Powell Stepped In Only When Bargaining by Caribbean Nations, OAS Collapsed

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer

In early December, armed gangs attacked police stations in northern Haiti and militia members loyal to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fired on peaceful demonstrators at a university in Port-au-Prince. The democratic opposition called on a defiant Aristide to resign.

On Dec. 15, as the crisis boiled, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice scheduled a meeting at the White House with Trinidad's prime minister, Patrick Manning. In a planned drop-by, President Bush arrived and said he had something to discuss.

Bush told Manning that the situation in Haiti was growing more dangerous, posing risks to the region and to the impoverished nation itself, said two U.S. officials. The president said the 15-nation Caribbean Community needed to show more leadership in finding a peaceful solution.

Bush's message that day reflected what U.S. officials and foreign diplomats describe as his administration's consistent approach to Haiti: persuading other nations and institutions to do the diplomatic heavy-lifting to produce a political compromise, a strategy the White House pursued until days before Aristide's Feb. 29 resignation.

When the Caribbean Community and the Organization of American States proved unable to persuade Aristide and his democratic rivals to end their fierce power struggle, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell dispatched an envoy and became involved personally. But by then, it was too late.

The failure to find a political solution -- which forced the United States to switch course and led to the deployment of Marines to restore order -- has produced intense criticism on Capitol Hill and elsewhere that Bush administration policy toward Haiti was marked by disengagement and neglect as the White House focused principally on Iraq.

"This was a crisis that was long in the making, and certainly for the last two months, one could see it in full view," said Robert A. Pastor, a Carter administration specialist on Latin America. "The hard question is why there seemed to have been so little preparation."

Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) called it "aggressive disinterest" by the administration. Speaking in late February, before Aristide stepped down, he said, "We, the United States of America, are sitting in the upper rows of the stadium watching the collapse from chaos to anarchy of a neighboring country."

Last week, as more than 1,500 Marines patrolled Port-au-Prince and an interim prime minister took office, U.S. officials defended their decision to work with other nations to press Aristide and his opponents to settle their differences. The process may have taken a few untidy turns, they said, but the results were good.

"The fact is that the United States during the past three years built an international consensus to help Haiti with its political, economic and humanitarian problems," National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said. "Our recent actions helped to save Haiti's constitutional democracy, to stem an armed rebellion, to avoid a humanitarian disaster and to save thousands of lives."

To candidate George W. Bush in 2000, Haiti was a choice example of Clinton administration folly. The Republican Party platform said the U.S. military intervention of the mid-1990s -- which restored Aristide to power after a coup -- displayed "indecision and incoherence and, after billions of dollars had been spent, accomplished nothing of lasting value."

The Haitian stalemate was underway when Bush took office. Aristide had been elected to a new five-year term the previous November in balloting boycotted by major opposition parties angry over flawed legislative elections. A U.S.-backed freeze on foreign loans was in place.

The Bush White House, skeptical about Aristide and wary of repeating the Clinton approach, set out to replace high-level U.S. diplomacy with pressure from an array of nations, as well as the OAS and the Caribbean Community. The administration squeezed Aristide in what a State Department official termed "tough love."

In 2002, the Caribbean countries grew uncomfortable with loans being linked to political performance as the economic and political crisis worsened. The White House agreed to unfreeze the loans as part of a series of confidence-building measures, but Aristide and his foes were unmoved.

The Bush administration did not make Haiti a priority, said some foreign diplomats.

"The administration kept saying this is an OAS problem, and we're supporting the OAS," said Terence A. Todman, a retired U.S. ambassador dispatched as a special OAS envoy. "So it was passed to the OAS."

Todman got a close view of the standoff. Aristide had inserted loyalists into Haiti's police force, and his government was backing armed gangs. Opponents feared for their lives as political violence increased.

Todman traveled to Haiti for the OAS last summer after gaining the support of Powell and Rice for security measures. But the opposition said it was not enough.

When Todman returned to Washington in late October, he said, he warned the OAS leadership and U.S. authorities that the danger of violence and exodus was growing. He said a well-financed effort to build a unity government, reform the police, begin disarmament and improve living conditions was needed before legislators' terms expired in January.

"Frankly," Todman said later, "nothing happened."

On Dec. 15, Bush held his meeting with Manning to urge the Caribbean Community, or Caricom, to take a stronger role. One month later, at a hemispheric summit in Mexico, Caribbean leaders pushed Aristide to relent.

In front of the dignitaries, Powell urged Aristide to remember who had returned him to power in 1994 -- the United States and a diplomatic team that included Powell -- and to take responsibility for violence committed in his name.

On Jan. 31, the Caribbean countries presented a power-sharing plan to Aristide. He accepted it and repeated broken promises to make reforms. On Feb. 5, after weeks of sporadic attacks on government facilities, a rebellion erupted in northern Haiti.

The Bush administration intervened more actively. On Feb. 21, Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega led a delegation to Port-au-Prince to sell the parties on the power-sharing plan. Aristide again accepted, but the opposition refused and insisted that Aristide resign. The next day, the rebels, who had not been represented at the talks, took the city of Cap-Haitien.

Powell became more deeply involved. Aides said he worked with foreign ministers from France, Canada, the OAS and Caricom and told the Haitian opposition that the country's future required a compromise with Aristide.

"Tremendous pressure was brought to bear on the democratic opposition," a State Department official said. "The administration sincerely believed there was a way to get a negotiated political settlement."

Aides said Powell told opposition figures that he personally would hold Aristide to his promises. But the Haitians told Powell the leap of faith was too great. On Feb. 26, Powell abandoned U.S. assumptions and reversed course, sending a public signal to Aristide that he quit. The move was prompted, aides said, by unexpected progress of anti-Aristide militias. Despite pleas from Congress, the administration declined to send troops to stop them or protect Aristide.

The next day, Bush approved deployment of U.S. troops, on condition that a political settlement be reached first. Two days later, as insurgents neared the capital, Aristide fled aboard an aircraft chartered by the U.S. government. A U.S. diplomat ushered him to the plane, being sure to get his resignation in writing.

A U.S. official said the Bush administration, often criticized for unilateral action, was right to seek help elsewhere.

"Probably in any other country, it would've worked," said the official. "This notion that we could . . . magically drop in a Colin Powell or a Condi Rice and force everyone to negotiate and force them to come to an agreement to solve this situation is a fantasy."

Haiti Democracy Project director Jim Morrell countered that the administration's policy was "to keep a lid on the situation." Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) charged that the administration had simply done too little.

"Hands-off policy is no policy," Nelson said. "The resolution of a hands-off policy is violence and bloodshed."

© 2004