In Our Own Backyard
PHILLIPE R. GIRARD
[Fall 2006, Volume VIII, Issue I]
Hopes that the end of the Cold War would usher in a “New World Order” (George H. W. Bush) marking the “end of history” (Francis Fukuyama) had been dashed by the early 1990s. The threat of nuclear Armageddon receded; but political, ethnic, and religious conflicts multiplied from the Caribbean to the Balkans to Central and East Africa. The violent breakup of Yugoslavia led to a Bosnian War that killed 100,000 people and displaced two million between 1992 and 1995. Civil strife and famine killed 200,000 Somalis as their country imploded in 1991. Hutu extremists killed over 800,000 Rwandans, most of them Tutsis, in the spring of 1994.
In Haiti, following President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s ouster in September 1991, a military junta led by Raoul Cédras targeted Aristide loyalists, killing at least 900 and up to 5,000.1Human rights abuses were prevalent, though the death toll never reached the horrific heights of the Rwandan genocide or the Somali famine; in fact, more Haitians died as a result of an international embargo created to punish the Cédras junta than at the hands of the junta itself.2
Surprisingly, the intensity of the Clinton administration’s response was inversely proportional to the intensity of each specific crisis. The genocide in Rwanda merely elicited timid protests, with administration spokesmen famously refusing to even use the term “genocide.” U.S troops sent to Somalia under Clinton’s predecessor were withdrawn following an October 1993 firefight in Mogadishu that left 18 Rangers and Delta forces dead. The United States preferred to let its European allies respond to the Bosnian crisis until the summer and fall of 1995, when U.S. planes finally bombed Bosnian Serb targets as a prelude to the U.S.-sponsored Dayton Peace accords.
The U.S. response to the Haitian crisis was much more immediate and massive. When Aristide was overthrown in 1991, Bush immediately called for an economic embargo that was intensified under his successor. Coast Guard cutters and the U.S. base in Guantánamo, Cuba were mobilized to keep Haitian boat people off American soil. Bill Clinton sponsored peace agreements in July 1993, tried to send peacekeepers to Haiti in October of that year, then started planning for war when those peacekeepers were turned away. After a UN resolution authorized the use of force in July 1994, 20,000 U.S. troops and two aircraft carriers were summoned for an invasion plan that included the largest use of paratroopers since Operation Market Garden in World War II.3The Cédras junta backed down hours before the invasion was scheduled to start, but U.S. troops landed nonetheless and remained in Haiti until 2000. The operation cost the U.S. treasury $2 billion. In all, the international community pledged $3.5 billion in foreign aid for 1994-1997 alone.4
The disconnect between the gravity of each crisis and the strength of the Clinton administration’s response in 1991-1994 is striking. Objective factors such as the number of human victims could not have helped predict a specific U.S. policy, as the earliest and most forceful measures dealt with the least deadly crisis: Haiti. Emphasizing the United States’ economic and strategic interests in Haiti would be equally unhelpful. U.S. exports to Haiti reached a paltry $200 to 500 million a year in the 1980s and early 1990s.5The Haitian military—7,600-man strong, poorly trained, under-equipped, and devoid of any powerful patron—presented no strategic threat.6 U.S. policy seems paradoxical if one assumes that it was fashioned along idealist or realist lines.
But, as this essay will show, the main factors that convinced Bill Clinton to intervene in the Haitian crisis were of a very different, and highly political, nature. First, domestic repercussions of the refugee crisis put Clinton at odds with his Congressional allies. Second, Aristide cleverly used lobbyists and friends to put pressure on the administration to act. Third, the United States’inability to impose its views on a puny neighbor undermined its international credibility.
POLITICS ATTHE WATER’S EDGE: THE REFUGEE CRISIS
The most visible consequence of Aristide’s overthrow was the exodus of Haitian boat people. From 1991 to 1994, an estimated 50,000 to 150,000 Haitians tried to leave their country; an additional 300,000 Haitians lived in internal exile.7Haitian emigration itself was not new, but for many years it had been primarily motivated by Haitian poverty. U.S. presidents like Ronald Reagan had thus signed agreements with their Haitian counterparts and legally turned away all economic migrants.8But political repression after 1991 meant that many boat people now had reasonable grounds for seeking political asylum. Under widely accepted international norms, they should thus have been allowed inside the United States. Clinton was unwilling to adapt to the new legal environment, however, for he feared that welcoming a flood of Haitian refugees would have adverse political consequences in Florida and elsewhere.9
Obstacles to Haitian immigration thus multiplied from 1991 to 1994. Some Haitians were told to apply for asylum in Haiti itself; others were intercepted at sea and turned away. Still others were sent to Guantánamo, Cuba, for processing. But denying Haitian claims to political asylum was difficult to justify given the Cédras junta’s poor human rights record, and many Democrats—the Congressional Black Caucus in particular—lambasted the U.S. refugee policy as a racist policy aimed at keeping black immigrants out of the country.10 Losing the Black Caucus votes would have eliminated Clinton’s slim majority in Congress and imperiled key items of his domestic agenda such as his health care plan.
