Mutual Fears draw France, U.S. nearer
March 15, 2004 - The Miami Herald
PARIS - Just a year after Washington and Paris were so at odds over Iraq that some Americans changed the name of French fries to ‘‘freedom fries,’’ the turmoil in Haiti is bringing the two nations closer together.
The deployment of U.S. and French peacekeeping troops to Haiti is continuing in what French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin has called ‘‘perfect coordination.’’ And President Bush called French President Jacques Chirac ``to thank France for its action.’‘
At the root of the transatlantic reconciliation are several factors, from French concerns over a Haitian migration crisis to its frustrations with the three-year political crisis in Haiti, its former colony.
DISCORD, THEN REVOLT
Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide faced mounting opposition demands for his resignation since disputed elections in 2000 and amid allegations of official corruption and brutality by pro-Aristide gunmen. An armed rebellion that erupted Feb. 5 helped drive him into exile Feb. 29.
Regis Debray, the leader of a French panel on relations with Haiti, said in a January report: ``This mess, this hornet’s nest, this bazaar of the bizarre, this devil’s brew: few dividends for us if we give more than a halfhearted effort, and not much to lose if we get out of there once and for all.
‘‘No petrol, no uranium, no precious stones, no weapons of mass destruction, no strategic strait, no exportation of terrorists, no pleasant beaches, an AIDS endemic and thousands of boat people,’’ the report added.
The fear of a wave of illegal Haitian migrants was as strong in France as it was in Washington, where the Bush administration was determined to prevent Haiti’s domestic problems from sparking an exodus of boat people.
About 80,000 Haitians have fled to the nearby French dependencies of Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana since 1994, when Aristide was returned to power on the shoulders of 20,000 U.S. troops after a 1991 coup by the Haitian army.
But unlike the United States, which regularly repatriates Haitian boat people, France has not returned the illegal Haitian migrants, citing the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention that bars sending migrants back to a country where they may be in danger.
Also driving Paris’ frustrations over Aristide was his insistent demands over the year for $22 billion in compensation for French ‘‘colonial crimes’’ in Haiti. The Caribbean country won its independence from France in 1804, after a brutal war and the world’s first successful slave revolt.
Although expressing ‘‘great sympathy for Haiti and its population,’’ Chirac steadily rejected Aristide’s demands for reparations.
CHANGE OF HEART
A senior aide to de Villepin also said the French government, which had initially pushed to send in a peacekeeping force in February that would have propped up Aristide’s government, decided against it after the events of Feb. 23-27.
That’s when armed Aristide supporters seized the streets of Port-au-Prince, claiming they were girding to protect the president but sparking an outbreak of political killings and looting that plunged the capital into chaos.
De Villepin’s aide said the French government believed Aristide ordered the mayhem to lure the peacekeepers—proof, he added, that Aristide all along controlled the pro-government gunmen who had been attacking opposition leaders.
‘At that point we said, `Enough.’ He proved he was not a democrat, and we decided that French troops were not going there to save him,’’ said the aide, who asked for anonymity.
Today, French peacekeeping troops are patrolling the streets of Port-au-Prince alongside U.S. Marines and Chilean and Canadian soldiers, totaling about 2,000 soldiers under a three-month mandate from the U.S. Security Council.
That’s a far cry from last spring, when France helped block a Security Council resolution approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq, leaving American troops to attack and occupy the country with only limited support from third countries.
