Jim Lobe

After three years of malign neglect toward the Americas’ first black republic, the administration President Bush now finds itself confronting a nation-building challenge in Haiti of staggering proportions. US-facilitated departure Sunday of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the landing of US and French troops to maintain order in the capital Port-au-Prince have clearly opened up what Bush himself called a “new chapter” for Haiti, but whether that will include “a hopeful future”, as he put it, remains very much in doubt.

While Haitian Supreme Court Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre was sworn in Sunday as interim president, US officials here Monday were casting about for ways to form a credible government pending elections that must take place within 90 days, according to the country’s constitution. But even the constitution of an interim government could prove very difficult, according to analysts here, who said they were very concerned about the intentions of the armed rebels, whose three-week-old uprising accomplished what the unarmed opposition had been unable to do in three years.

The apparent leader of the rebels is Guy Philippe, a former US-trained Army officer who gained a brutal reputation as police chief of Delmas and Cap Haitien before fleeing into exile after leading an unsuccessful coup d’etat against Aristide in 2001. Asked by BBC on Monday if he expected his forces to be represented in the new government, he replied, “I don’t ‘expect’ it. I know that we will be part of it”.

Philippe and his followers, many of whom are former soldiers, have also made no secret of their desire to see the Haitian Army reconstituted. Some right-wing elements in the opposition have already spoken in favour of the idea. But popular-based human-rights groups, labour unions and peasant organisations that linked up with the elite to oppose Aristide are likely to feel seriously threatened by any possible resurrection of the military.

Beyond restoring order, disarming the various forces, and putting together a credible interim government and electoral process, Washington and its allies also face a formidable task in restarting the economy, which has been starved for economic assistance since 2000 when Washington and other donors began withholding aid to protest flawed parliamentary elections.

To Republicans, all this sounds like “nation-building”, a practice they disdained during the Clinton years and which Bush, of course, promised to forswear in the 2000 elections. But with the Bush administration already committing tens of billions of dollars to “nation-building” exercises in Afghanistan and Iraq, complaints from Republicans are likely to be muted at best.

The alternative is of great concern to the administration, which deployed Coast Guard vessels around Haiti to pick up and return people trying to flee the country last week. Indeed, it was the interception of more than 500 boat people late last week, as well as suggestions by Aristide that he might encourage an exodus, that apparently persuaded the administration to change its position of seeking a power-sharing arrangement between Aristide and his opposition to one of ensuring his removal. — IPS