The result was a vacillating immigration policy that changed a total of seven times in 1991-1994. Every loosening of immigration rules raised fears that Florida would be swamped with new refugees; every tightening led to renewed accusations of a racist double-standard. Ultimately, the only solution to this political quandary was a military invasion designed to bring Aristide back to power. Aristide’s return would quench the flood of refugees at its source; it would also make it easier legally to turn away Haitian refugees who could then be labeled as economic migrants, no asylum-seekers. “The use of force,” concluded Richard Feinberg, the Latin American specialist in the National Security Council, was “the only way to get out of a box. Clinton was trapped. Politically, he could not send the immigrants back, and he could not accept them either.”11
EMPIRE BYINVITATION: ARISTIDE AND U.S. POLICY
The United States’historical role in the Caribbean has often been hegemonic, as nationalist leaders who stood up to U.S. domination were overthrown and replaced with submissive leaders more attentive to U.S. advice. The 1991-1994 crisis, however, did not fit this pattern. Junta leader Raoul Cédras was a conservative officer trained in the United States, and could have been expected to be a close match for U.S. interests in the region. But the United States supported president-in-exile Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist populist prone to denounce Yankee imperialism in his many books.12
Despite his strong misgivings about past U.S. policies in Haiti, Aristide quickly realized that U.S. diplomatic and military help would be essential if he ever was to return to as president of Haiti. In 1991-1992, Aristide spent fruitless months appealing to the Organization of American States, the United Nations, and France, only to receive non-binding promises of assistance.13Aristide thus swallowed his pride, moved to a Georgetown apartment near Washington’s centers of power, and abandoned his anti-American rhetoric in favor of pro-democratic platitudes.14He garnered influential friends, including Hollywood liberals who shared his political agenda and Black Caucus members who felt a sense of racial kinship with Haitians.15He also gained access to $53 million in Haitian government funds held in U.S. banks which the U.S. government had frozen after the 1991 coup.16These and other monies allowed Aristide to hire prominent lawyers such as Michael Barnes, Burton V. Wides, and Ira Kurzban who lobbied their administration contacts on his behalf.17
Aristide used this privileged access to insist on an economic embargo in a vain hope that it would convince Cédras to relinquish power; but Cédras was not moved by his starving people’s plight. By 1994, with only eighteen months to go in his scheduled five-year term, Aristide concluded that nothing short of the use of U.S. military force would be sufficient to bring him back to the presidential palace, and he made a series of speeches asking his reluctant ally to plan “a surgical action” and “swift and determined action” along the lines of the 1989 invasion of Panama.18 His words could easily have been construed as treasonous; but it saved Aristide’s imperiled political future and helped convince the administration to intervene.19Contrary to established stereotypes about U.S. imperialism and its Caribbean clients, Aristide was more often the puppeteer than the puppet from 1991 to 1994.
PAPER TIGER: REASSERTING U.S. CREDIBILITY
Given the United States’ reputation as the leading power in its Caribbean sphere of influence, Clinton’s inability to solve the Haitian crisis was particularly vexing. The economic embargo was put in place in early 1991 under Bush, then tightened under Clinton. It remained in place with a short hiatus until 1994, but embarrassingly failed to sway the Cédras junta.
