Global Policy Forum

By Peter Richards

As he prepares to take a seat alongside his fellow Caribbean leaders in St. Kitts on Jul. 4, Haiti's President Rene Preval knows all too well there are still lingering issues he has to deal with. Last week, Guy Delva, the head of the Haitian journalists' support group, SOS Journalists, told an international media conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, "There is a sense of hope with the change in government, but things can change anytime, as armed groups have caused problems in the country in the past and they have not given up their weapons."

Preval, 62, is aware that Haiti's return to the 15-member Caribbean Community (Caricom) fold after a two-year absence will allow his regional colleagues to push for even more democratic rule in a country where Preval himself holds the record as the sole elected president to have served a full five-year term since Haiti became an independent nation in 1804.

Outgoing Caricom chairman Patrick Manning of Trinidad and Tobago left no doubt that the regional grouping would want its French-speaking member state to adhere to the principles that have guided the Caribbean's own political stability over the years. In a congratulatory message sent soon after Preval was elected in February, Manning said that his victory was "testimony to the achievements of your first term in office which brought a fresh breath of hope to the majority of the Haitian people".

He reminded Preval that his re-election campaign was characterised by his determination to "reach out across the social and political divide and to focus on the factors that are critical for the social, political and economic development of your country".

"Key among these are reconciliation and stability," Manning said.

Two years earlier, Caricom had stopped inviting Port au Prince to its deliberations following the controversial removal of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office and the appointment of a U.S.-backed interim administration. "It is particularly pleasing to me that we held to a principled position grounded in the OAS (Organisation of American States) Charter in relation to Haiti. We are now able once again to restore Haiti to its rightful place around our Community table, democratic processes having been restored," said P.J. Patterson, the former Jamaican Prime Minister and a respected Caribbean statesman at a lecture in Trinidad last month.

But Delva believes that Aristide, who now resides in exile in South Africa, could also undermine the new hope for the hemisphere's poorest nation. "Aristide still enjoys great popularity even after more than two years since he was kicked out. Many believe his immediate return could bother the new president and there are people around the new president who don't like Aristide, which causes a dilemma because some of the people who voted for Preval did so because they thought Preval could bring Aristide back," Delva said. "And there is a chance that if that does not happen, different groups could take up weapons again," he warned.

OAS Assistant Secretary General Albert Ramdin said recently he hoped the international community would continue to support Haiti and have a security presence in the country as long as the Haitian authorities wish. "It's a new page in the history of Haiti and I hope that everybody will use that opportunity to not make it a black page in the history of Haiti," Ramdin told journalists in Barbados.

Earlier this year, St. Lucia's Prime Minister Kenny Anthony called for "a clear and unambiguous message" from Caricom indicating that it would not "tolerate or accept the unlawful and unconstitutional interruption of the democratic process". Anthony then went further by calling for an "immediate amendment to the Charter of Civil Society and other appropriate instruments to authorise the expulsion of a member state which repudiates the democratic process by violence and intimidation".

Caribbean leaders adopted the Charter of Civil Society in 1992 after it was recommended by the West Indian Commission examining ways of deepening the regional integration process. It has 11 major points, including the need to "to uphold the right of people to make political choices" as well as "to create a truly participatory political environment within the Caribbean Community which will be propitious to genuine consultation in the process of governance".

Caribbean leaders had opted for Haiti's return to the grouping only on the grounds that the presidential and parliamentary elections held earlier this year were free and fair and truly reflected the wishes of the people of the impoverished Caribbean nation.

"Heads of Government wish to congratulate the people of Haiti who through their patience, resolve and courage demonstrated their attachment to the democratic process by exercising their franchise to determine their representatives at the presidential and legislative levels. The Community looks forward to the election of local and municipal representatives so that the constitutional architecture of representation can be completed," the Guyana-based Caricom Secretariat said in a statement earlier this week. The statement all but gave Preval a red carpet return to Caricom's Jul. 3-6 meeting in St. Kitts and Nevis, where he has been asked to address the opening ceremony.

The speech will be widely anticipated, for Haiti returns to a grouping that has forged closer ties through the establishment of a Caricom Single Market (CSM), the first component of a wider Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) allowing for the free movement of skills, services, labour and goods within the community.

Because it was unable to participate in any of the deliberations regarding the CSME over the last two years, Haiti may well seek protection from the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that governs the CSME and also provides for a certain level of protection for disadvantaged countries within the grouping. Like the smaller islands of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States that have been clamouring for the establishment of the multi-million-dollar regional development fund to help cushion the effects of the CSME on their open economies, Haiti may well seek solace in that initiative.

Last month, Trinidad and Tobago said it had entered into a joint constituency arrangement with Haiti allowing it to become a full-fledged member of the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) that provides significant finances to regional states for socio-economic development projects. CDB President Compton Bourne said that the bank's engagement with Haiti would be two-pronged, "based on an immediate short-term response during the current financial year geared towards familiarising bank staff with the situation on the ground to be followed by a medium term strategy where a permanent presence is contemplated".

"Now that elections have been held and the security situation has improved, we expect that a way has been paved to commence some operational work in Haiti," Bourne said.

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