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.
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