The United Nations at the Crossroads of Reform by Wendell Gordon

Author:Wendell Gordon [Gordon, Wendell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Advocacy, Political Science, Political Process, General
ISBN: 9781315483399
Google: l74YDQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 32207014
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-09-16T00:00:00+00:00

Haiti

The situation in Haiti in the early 1990s is another example of coordination between a regional organization and the UN. Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a liberal Catholic priest, was elected president of Haiti by an impressive majority in December 1990, Haiti being a country with a long tradition of rule by tyrants who made free use of force and violence to support their power. Aristide was overthrown by the army in September 1991 and went into exile. General Raoul Cedras became the country’s ruler, and large numbers of Haitians began desperate efforts to flee the country, especially trying to cross in unseaworthy boats to Florida.

The Organization of American States (OAS) and the UN, the United States also being involved, cooperated in an effort to negotiate with General Cedras and obtain the return of Father Aristide to the presidency. For present purposes it is relevant that the OAS and the UN cooperated in selecting a former Argentine foreign minister, Dante Caputo, as the chief negotiator in the effort to return Aristide to power.

Caputo worked out an agreement involving Cedras and Aristide at Governors Island in New York harbor in early July 1993. It provided for Aristide’s immediate nomination of a prime minister and his approval by Parliament, amnesty for the military who effected the coup against Aristide, resignation of the military high command including Cedras, and return of Aristide to the presidency on October 30, 1993. About the only item on this agenda that happened was the appointment and approval of Robert Malval as prime minister. Meanwhile, the Clinton administration continued to implement the Bush policy of forceful return of Haitian refugees to Haiti. A limited trade embargo, particularly on oil, was applied to Haiti, then a more inclusive embargo.

It is argued in this book that it is not appropriate for one nation to interfere with force in the affairs of another nation. But it may well be appropriate for the UN or regional organizations to do so. The author argues that the use by the UN of a substantial peacemaking force operating under the UN flag and consisting of Latin American regional troops could, early on, have occasioned the speedy flight of Cedras and his group from Haiti, resulted in the reinstallation of Aristide as president of Haiti, and redounded to the great credit of the UN and the United States. Something similar to this did finally happen in September 1994, three years later. A commitment, endorsed by Father Aristide, to hold credible elections at the constitutionally provided time and then turn over the office of president to the duly elected candidate in February 1996 in a process supervised by the UN, not the U.S. gives a hopeful ring to the process. Will it work? Time will tell.

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