POLITICS: Aristide Returning to a Caribbean Undecided on Haiti

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Peter Richards

PORT OF SPAIN, Mar 12 2004 (IPS) - When Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders meet in St. Kitts later this month for their inter-sessional summit, there will be no need for a trans-Atlantic telephone call to get the views of ousted Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

When Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders meet in St. Kitts on Mar. 25 for their inter-sessional summit, there will be no need for a trans-Atlantic telephone call to get the views of ousted Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

On Thursday, CARICOM chairman and Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson said Aristide, who has accused the United States of kidnapping him Feb. 29 and putting him on a plane bound for the Central African Republic, is due to arrive in Jamaica next week.

His return comes as Caribbean leaders are reportedly seeking a legal opinion on recognising a new government in Haiti and on their power to expel a member from the CARICOM group of 15 nations.

Patterson insists Aristide is not seeking political asylum in Jamaica, which lies just 161 kms away from Haiti, but has “expressed a wish to return temporarily to the Caribbean with his wife and to be reunited with their two young children, who are currently in the United States”.

“I want to emphasise that Mr. Aristide is not seeking political asylum in Jamaica. His stay in Jamaica is not expected to be in excess of eight to ten weeks. He is engaged in finalising arrangements for permanent residence outside of the region,” Patterson said in a prepared statement to reporters.

At an emergency meeting in Kingstown earlier this month the leaders called for an independent investigation of the circumstances that led to Aristide’s departure as the first-ever democratically elected president of the impoverished former French colony.

U.S. officials responded that such a probe is unnecessary because Aristide volunteered to board the plane out of Haiti, while the United Nations says it is waiting for an official request for the probe from CARICOM.

Noted political scientist Neville Duncan says Aristide’s return to the region would severely test the position of Washington and others in the international community that the ousted leader had voluntarily resigned his office and agreed to leave the country.

“First of all it tells you that clearly, if he had chosen to leave Haiti freely, he would have asked one of his Caribbean colleagues who have been so close to him whether he could have temporary or permanent residence in these countries.”

“His coming back continues to prove the point that he was forcibly removed,” added Duncan, director of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Research at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI).

Duncan told IPS he is not optimistic Caribbean leaders will get their independent investigation.

“I don’t expect much to come out of this, except at this time to further let the world know that the United States is acting unilaterally; it is flexing its muscle and the rest of the world needs to begin to counter-balance against this kind of naked exercise of U.S. power.”

Regional media have reported that regional and international legal experts are advising CARICOM on the matter, and Patterson in his statement Thursday said the regional body remains “deeply involved” in finding a solution to the Haitian crisis.

Newly-appointed Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, whom Patterson described as, “well known to the regional and international community and highly respected”, had already contacted the Jamaican leader and was proposing to visit the country “for discussions prior to the meeting of CARICOM”.

That meeting is scheduled to take place just about the same time that Aristide steps on Jamaican soil, and regional political observers believe Latortue will seek to convince the other CARICOM leaders of the need to play a meaningful role in Haiti’s development, despite their position on the overthrow of a duly-elected government.

At the close of their emergency meeting, the leaders stressed they would not tolerate the removal of a democratically-elected government, adding in a statement, “the circumstances under which the president (of Haiti) demitted office set a dangerous precedent for democratically-elected governments everywhere, as it promotes the unconstitutional removal of duly-elected persons from office”.

“Reaffirming the fundamental tenets of governance within the Caribbean Community à heads of government stressed that these obligations must be used to determine the democratic nature of governance in Haiti. In this regard, no action should be taken to legitimise the rebel forces nor should they be included in any interim government,” added the leaders’ statement.

CARICOM sources have told IPS that the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat is preparing a legal submission to the leaders on whether there exist any provisions within the group for expelling or suspending a member, “where the government of the country has been overthrown or forced out of office”.

CARICOM lawyers are said to be preparing the legal brief “on the question of recognition of the interim administration in Haiti” for the St. Kitts meeting.

St. Lucia has already signalled that it would not be duty bound to accept the regional body’s position on the issue of recognising the new administration in Haiti.

“CARICOM may take a certain position on the matter and certainly we will work with CARICOM, but the question of recognising a government is the sovereign responsibility of a country,” Prime Minister Kenny Anthony said Friday.

He told a news conference that if Castries had difficulty with the emerging regime in Haiti then it would be up to his administration alone to decide whether it would recognise the Haitian government.

Just a week before he left Haiti, Aristide agreed to the CARICOM action plan to end his stalemate with the political opposition – which had refused to negotiate following elections in 2000 that some international groups called flawed – but the opposition resisted the plan while armed rebels moved through the country toward the capital Port-au-Prince.

Despite the failure to get the civil opposition to agree to the plan, Caribbean leaders are still basing future deliberations with Port-au-Prince on such a blueprint, which would ensure that the constitution of Haiti is respected and could also prepare for the mobilisation of resources to avert a humanitarian disaster.

“CARICOM remains committed to the goal of restoring and nurturing democracy in its newest member state as well as to the social and economic development of the people of Haiti,” Patterson said.

Duncan said that despite the situation in Haiti, CARICOM is now in a position to fashion a new economic system in the nation, with the assistance of the international community.

“We have a vested interest in trying to make sure that multi-national corporations don’t go in there (Haiti) and corner that market and block us out of it.”

“So, we should still continue to try to have a relationship with Haiti that would leave the door open to us to keep them within the Caribbean Community and for them to fully participate in the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME),” he added.

The CSME, which will allow for the free movement of skills, labour and goods across the region, is viewed as the region’s response to a changing global trading environment, characterised by mega blocs of nations. It is likely to be established in 2005.