The men who run Haiti are not afraid to defy the world. Last week junta leader Lieut. General Raoul Cedras, the army strongman blocking the return of democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, cavalierly engineered the installation of an 81-year-old crony as the military's handpicked President, in direct challenge to the U.S. A minority of right-wing legislators, including eight elevated after irregular elections organized by the military last year, declared that under the constitution, Aristide's long absence left them no choice but to appoint a successor. As a 21-gun salute boomed over the capital, Supreme Court Justice Emile Jonassaint was sworn in, in a technical coup intended to prevent Aristide from ever coming back. Standing right by Jonassaint's shoulder was Cedras.
The move left Bill Clinton fumbling for an effective retort just when he had adopted stern new measures himself. He had persuaded the United Nations to harden sanctions against Haiti's outlaw regime. He had announced a new asylum policy that would end the unpopular practice of forcibly repatriating Haitian refugees without a hearing. He had appointed William Gray III, head of the United Negro College Fund, as Washington's new Haiti czar. Now he dangled threats of a military invasion of the island nation.
For their efforts, Haiti's junta leaders were condemned by governments around the world, which refused to recognize the newly seated puppet President. Yet Clinton was back where he started: in a fog of indecision, with the U.N., the Organization of American States and just about everyone else waiting for him to provide presidential vision. The breathing space he had hoped to give himself by tightening the economic embargo on Haiti -- which will go into effect May 21 -- has already been undermined by his Administration's accelerated hints of possible military action. "The Administration is drifting toward intervention in some form," says Georges Fauriol, director of the Americas program at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The official White House line was a flat denial that an invasion is imminent, but the signals emanating from the Cabinet were more mixed. A report in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times, which stated that the U.S. was readying "600 heavily armed and protected troops" to purge the Haitian military, prompted Secretary of Defense William Perry to comment, "I didn't recognize it as any plan we're working on." The same report drew from Secretary of State Warren Christopher a less guarded response: "That's the kind of force that's being discussed." U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright weighed in with an ambiguous "We are not ruling anything in or out."
Administration officials admit privately that the President does not know what move to make next. The prospect of tougher sanctions and the appointment of a new envoy revive the possibility of negotiations -- but probably not until the bite of the embargo is felt months from now. While no one seems eager to invade, as National Security Adviser Anthony Lake said, "it is an option. We, of course, are looking at it."