In July 1993, Clinton threw his country’s considerable diplomatic weight into negotiations aimed at bringing Aristide back to power. In exchange for a promise of immunity, Cédras promised that he would allow Aristide to return the following fall. The so-called Governors’ Island agreement initially looked like a U.S. diplomatic triumph. But in October 1993, as the U.S.S. Harlan County sailed to Port-au-Prince with a contingent of peacekeepers charged with preparing the ground for Aristide’s return, pro-Cédras paramilitaries lined up on the dock, chanted anti-American slogans, and refused to let the U.S. troops land. The men were little more than a mob armed with machetes; but, singed by the firefight in Mogadishu a few days earlier, Clinton ordered the Harlan County home rather than risk U.S. casualties. The event, broadcast on the nightly news worldwide, was rightly construed as a national humiliation. Senator Tom Harkin reflected his countrymen’s mood when he concluded after the standoff that “the mightiest nation on Earth, one that just beat Saddam Hussein, being faced down by a rag-tag element of no more than 100 drug traffickers, smugglers, and murderers, and turned around and tucked our tail and ran…. If we cannot support duly elected democratic governments 800 miles from our shores, again what kind of message will we send to potential coup leaders?”20
Aware that Cédras’ continuing audacity was eroding his and his country’s credibility, Clinton announced on 2 May 1994 that the use of force was now an option. This veiled threat was designed to sway Cédras, but it had no discernable impact in Haiti, so the U.S. military made public its elaborate plans to invade Haiti and invited the press to a series of maneuvers. Again, Cédras remained unimpressed. Even from July to September 1994, when the United Nations authorized the use of force and Clinton formally announced that he was on the verge of invading Haiti in a televised address to the nation, Cédras refused to budge. Instead, he ordered his army and militia to conduct drills and announced his intention to “defend ourselves until death.”21
By 19 September 1994, after six months of ineffective saber rattling, Clinton was now forced to make good on his threats or look hopelessly weak. The United States’limited interests in Haiti were not the matter at stake; the country’s worldwide credibility as a superpower was now imperiled. “Haiti,” National Security Adviser Anthony Lake declared, “will send a message far beyond our region—to all those who seriously threaten our interests.”22Only then, with the planes in the air and the first paratroopers due to land within minutes, did Cédras agree to a last-minute agreement brokered by former President Jimmy Carter. U.S. troops landed peacefully, Cédras left for a Panamanian exile, and Aristide returned to Haiti on 15 October 1994.
CONCLUSION: ONLYIN OUR BACKYARD
In the end, Haiti’s proximity to the shores of the United States, more than the intrinsic nature of the events that unfolded there, shaped Clinton’s response to this crisis. In nominal terms, the human toll was much more disastrous in Rwanda; the need for nation-building was much greater in Somalia; U.S. strategic interests were much more significant in Bosnia. But what set Haiti apart in many administration speeches was, as Clinton explained in February 1993, that it was “in our backyard.” Similar terms peppered his speeches.23
On a practical level, Haiti’s proximity meant that the logistical and military aspects of the invasion could easily be solved, but geography had profound political implications as well. Because Haiti was so close, the aftershocks of each army massacre in Haiti were reflected in a new wave of boat people approaching the shores of Florida. Because Haiti was so close, Aristide was able to tap into a network of sympathizers and lobbyists such as the Black Caucus that was more extensive than the Tutsis or Bosnian Muslims could ever muster. Because Haiti was so close, the U.S. inability to impose its views in its neighborhood immediately led to insulting suggestions that the American superpower was weak-kneed. The Haitian example showed that an administration’s response to a crisis cannot be correlated to the gravity of the crisis overseas in terms of lives lost and interests imperiled; rather, it is devised based on the domestic perception of the foreign crisis. A product of media coverage, political interests, lobbying and geographic proximity, this perception can be at odds with a more clinical assessment of the facts and lead to unexpected policy responses.
REFERENCES
1
Commission Nationale de Vérité et de Justice, Si M Pa Rele(1996; reprint, Port-au-
Prince: Ministry of Justice, 1997).
2
G. Berggren et al. Sanctions in Haiti: Crisis in Humanitarian ActionWorking Paper No.
93.07 (Harvard U. Center for Population and Development Studies: November 1993).
3
Philippe Girard, Clinton in Haiti: The 1994 U.S. Invasion of Haiti (New York: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2004), 1-8, 103-120.
4
World Bank, Haiti: External Financing(December 1997), 1, microenterprise collection,
USAID library, Port-au-Prince.
5
U.S. Bureau of the Census’web site at www.census.gov/foreign-trade.
6
Colin L. Powell and Joseph E. Persico, My American Journey(New York: Random
House, 1995), 544, Col. David H. Hackworth, “ASoldier’s-Eye View,” Newsweek(22
August 1994): 33, Hackworth with Tom Mathews, Hazardous Duty: America’s Most
Decorated Living Soldier Reports from the Front and Tells it the Way it is(New York:
William Morrow, 1996), 229-230.
7
Hérold Jean-François, Le coup de Cédras(Port-au-Prince: L’Imprimeur II, 1995), 451,
463, Clinton, “U.S. Interests in Haiti,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, vol. 5, no. 38
(19 September 1994), 606.
8
Proclamation 4865 and Executive Order 12324 (29 September 1981), National Security
Decision Directive 220 (2 April 1986), NLS-NSC-NSDD-220, Ronald Reagan Library.
9
Dick Morris, Behind the Oval Office: Getting Reelected Against All Odds (Los
Angeles: Renaissance Books, 1999), 4-6. See also Morris, The New Prince: Machiavelli
Updated for the Twenty-First Century(Los Angeles: Renaissance Books, 1999), 165-166
10
US Human Rights Policy Towards Haiti, Hearing before the Legislation and National
Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of
Representatives, 9 April 1992(Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993), 4,
US Policy toward Haiti, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Western Hemispheric
Affairs, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 8 March 1994 (Washington:
USGPO, 1994), 16, US Policy toward Haiti, Hearing before the SWHA, CFR, USS, 8
March 1994 (Washington: USGPO, 1994), 5, 9.
