[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3017-3019]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 HAITI

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I wish to address, if I may, the subject 
matter of Haiti and the events that have occurred there over the last 
several days, now going back a week or more, in that country, that 
beleaguered nation only a few hundred miles off the southern coast of 
Florida.
  On Sunday morning, as we now all know, the democratically elected 
government, the President of Haiti, was forced out of office. The armed 
insurrection, led by former members of the disbanded Haitian Army, and 
its paramilitary wing called FRAPH, made it impossible for the Aristide 
government to maintain public order, without assistance from the 
international community--international assistance that was consciously 
withheld, in my view.
  President Aristide left Haiti on Sunday morning aboard an American 
aircraft. President Aristide reportedly has gone into exile in the 
Central African Republic, where I am now being told he is not allowed 
to communicate with others outside of that country.
  Members of the Black Caucus of the other body, and others who had an 
opportunity to speak with President Aristide yesterday, have publicly 
restated his claim that he was forcibly removed from Haiti by U.S. 
officials.
  I quickly point out that Secretary of State Colin Powell and others 
have emphatically denied that charge. Such an

[[Page 3018]]

allegation, if true, is extremely troubling and would be a gross 
violation of the laws of the U.S. and international law. Only time will 
tell. I presume there will be a thorough investigation to determine 
exactly what occurred from late Saturday night and early Sunday 
morning, regarding the departure and ouster of the President of Haiti, 
President Aristide.
  Over the coming days, I believe an effort should be made to 
reconstruct what happened in the final 24 or 48 hours leading up to 
President Aristide's departure so we can resolve questions of the U.S. 
participation in the ouster of a democratically elected leader in this 
hemisphere.
  Let's be clear that whether U.S. officials forcibly removed Aristide 
from Haiti, as he has charged, or he left voluntarily, as Secretary of 
Powell and others have stated, it is indisputable, based on everything 
we know, that the U.S. played a very direct and public role in 
pressuring him to leave office by making it clear that the United 
States would do nothing to protect him from the armed thugs who are 
threatening to kill him. His choice was simple: Stay in Haiti with no 
protection from the international community, including the U.S., and be 
killed or you can leave the country. That is hardly what I would call a 
voluntary decision to leave.
  I will point out as well, if I can--and I know that international 
agreements are not always thought of as being terribly important in 
some people's minds. But in 1991, President Bush, the 41st President, 
along with other nations in this hemisphere, had signed the Santiago 
Declaration of 1991. That declaration, authored by the Organization of 
American States, said that any nation, democratically elected in this 
hemisphere, that seeks the help of others when they are threatened with 
an overthrow should be able to get that support.
  Ten years later, the Inter-American Charter on Democracy was signed 
into law, a far more comprehensive proposal, again authored by the 
Organization of American States, the U.S. supporting. The present 
President Bush and our administration supported that. That charter on 
democracy stated that when asked for help by a democratically elected 
government being threatened with overthrow, we should respond.
  President Aristide, a democratically elected President made that 
request and, of course, not only did we not provide assistance, in fact 
we sat back and watched as he left the country, offering assistance for 
him to depart.
  I cite those international agreements because we think of our Nation 
as being a nation of laws, not of men. These agreements either meant 
something or they didn't. The Santiago Declaration and the Inter-
American Charter on Democracy, apparently both documents mean little or 
nothing when it comes to supporting democratically elected governments 
in this hemisphere--not ones that you necessarily like or agree with or 
find everything they do is in your interest, but we do adhere to the 
notion that democratically elected governments are what we support in 
this hemisphere.
  When they are challenged by violent thugs, people with records of 
violent human rights violations, engaged in death squad activity, in 
the very country they are now moving back into and threatened, of 
course, successfully the elected government of President Aristide, then 
I think it is worthy of note that we have walked away from these 
international documents signed only 3 years ago and 10 years ago.
  There is no doubt, I add, that President Aristide has made 
significant mistakes during his 3 years in office--these last 3 years. 
He allowed his supporters to use violence as a means of controlling a 
growing opposition movement against his government. The Haitian police 
were ill trained and ill equipped to maintain public order in the face 
of violent demonstrations by progovernment and antigovernment 
activists. Poverty, desperation, and opportunism led to wide government 
corruption.
  President Aristide, in my view, must assume responsibility for these 
things. But did the cumulative effect of these failures amount to a 
decision that we thought we could no longer support this democratically 
elected government? If that becomes the standard in this hemisphere, we 
are going to find ourselves sitting by and watching one democratically 
elected government after another fall to those that breed chaos and 
remove governments with which they don't agree. They are being told by 
the Bush administration now that the Haitian Government was a 
government of failed leadership. That is a whole new standard when it 
comes to engaging in the kind of activity we have seen over the last 
several days.
  Having been critical of President Aristide, I point out that he was 
elected twice overwhelmingly in his country. He was thrown out of 
office in a coup in the early 1990s. Through the efforts of the U.S. 
Government and others, he was brought back to power in Haiti. Then he 
gave up power when the government of President Preval was elected. 
During those 4 years, President Aristide supported that transitional 
government. He ran again himself, as the Haitian Constitution allowed, 
and was elected overwhelmingly again, despite the fact the opposition 
posed little or no efforts to stand against him.
  There was a very bad election that occurred in the spring of 2000, in 
which eight members of the Haitian Senate were elected by fraud. Those 
Senators were removed from office. Six months later, President Aristide 
was elected overwhelmingly again. It is the first time I know of in the 
200-year history of Haiti as an independent nation where a President 
turned over power transitionally peacefully to another democratically 
elected government. Whatever other complaints there are--and they are 
not illegitimate about the Aristide government--there was a peaceful 
transition of democratically elected governments in Haiti. That never, 
ever happened before. What has happened there repeatedly is one coup 
after another--33 over the 200-year history of that nation.
  Whatever shortcomings they may have had, President Aristide provided 
for the first time in Haiti's history a democratically elected 
government transitioning power to other people peacefully. I will also 
point out that he abolished the military and the army, an institution 
that did nothing but drain the feeble economy of Haiti of necessary 
resources.
  Haiti did not have a need for an army. There were no threats to 
Haiti. In retrospect, he may regret that. But the army, in my view, was 
a waste of money in Haiti, served no legitimate purpose, and President 
Aristide should be commended for abolishing an institution that had 
been the source of constant corruption and difficulty on that nation.
  Blame for the chaos does not rest solely on the shoulders of 
President Aristide. The so-called democratic opposition bears a share 
of the responsibility for the death and destruction that has wreaked 
havoc throughout Haiti over the past several weeks.
  The members of CARICOM, with U.S. backing, put on the table a plan 
calling for the establishment of a unity government to defuse the 
political crisis. The opposition rejected this proposal on three 
different occasions, despite the fact that President Aristide said he 
was willing to have a government of unity, to give up power, to share 
governmental functions with the opposition. The opposition said no on 
three different occasions, despite the fact that the nations of the 
Caribbean region urged the opposition to avoid the kind of transition 
that we have seen over the last several days.
  A hundred or more Haitians already have lost their lives. Property 
damage may be in the millions. Given the direct role the U.S. played in 
the removal of the Aristide government, it is now President Bush's 
responsibility, in my view, and moral obligation to take charge of this 
situation. That means more than sending a couple hundred marines for 90 
days or so into Haiti. Rather, it means a sustained commitment of 
personnel and resources for the foreseeable future by the U.S. and 
other members of the international community that called for the 
removal of the elected government.

