BRAZIL: Route to Security Council Runs Through Haiti – Analysts

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 16 2004 (IPS) - Sending Brazilian troops to take part in the U.N. stabilisation force in Haiti will pose military and political risks, but that is a price that must be paid by Brasilia if it aspires to a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, said analysts interviewed by IPS.

That was the response to a question about the damages Brazil’s Latin American leadership role could suffer from the decision to help consolidate a situation that deposed Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide describes as a breach of international law, and into which the Caribbean nations are demanding an investigation.

On Feb. 29, Aristide left Haiti after weeks of violence and disturbances in which dozens of Haitians were killed, and after the capital was surrounded by armed rebel groups.

According to Aristide, U.S. diplomatic and military personnel forced him to leave his post and the country, after warning that if he stayed, they would be unable to guarantee his safety.

Just hours after his departure, the U.N. Security Council ordered a multinational force into the Caribbean island nation to restore order and ensure a swift three-month transition.

The United Nations based its decision on a purported letter of resignation from Aristide, which he denies having signed. The Brazilian government has pledged to send 1,300 troops as part of the force that will be involved in the second stage of the U.N. stabilisation operation in Haiti.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has urged the Security Council to launch an independent investigation into the question of Aristide’s supposed resignation.

Brazil – which is governed by the leftist Workers Party – could play an even stronger role than merely sending troops if reports are confirmed that it will lead the U.N. peacekeeping force.

But disputing a permanent seat on the Security Council requires ”running risks” even greater than those that Brazil might face in Haiti, said Geraldo Cavagnari, a researcher at the University of Campinas Strategic Studies department.

Brazilians are going to participate in a peacekeeping action, but ”the most complex missions, with the greatest likelihood of combat and casualties, are peace-making missions, which involve intervening between groups in conflict,” or ”military occupations, like in Afghanistan and Iraq,” said Cavagnari, a retired army colonel.

A leadership role is only gained by ”actively participating in solving international problems,” which requires ”money and weapons,” he underlined, adding that he did not believe the Caribbean nations, ”with the exception of Cuba,” would react negatively to a Brazilian military presence in Haiti.

The rest of the countries in that region – the members of CARICOM – ”tend to follow the United States,” he argued.

But if it is found that Aristide’s departure from power violated the Organisation of American States (OAS) Democratic Charter, Brazil’s image would be hurt, said Clovis Brigagao, director of the Centre for Studies on the Americas at a private Rio de Janeiro university.

However, everything will be done under the U.N. banner, he stressed. The ”multilateral mandate (to send troops) came in response to an intolerable lack of governance in Haiti. Aristide had lost command of his country.”

In addition, the analyst said there was a possibility of tension with CARICOM, especially if Aristide’s version of events, according to which he was overthrown in a coup promoted and organised by the United States and France, gains credence.

”There is a grey area” in which any active role is dangerous, said Brigagao.

But ”Brazilians must get used to criticism, and to taking political and military risks,” because ”leadership, greater participation in the Security Council, and an active voice in regional and international questions have their costs,” he maintained.

Leading the stabilisation force in Haiti while new national institutions are being built up in that country could amount to a more complex challenge, he said, if the saying ”it is easy to win a war, but difficult to build peace” – as demonstrated by the situation in Iraq – is true.

In Iraq, which the United States and Britain invaded in March 2003, armed resistance to the occupation has led to continuous attacks on foreign military targets and Iraqi civilians.

But Professor of International Relations Argemiro Procopio, at the University of Brasilia, in the capital, criticised Brazil’s decision.

”We must remember the unhappy precedent of the Dominican Republic,” he said, referring to the 1965 U.S.-led intervention in that Caribbean nation which ”kept a democratic government” from regaining power.

He pointed out that Brazilian troops also took part on that occasion, although the intervention occurred ”in a different framework,” because Brazil was at that time ruled by a military dictatorship.

But the scenario is the same: the Caribbean island of Hispaniola – which is shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic – was invaded 39 years ago under a multilateral mandate from the OAS, and today by a multinational force authorised by the U.N., said Procopio.

Perhaps Brasilia’s decision to send troops to Haiti ”is a major shift to the right in the foreign policy of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,” said Procopio, adding that it would be more in line with the conservative economic policies followed by the government.

Besides the possible negative international repercussions, the sight of Brazilian soldiers on Haitian soil might become ”a publicity coup that could backfire,” and that might even ”irritate” the Brazilian public which, while suffering from high levels of insecurity fuelled by rising crime rates and widespread poverty, would watch as sorely needed funds are spent on a foreign country, he warned.

”Sending 1,300 Brazilian troops to bring peace to Port-au-Prince while our own country is burning in a bloody urban revolution reflects, at the very least, a lack of sensitivity,” protested veteran journalist Silvio Ferraz in an article published Friday by the conservative daily O Globo.

In Chile there have also been protests over Santiago’s decision to send more than 300 soldiers to Haiti, where they are to remain until May, under the Feb. 29 U.N. Security Council resolution.

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos announced that troops would be sent, even before Congress had authorised the move, as required by the constitution. And although parliament gave Lagos a green light, the move drew loud criticism, and a number of lawmakers, including members of the ruling coalition, voted against it.

”This is the second time that Chile is supporting a coup d’etat in the region,” said journalist Ernesto Carmona, with the alternative press agency Argenpress.

Carmona, one of the heads of the Chilean Association of Journalists, recalled the haste with which Santiago recognised the fall of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez when he was briefly overthrown – for two days – in April 2002.

The military expedition to Haiti in which Chile is taking part along with the United States, France and Canada ”confirmed the political death of the OAS Democratic Charter,” according to Carmona.

No Latin American country has called an OAS meeting to ”activate” the democracy charter in the case of Haiti, where a democratically elected president was toppled.

A source at the Brazilian Foreign Ministry told IPS that the country is acting in line with the U.N. Security Council resolution, which constitutes the ”legal foundation” for sending peacekeeping troops to Haiti.

It is impossible to react on the basis of a ”hypothesis,” like the investigation demanded by the CARICOM nations, the Foreign Ministry source added.

* Gustavo González in Chile contributed to this report.