian law.
Evidently, a constitutionally fixed length of office-holding does not legally entitle the officeholder to remain in that office for the constitutionally fixed length. The office-holding may legally be shortened via resignation, impeachment, or recall.
Although it is unclear whether Haitian law authorised recall or impeachment, it is undisputable that Haitian law provides for his removal from office by resignation.
Accordingly, and contrary to CARICOM's announcement, Aristide's removal from office was neither unconstitutional nor violative of Haitian law. While Aristide's resignation may arguably have been "forced" or "coerced," no comfort derives from that observation because every resignation is in one way or the other "forced" by events or circumstances.
From the beginning of the rebellion in Haiti, the rebels demanded President Aristide's resignation from the presidency, which is expressly provided for in the Haitian constitution. Aristide though, in confronting the rebellion, ego-maniacally equated his own welfare with that of Haiti's.
He withheld until the 11th-hour his resignation, and thus indecently and unnecessarily prolonged a constitutionally sanctioned and quite efficient way of terminating his presidency. The Haitian constitution provided for Aristide's removal from office by resignation the constitution did not have to enumerate the grounds when, or detail the exact juncture when, a resignation should be tendered. Everything was up to Aristide and he delayed resigning, but this is hardly remarkable: that was the entirely predictable reaction of a power-intoxicated politician.
A WIDER QUESTION
Concerning Aristide's resignation from office, there was thus no "coup" or other unconstitutional developments in Haiti. CARICOM's contrary assertion is self-serving nonsense, though unsurprising coming from entrenched politicians.
A far more engaging issue is whether rebellion was a legitimate tool to force President Aristide's resignation. In its wider formulation, the question is whether widespread civil disturbance (even violent civil disturbance) is a valid and proper tool to force a president's or government's resignation. But this is a political question for Haitians, not a legal issue for CARICOM.
Now judging from the euphoria in Haiti's capital city which days ago President Aristide controlled, a great majority of Haitians supports his removal. And Aristide enjoys a bonus that removed presidents in years past only rarely enjoyed: he gets to live.
Gareth W. Stewart is an attorney-at-law based in New York. Emails may be sent to garethws@att.net
