Should the U.S. Intervene?

After the guns and the machetes had finished their gruesome work last week, Haiti's election-day bloodbath claimed another victim: U.S. support for the provisional government of Lieut. General Henri Namphy. Having insisted for months that Namphy was a staunch friend of democracy, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, White House officials were suddenly scrambling for a new policy to help restore order and ensure free elections. The search quickly swelled into an international debate over how far the U.S. and other countries should go to intervene in the affairs of Haiti. At the center of the dispute was the explosive question of whether the U.S. -- or anyone -- should send troops to the stricken nation.

Washington is no stranger to military action in the Caribbean. U.S. Marines intervened in Haiti in 1915 after increasing civil strife, and stayed until 1934 as an army of occupation. Marines landed in the neighboring Dominican Republic in 1965. In 1983 some 1,900 U.S. soldiers and a small Caribbean task force ousted a radical regime in Grenada. When former President Jean-Claude Duvalier was tottering last year, the U.S. provided the C-141 Starlifter cargo plane that flew the dictator and his family out of the country.

Yet the White House appears reluctant to get directly involved in Haiti. While the Reagan Administration continues to seek aid for the contra rebels in Nicaragua in the name of restoring democracy, it does not want to intervene militarily in Haiti for a similar purpose. After suspending U.S. economic aid last week, senior Administration officials said direct military action would be premature and would be opposed by neighboring countries.

That hardly silenced advocates of intervention. Representative Walter Fauntroy, a District of Columbia Democrat, called for an international peace- keeping force to protect Haitian voters. He was joined by Sylvio Claude, a Haitian presidential candidate who was one of the front runners. Dante Fascell of Florida, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the U.S. should provide military support as a last resort if Namphy's foes request it.

Caribbean countries, however, showed little enthusiasm for an international force. Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga rejected the idea out of hand. When the heads of eight major Latin American nations met in Acapulco last month, they called on all countries to "respect the principles of nonintervention and self-determination" in the Americas. While Latin and Caribbean nations may agree with the Reagan Administration on little else, they clearly do not want U.S. troops in Haiti a second time this century.