Watching Haiti

Billmon has two new posts up already about the coup in Haiti:

Another "Conspiracy Theorist"
Show Me the Way to Go Home

The first of those items includes a link to an article by economist Jeffrey Sachs: Don't fall for Washington's spin on Haiti Financial Times 02/29/04.

Sachs describes a deliberate de-stablization campaign waged by the Bush Administration against the elected government of Haiti. Aristide was elected president in 2000 and parliamentary elections were also held that year which were "successful, albeit flawed," in Sachs' words.

The Bush Administration withheld $500 million in emergency humanitarian aid until Aristide agreed to new elections for some parliamentary seats still disputed from 2000, in Sachs' account. But when he finally agreed, the opposition favored by the Bush team kept delaying the elections, and the aid was still withheld.

The opposition apparently features some pretty nasty characters. And Sachs asks some very relevant questions about just how extensive was the US involvement. Questions Congress should be asking with some urgency.

The Haiti events have some fairly large implications. One is that they look uncomfortably like what's been going on in Venezuela for two years. Another is that Republicans in power seem to have a reckless tolerance for compliant but undemocratic regimes; what happens in Haiti will be another test of how seriously the Bush team takes the human rights for which it claims to care so passionately in Iraq. And last but not least, US involvement in these kinds of regime changes can create long-term entanglements, especially in oil-rich countries like Iraq and Venezuela.