The Caribbean Community may have refused to send soldiers to support the current security operation in Haiti but it cannot refuse to be concerned about the plight of the ordinary people of that country. Of a total population of about 14 million in the Caribbean Community, 60 per cent are Haitian. They are a proud and patriotic people who are conscious of their 200-year independence. Their integration remains one of Caricom’s great challenges.
This year alone, Haiti has been battered by a series of disasters − Hurricanes Fay, Gustav and Ike and Tropical Storm Hanna − that killed over one thousand persons, displaced more than one million, and damaged food production throughout the country. Those catastrophes complemented the human security crisis which now engages a 10,000-member foreign military and police force – Mission des Nations Unies pour le Stabilisation en Haiti – better known by its acronym, MINUSTAH, mandated by the UN Security Council. It is too soon to tell which − the environmental devastation or the military occupation − has had worse consequences.
The fact is that thousands of foreign soldiers from an amazing array of mainly non-Caribbean states − Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Jordan, Nepal, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Phillipines, Sri Lanka, United States and Uruguay − assembled to occupy a Caricom state. That not a single Caribbean Community soldier is on the ground must be one of the strangest anomalies of regional security.
The absence of Caricom troops is explained by the Heads of Governments’ principled response to the unprincipled removal of the elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004.
The Caribbean Community suspended Haiti’s membership and called for a UN investigation into the United States-backed regime change. Needless to say, Washington would have none of that and, instead, applied the well-worn military sledgehammer to settle a fragile political situation. After four and a half years, armed force has solved neither the humanitarian plight nor the human security problem.
Caricom refused to contribute troops to MINUSTAH which Brazil, the region’s would-be major power, now commands. Nevertheless, the community maintained an energetic engagement to resolve the crisis peacefully. On every occasion since its first emergency meeting on 2-3 March 2004 in Kingston, Jamaica, to discuss the issue, Heads of Government repeatedly expressed concern about the unfolding security and humanitarian tragedy but never took the decisive step to deploy its defence forces to support MINUSTAH.
Caricom troops were part of the United Nations Mission in Haiti (UNMIH) in 1995 on a Security Council mandate to facilitate the return of the legitimate Haitian authorities. But then Brazil and other South American states sat on their hands. Nevertheless, it was UNMIH that set the stage for the restoration of a commendable measure of democracy and stability.
The current crisis began with the controversial 2000 presidential and parliamentary elections and opposition demands for President Aristide’s resignation. Caricom responded correctly by presenting a Prior Action Plan on 31 January 2004, followed in February by an implementation plan, to both of which President Aristide agreed. But, while Caricom was taking diplomatic initiatives to overcome the political crisis, others were recruiting a force of former soldiers and well-known warlords to ignite an insurgency in early February. Insurgents threatened the capital and, early on February 29, provided foreign powers with the pretext for the forceful termination of Aristide’s troubled tenure.
Stranger still, on the same evening (February 29), the Security Council speedily adopted Resolution 1529 authorising the establishment of a Multinational Interim Force and declaring its readiness to establish a United Nations stabilisation force which immediately started its deployment to Haiti. The Security Council adopted Resolution 1542 in April 2004, establishing MINUSTAH the mandate of which has been renewed repeatedly.
The Haitian ravel is easily misunderstood. The political labyrinth was spawned by the country’s complex colour, class and social structure. It also concerns former President Aristide’s persistent popularity among the poor, the majority of whom MINUSTAH has managed to alienate in major ways. Crimes such as the massacres in Cité Soleil when Brazilian soldiers were involved in several killings and when dozens of Sri Lankan soldiers had to be sent home for committing serious sex crimes involving children, have aggravated Haiti’s human security situation.
Caricom has done well to keep its distance from the military morass into which MINUSTAH is sinking. Nevertheless, it must renew its diplomatic effort to ensure that the conditions are maintained for the citizens’ human security and the country’s political and economic development.
As Michael Parenti recalled, “To ‘restore order’ the [US] Marines occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, killing over two thousand Haitians who resisted pacification.’” Ninety years later, it seems that history is about to repeat itself, this time with the Brazilian soldiers’ fingers on the triggers.
