Haiti One Coup Too Many

By Bruce W. Nelan

Even if the world has not fully achieved a peaceful new order, its tolerance for political mugging is declining dramatically. A 28-nation coalition sent that message last February when it drove the Iraqi invaders out of Kuwait. Then thousands of Soviet citizens, supported by democratic countries around the globe, physically blocked the August takeover in Moscow.

Last week, after an old-fashioned coup ousted Haitian President Jean- Bertrand Aristide, the entire western hemisphere focused its outrage on the brazen military bosses in Port-au-Prince. The Americas were not prepared to let Haiti's military men get away with it. Their takeover, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said bluntly, "will not succeed."

This coup, which sent Haiti's first freely elected President into exile after eight months in office, was particularly galling to the U.S. and the Organization of American States. The OAS had concluded at a meeting in Chile only four months ago that all 34 of its members were now democracies. To protect their legitimate governments -- some of them shaky -- from possible overthrow by military plotters, the organization's foreign ministers were authorized to "adopt any measures deemed appropriate" to reverse future coups.

After rampaging Haitian soldiers opened fire on street crowds and threatened to kill Aristide, a 38-year-old priest, Venezuela's President Carlos Andres Perez sent a plane to fly him to safety. Perez offered Aristide refuge in Caracas and said his country would be ready to take part in "the severest of actions" to re-establish a legitimate government in Haiti.

In Washington, George Bush judged the Haitian coup a throwback to the violent old days and a violation of the rules he envisions for a new world order. "I'm very worried about it," he said. "Here's a whole hemisphere that's moving the democratic way, and along comes Haiti now, overthrowing an elected government." When the old Stalinists made their power play in Moscow two months ago, Bush observed that "coups can fail." He intends to ensure the same outcome this time.

Bush ordered an immediate cutoff of the U.S. aid program for Haiti, which was to provide $85 million in 1991 and $90 million in 1992. The European Community followed suit, suspending a $148 million aid package, and France, . Japan and Canada halted bilateral programs totaling about $77 million.

But Haitians living in the U.S. demanded stronger action, including armed intervention to restore Aristide to the presidential palace. Rioters in Miami's "Little Haiti" built bonfires and threw bottles at police. In New York City, several thousand Haitians demonstrated outside U.N. headquarters.

Calls for armed intervention carried little appeal for U.S. decision makers. Gunboat diplomacy was long Washington's way of dealing with Latin America, but it is part of the past Bush now wants to overcome. "I am disinclined to use American force," he said. "We've got a big history of American force in this hemisphere, and so we've got to be very careful about that."

After the Pentagon announced that it had sent a few hundred Marines to Guantanamo Bay naval base in case the 15,000 American citizens in Haiti had to be evacuated, spokesman Pete Williams quickly explained that it was only a precaution. The U.S. had "absolutely no interest" in using force, he said, and added, "I don't think we are going to have to carry out an evacuation."

Clashes between mutinous troops and Aristide's supporters had left as many as 100 dead in the first few hours of the coup, and Western diplomats believe the final death toll could be in the hundreds. The streets turned quiet after bands of soldiers began patrolling in unmarked cars, their rifles protruding from the windows. Haitians mounted a de facto general strike even before Prime Minister Rene Preval, who is in hiding, sent out the call for one. "No one is going to work until Titid returns," a taxi driver said, using Aristide's affectionate nickname.

Just what action would be required to reverse the coup was the question addressed by an emergency session of the OAS in Washington. Aristide flew to the U.S. capital and urged the hemisphere's assembled foreign ministers to clamp enough nonmilitary pressure on Haiti to restore him to office. He suggested sending a delegation to Port-au-Prince to tell the army chiefs, led by Brigadier General Raoul Cedras, an Aristide appointee, "that they must immediately leave the presidential palace" or face total isolation. For his part, Cedras claimed he had stepped in only to quiet rebellious troops in what had begun as a rank-and-file revolt.

Precisely how the coup got rolling is still unclear, but the army left no doubt it had been unhappy with what it saw as Aristide's high-handedness. It ! had demanded that Cedras and other senior officers be confirmed by parliament and that Aristide disband a new 50-man presidential guard intended to serve under his direct command. The army also accused Aristide of arranging the execution last week of Roger Lafontant, a former leader of the hated Tontons Macoutes, who was jailed for a coup attempt last January.

In Port-au-Prince last week, there was scant evidence of who was in charge. The power vacuum was visible at military headquarters, where a handful of soldiers gazed at Cable News Network and a burly naval officer was watching Poltergeist II. He had no idea where Cedras or his aides might be.

At the OAS meeting in Washington, meanwhile, Secretary of State James Baker offered strong support for Aristide's proposals. "This junta is illegal," he said. "It has no standing in our democratic community. It will be treated as a pariah, without friends, without support."

After a discussion that lasted well past midnight, the organization unanimously approved an 11-point resolution. It called on the member states not to recognize the military regime in Haiti and to cut off all economic, military, commercial and trade ties with it. These sanctions add up to the total isolation of Haiti within the hemisphere, except for humanitarian aid shipments, mainly of food and medicine.

Economic sanctions, though often applied, only rarely force a determined rogue government to mend its ways. Haiti, however, is almost without domestic resources. It is the poorest country in the hemisphere, and 60% of its 6 million people are unemployed. Without aid from abroad, its economic survival is in question. An economist in Port-au-Prince says the military leaders have "grabbed hot steel and they are going to get burned."

To explain the seriousness of the OAS decisions to the army leaders, a nine- member delegation headed by Secretary-General Joao Baena Soares of Brazil was dispatched to Port-au-Prince at week's end. If the junta does not back down, the organization has resolved to call another emergency meeting to plan further turns of the screw.

Aristide went on to the United Nations in New York, where the Security Council listened to his appeal and gave him a standing ovation as he declared that the coup had "murdered democracy" in his country. The council did not, however, provide him with a resolution of support. Reason: members such as China and India have domestic problems of their own -- Tibet and Kashmir, for example -- and do not want to set a precedent for international action in what they consider internal affairs.

As part of the pressure on the Haitian junta, there is talk of a possible multilateral OAS military operation to put Aristide back in charge. The ousted Haitian President says he does not favor it, but some countries are not feeling constrained. Venezuela apparently meant what it said about taking the "most severe measures." General Fernando Ochoa Antich, the Venezuelan Defense Minister, announced after the OAS meeting that he had been ordered to prepare for possible multilateral action in Haiti. "The armed forces," he said, "are right now carrying out the planning of a possible regional military operation." President Perez promised to offer his troops if the OAS decides to intervene.

While such warnings should increase the pressure on the Haitian army to back down, the western hemisphere's leaders hope they will not have to contemplate military action. The OAS has traditionally looked with horror on even the hint of intervention in its members' affairs. The fact that it is already acting more boldly than usual may well foreshadow the emergence of a new hemispheric order.

With reporting by Bernard Diederich/Port-au-Prince and Christopher Ogden/Washington )