11
Richard E. Feinberg telephone interview with the author (10 December 2001).
12
Aristide, In the Parish of the Poor(New York: Orbis Books, 1993), 59, Pierre Mouterde
and Christophe Wargny, Apre bal, tanbou lou: cinq ans de duplicité américaine en Haïti,
1991-1996(Paris: Austral, 1996), 63, Aristide and Wargny, Jean-Bertrand Aristide: An
Autobiography(New York: Orbis Books, 1993), 67, 47, 56, 76, 87, 116, 123, Aristide,
Dignity(Charlottesville: U. Press of Virginia, 1996), 49, 56, 61, 79.
13
Organization of American States, “Apoyo al gobierno democratico de Haiti” (30
September 1991), CP/RES 567 (870/91), “Informe del secretario general a la reunion ad
hoc de ministros de relaciones exteriores sobre Haiti” (14 May 1992), OEA/Serv. F/V.1
MRE/Doc.4/92, “Acta de la séptima sesión,” 16 (6 June 1994), OEA/Ser. F/V. 1 MRE/
ACTA7/94, “Promotion of Democracy” (10 June 1994), AG/RES. 1280/XXIV/94,
Organization of American States Archives, Washington, DC, “Haïti: la France n’est pas
disposée à participer à une intervention militaire,” Le Monde (14 May 1994): 5,
“President Aristide to Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali” (3 June 1992), UN Doc. S/24340
(22 July 1992), 4-5, United Nations Archives, New York.
14
“I Am President of Haiti,” Time(14 October 1991): 36, “It’s not if I Go Back, but
When,” Time(1 November 1993): 28, Haiti: The Agreement of Governor’s Island and its
Implementation, Hearing before the SWHA, CFA, HR, 21 July 1993 (Washington:
USGPO, 1993), 37.
15
Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, “Our 23 Seconds at the Oscars,” LATimes(5 April
1993): F3, US Human Rights Policy Towards Haiti, Hearing before the Legislation and
National Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, HR, 9
April 1992(Washington: USGPO, 1993), 57.
16
George Bush, Message to the Congress Reporting on Economic Sanctions against Haiti
(7 April 1992), http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/papers/1992/92040703.html, “Scandale
financier,” Haïti Observateur(24 November 1993): 7.
17
Folder “Hogan and Hartson (#2244),” folder “Arent Fox (#2661),” folder “Kurzban
and Kurzban (#4604),” Foreign Agents Registration Archives, Washington, DC.
18
Howard W. French, “Doubting Sanctions, Aristide Urges US Action on Haiti,” New
York Times (3 June 1994): A3, “Pdt. Aristide’s Address to TransAfrica’s 13thAnnual
Foreign Policy Conference” (3 June 1994), blue folder, box 320.04 SIT, Collège St.
Martial library, Port-au-Prince, “Acta de la séptima sesión,” 5, 6 June 1994, OEA/Ser.
F/V. 1 MRE/ ACTA7/94, OAS archives.
19
Anthony Lake, Six Nightmares: Real Threats in a Dangerous World and How America
can Meet Them(New York: Little Brown, 2000), 133, Richard E. Feinberg telephone
interview with the author (10 December 2001).
20
U.S. Policy toward Haiti, Hearing before the SWHA, CFR, USS, 8 March 1994
(Washington: USGPO, 1994), 10, 12.
21
Interviewed in “Eye to Eye with Connie Chung,” CBS News(15 September 1994).
22
Quoted in Doyle McManus, “Clinton’s Call to Arms Based on Credibility,” LATimes
(16 September 1994): A1, Fred Barnes, “Oh, All Right Then,” New Republic(10 October
1994): 12.
23
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton vol. 1
(Washington: USGPO, 1993), 56, 162, ibid., vol. 1 (1994), 954, ibid., vol. 2 (1994),1549,
1560.
Philippe R. Girard is an assistant professor of Caribbean history at McNeese State University (Lake Charles, Louisiana). He obtained his Ph.D. from Ohio University and specializes in Haitian history. He is the author of Clinton in Haiti: The 1994 US Invasion of Haiti (New York:Palgrave MacMillan, 2004) and Paradise Lost: Haiti’s Tumultuous Journey from Pearl of the Caribbean to Third World Hot Spot (Palgrave MacMillan, 2005). He is currently working on a monograph on the 1802-1803 Leclerc-Rochambeau expedition to Saint-Domingue.
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