Caribbean leaders gather in Jamaica to discuss Haiti crisis

Officials from the 15-member Caribbean Community have expressed concern following Aristide's claim that he was forcibly removed Sunday by U.S. forces and put on a plane to Africa - a charge the United States flatly denies.

"If he was forced to leave ... then it was a coup d'etat, and in our region we don't tolerate coup d'etat," Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo said prior to the meeting. He said Caribbean leaders have not spoken with the former president.

Also on the agenda Tuesday was a decision on whether to suspend Haiti's membership in the Caribbean Community following the rebel uprising.

Officials were tightlipped as they started the closed-door meeting, saying only that a decision on the matter would come after extensive discussion.

Caribbean Community Secretary General Edwin Carrington said: "This is a very difficult period for us and I hope we come through this without any lasting damage to Caricom."

Asked if leaders would consider suspending Haiti, Trinidad Prime Minister Patrick Manning said "we're not ruling it out."

Haiti joined Caricom as a full member in 2002. No country has ever been suspended from the body, which was established in 1973.

On Monday, Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson of Jamaica said he would have "great difficulty" in holding talks with rebel leaders should they form part of Haiti's new government.

Officials are expected to make a joint statement on Haiti's political situation later Tuesday.

Tuesday's summit was attended by leaders from Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, Barbados, the Bahamas, St. Lucia and Dominica.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/8088930.htm

Caricom's response must be tough


Tuesday, March 02, 2004



It is hardly material whether President Aristide was literally forced out of Haiti at gunpoint by US forces or whether he asked for safe haven on the way to the airport.

The fact remains that what took place in Haiti was a coup d'etat. No amount of parsing, clause analysis or fancy-speak will change that fact.

It is also a fact this was a coup that carried the imprimatur of the United States, Canada and France.

They made it possible when they spurned the initiative by the Caribbean Community that would have allowed Mr Aristide - the democratically-elected president of Haiti - to complete the remaining two years of his term, but share power with the formal Opposition while the environment was created for new elections.

Rather than insist that the Opposition embrace this plan, they preferred instead to place pressure on Mr Aristide to resign in the face of political unrest and an armed uprising led by some very unsavoury characters. To insist that Mr Aristide, in the circumstances, left of his own free will, is nothing short of a farce. An ugly one at that.

What the Western troika did by leaving Mr Aristide to hang with little support, except from those with little power with which to come to his assistance, was to give the democratic system a good, hard and painful kick in the teeth. And they have signalled to the Haitian political process that violence and anarchy and mayhem and murder are the best, and easiest routes to success.

The problem for the Americans and their supporters in this adventure, is that having found it easier to abort principle in favour of ideology and opportunism, they will find that restoring stability to Haiti is a rather more difficult prospect. Indeed, democracy in Haiti now rests on something far more fragile than a hanging chad.

Which, sensibly, was what Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders had sought to avoid with their carefully crafted Kingston Accord to which Mr Aristide signed on at the end of January.

They understood that it was important for Haiti to climb out of this virtual cycle of instability and coups and to engineer a political process based on dialogue, negotiation and consensus rather than intransigence.

In the circumstance, we would agree with Mr Patterson that what the US-led group claims is its intention to implement in Haiti could hardly be the Caricom initiative. In fact, Caribbean leaders, who are in charge of small, vulnerable states, have good cause for concern that this coup against Mr Aristide, covered by the skimpiest of constitutional loin cloths, sets a dangerous precedent for democracies everywhere. Especially fragile ones.

Caricom leaders have, therefore, to be extremely circumspect about how they address the Haitian question at their summit today.

They must be clear that the community will not reward the extra-constitutional overthrow of elected leaders. So Caricom ought not to contribute any troops to the American-led military mission on Haiti.

The region must also find the mechanism to suspend Haiti from its Caricom membership and set a series of tasks, relative to the return of the democratic process, to be accomplished within a specific time-frame, if it wants to sit again at the regional table.

The community must also take to the Organisation of American States and the United Nations General Assembly - where it will not be subject to the whims of a powerful few - a resolution condemning the coup d'etat against Mr Aristide and seeking a declaration for the restoration of a democratic process in Haiti.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/editorial/html/20040301T230000-0500_56498_OBS_CARICOM_S_RESPONSE_MUST_BE_TOUGH.asp

Aristide says he was 'kidnapped'

OUSTED HAITIAN President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's claim that he was kidnapped and flown to Africa has sent a cloud of scepticism over today's meeting of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) heads in Kingston.

Chairman of CARICOM, Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, has voiced concern ahead of the meeting and the issue of Aristide's supposed voluntary resignation is expected to inform the direction of the talks.

His comments came amidst rising concerns and reports that the Haitian president was forced to leave his country.

Mr. Patterson was adamant that the Haitian President had indicated no plans to flee his homeland prior to his departure in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

"We were in direct communication with President Aristide on Saturday afternoon and nothing that he said to us then would that he said to us then would have led us to believe that his resignation was imminent," Mr. Patterson told journalists during yesterday's post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House.

To the contrary, the Prime Minister noted that Mr. Aristide had made it "extremely clear" that he intended to remain in office until the end of his elected term in 2006.

During a television interview aired on CNN yesterday, President Aristide himself publicly claimed that he was forced to leave the country at gunpoint.

The 13 other CARICOM heads are expected to join Mr. Patterson at Jamaica House for 2:00 p.m. talks on the latest developments, and the new leadership of the country.

DOUBTS ON RESIGNATION

Mr. Patterson said he was surprised that the now-deposed Haitian President had not communicated with any of the Caribbean leaders to indicate his sudden change of mind "if that was done in a voluntary situation."

Prior to the CARICOM chairman's comments, reports had surfaced that President Aristide may have been abducted by United States armed forces after repeated urgings that he step down.

During yesterday's briefing, Mr. Patterson was cautious but clear in his criticism of all nations that supported the Haitian President's removal from office.

"When the foreign ministers of the U.S., Canada, Jamaica, St. Lucia and the Bahamas met in Washington and signed off on what up to them was the CARICOM initiative, no one expressed the view that the plan would be unworkable because of any complaint of malfeasance by President Aristide in the performance of his Presidential duties," he said.

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20040302/lead/lead1.html