As Canadian troops begin patrolling the streets of strife-torn Haiti, questions about the nature and feasibility of the mission have been lost in the apparent rush to ‘do something.’ Facilitating the political, social and economic recovery of the island nation is certainly a worthwhile endeavour. But Ottawa’s rationale and strategy are unlikely to inspire confidence among the Haitian people, or the brave souls from Canada who have laboured in obscurity to better the lives of their Caribbean neighbours. 

Under the Duvaliers, Haiti enjoyed a measure of stability, but at the expense of democracy. Under the recently departed Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a proto-democracy co-existed with persistent instability. Canada’s benign intentions and miniscule contribution to the stabilization and reconstruction effort will be hard-pressed to deliver the best of both worlds. They certainly didn’t last time the government was overthrown in 1991, only to be restored three years later with the help of US and Canadian troops.

So how serious is our desire to play a ‘leading role’ in the latest crisis? How effective can we be?

The first act of an intervenor is to correctly diagnose the problem. Prime Minister Paul Martin speaks of the failure of the Haitian state as if it were solely the result of foreign indifference. He is only partly right. If poor governance and the weakness of its institutions are at the root of the current round of instability (and they are) it does not necessarily follow that the international community – including Canada – bears total responsibility for the ugly events now playing themselves out.

One senses that a belief has taken root in the mind of the liberal democratic West. It postulates that if we decisively engage ourselves in the affairs of others – through a combination of military, diplomatic, and economic means – then the problems faced by fragile states will become more tractable. US President Bush subscribed to this notion when he took America to war in Iraq. Mr. Martin said as much when he declared in the presence of the visiting UN Secretary General that the international community did not adequately follow up the 1994 military intervention with a more concerted ‘nation-building’ effort. How strange that Kofi Annan did not make the same assertion when he called on Canada to do more to salvage the situation.

But the unseemly desire to engage in self-blame, to assert that Haiti’s neighbours could have averted the current round of turmoil, is to take more responsibility for the country’s endemic problems than is appropriate or reasonable. Haiti’s political instability and illiberal democracy are first and foremost home-grown issues. Indigenous political and economic elites have made the conscious choice to maintain a stranglehold on the levers of power, shutting out those who would reform the system. It is hardly the fault of Canada that these power-brokers – most of whom exercise control from behind the scenes, dispensing jobs and favours without public scrutiny – have for decades resisted any attempt by internal or external forces to lead Haiti toward a more enlightened future. 

Not even the would-be reformers are guiltless. While Aristide rails at the United States and France for engineering a coup d’etat, his erstwhile supporters – those who placed their faith in his populist message – are accusing him of lethargy, incompetence, and demagoguery. Even the ‘democratic’ opposition is not blameless, having rejected any sort of power-sharing arrangement that would have allowed Aristide to remain in office until the end of his mandate. The reformist cause is not aided by the fact that the insurrectionists were little more than a band of brigands. Their leader - former police chief Guy Philippe – is widely suspected of drug trafficking and human rights abuses.  

In short, Haiti’s 200-year battle with corruption and venality is fundamentally the result of internal forces that Haitians themselves have not been able to deal with. This is important for outside parties who, to their credit, would try to ameliorate the situation. For Canada to simply declare that greater attention will resolve the issue reflects a misdiagnosis of the problem. This in turn may lead to a failure to prescribe the right medicine.

And what ‘medicine’ are Canadians prepared to prescribe? The answer comes by asking the next critical question: What exactly do we want to achieve? On this Mr. Martin has been vague. The restoration of stability has been mentioned more than once. But how is this to be done? Is Ottawa prepared to advocate the imposition of martial law, the establishment of a caretaker government backed up by foreign security forces a la Iraq, or the transfer of power from Haitians to a United Nations trustee? How about the coronation of a figurehead? All these could make the situation stable, but would they effectively address the internal dynamics of Haiti shattered body politic?

The choice is either to take decisive charge of political re-construction, or run the risk that the age-old currents of mismanagement and cronyism will result in further unrest and bloodshed. Which path is Canada willing to take? Playing the role of ‘helpful fixer’ may be more in line with our mythical foreign policy tradition, but style cannot rule the day. Ottawa’s latest intervention will be judged by results. Accordingly, Mr. Martin must ask himself if previous attempts at nation-building have worked. If they have not, it may be time to adopt a more assertive approach by temporarily relieving Haitians of the power to govern themselves. This could be done with UN backing, but is Canada or the international body prepared to run the risk of being labelled neo-colonialist?

Failure to answer these critical questions, to specify a political end-state, has characterized the Martin’s Government’s approach to Haiti. As in 1994, Ottawa has responded to highly-televised acts of violence with troops and a promise of more development assistance. Fine, but this is hardly a substitute for goal-setting and long-term planning. It risks confirming Lenin’s famous dictum that history repeats itself – the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

Speaking of troops, how is Ottawa to know if the deployment of 450 soldiers and aircrew will be a meaningful contribution to the stabilization effort? Are the military means sufficient to achieve the political ends, whatever they are?

It has long been known that in order to stabilize a crisis on land, one must muster a carefully-measured quantity of human and material resources to establish a robust and visible presence on the ground. Does the size and configuration of Canada’s military contribution meet this criterion? The most relevant portion of the deployed force – an infantry company comprising 120 soldiers – can stabilize an area measuring anywhere from 16 to 25 square blocks of a town or city. In short, the force can basically guard itself.

With half a dozen helicopters plus some jeeps to provide additional air and ground mobility, the Canadian contingent’s area of responsibility can be expanded. But any attempt to cultivate a presence outside a certain geographical space will result in very intermittent contact with locals, who will fear continued victimization from thugs loyal to the insurgents or to the deposed president.

Clearly, a country of Haiti’s size needs more than a small Canadian footprint. But even assuming a larger presence, the mission must serve a discernible political end. Amazingly, the force is not mandated to disarm irregular militias – a necessary condition for stability.

For an advanced liberal democracy with great ambitions, to be reduced to deploying ‘penny packet’ forces must come as something of an embarrassment. For a failed state grappling with persistent instability, a three-month commitment from a rich and seemingly caring neighbour must come as a profound disappointment. Industrialized democracies are supposed to have more stamina than this. It is a wise and necessary thing to commit financial resources for the alleviation of poverty, as Mr. Martin has promised to do. But those resources risk being squandered (as they were in the past) if they are distributed in an environment where law and order are conspicuously absent.      

Today’s hasty and ill-considered approach to foreign policy and hemispheric security strikes one as a desire to be seen to be doing something - anything - rather than a realistic blueprint for change in Haiti. The cause of nation-building is not served if would-be do-gooders underestimate the indigenous obstacles to reform. Portraying oneself as a modern-day Lazarus, condemned to carry all the burdens of one’s unfortunate neighbours, may be morally satisfying. But it lets others off too easily.

Perhaps the Prime Minister should recall the words of former US President Bill Clinton. Following the 1999 war in Kosovo, he warned ethnic Albanians that the road to a peaceful and prosperous future lay in a break with their past; that if they did not take advantage of the chance that the West had given them and put aside their thirst for revenge against their (Serb) neighbours, they would be condemned to relive the cycle of violence that had blighted their lives for centuries.

It is a message that Canada should send to Haiti, and along with troops, money, and our very best wishes.    

David Rudd is the President and Executive Director of the CISS.

Copyright CISS 2004

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