[[Page 3019]]

  If the Bush administration and others inside and outside of Haiti had 
been at all concerned over the last 3 weeks about the fate of the 
Haitian people, perhaps the situation would not have deteriorated into 
near anarchy, nor would the obligation of the U.S. to clean up this 
mess now loom so large.
  We are now reaping what we have sown. Three years of a hands-off 
policy left Haiti unstable, with a power vacuum that will be filled in 
one way or another. Will that vacuum be filled by individuals such as 
Guy Philippe, a former member of the disbanded Haitian Army, a 
notorious human rights abuser and drug trafficker, or is the 
administration prepared to take action against him and his followers, 
based upon a long record of criminal behavior?
  It is rather amazing to this Senator that the administration has said 
little or nothing about its plans for cracking down on the armed thugs 
who have terrorized Haiti since February 5.
  Only with careful attention by the United States and the 
international community does Haiti have a fighting chance to break from 
its tragic history. In the best of circumstances, it is never easy to 
build and nurture democratic institutions where they are weak and 
nonexistent. When ignorance, intolerance, and poverty are part of the 
very fabric of a nation, as is the case in Haiti, it is Herculean.
  Given the mentality of the political elites in Haiti--one of winner 
take all--I, frankly, believe it is going to be extremely difficult to 
form a unity government that has any likelihood of being able to govern 
for any period of time without resorting to repressive measures against 
those who have been excluded from the process.
  It brings me no pleasure to say at this juncture that Haiti is 
failing, if not a failed state. The United Nations Security Council has 
authorized the deployment of peacekeepers to Haiti to stabilize the 
situation. I would go a step further and urge the Haitian authorities 
to consider sharing authority with an international administration 
authorized by the United Nations in order to create the conditions 
necessary to give any future Government of Haiti a fighting chance at 
succeeding. The United States must lead in this multinational 
initiative, as Australia did, I might point out, in the case of East 
Timor; not as Secretary Defense Rumsfeld suggested yesterday: Wait for 
someone else to step up to the plate to take the lead. It will require 
substantial, sustained commitment of resources by the United States and 
the international community if we are to be successful.
  The jury is out as to whether the Bush administration is prepared to 
remain engaged in Haiti. Only in the eleventh hour did Secretary of 
State Colin Powell focus his attention on Haiti as he personally 
organized the pressure which led to President Aristide's resignation on 
Sunday. Unless Secretary Powell is equally committed to remaining 
engaged in the rebuilding of that country, then I see little likelihood 
that anything is going to change for the Haitian people. The coming 
days and weeks will tell whether the Bush administration is as 
concerned about strengthening and supporting democracy in our own 
hemisphere as it claims to be in other more distant places around the 
globe. The people of this hemisphere are watching and waiting.
  I yield the floor.

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