THE WORLD; Aristide Seeks More Than Moral Support

WHEN he confidently strode to the podium of the General Assembly one year ago bearing news of democracy's triumph after nearly two centuries of bloody failures, Haiti's first elected President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was the toast of the United Nations. This week, as Haiti's deposed President, overthrown in a military coup no sooner than he had returned home, Father Aristide will stand before the same audience to plead that the world not forget his country's tragedy.

He will surely be greeted with hearty applause, but it is much less certain that he will get anything beyond moral support. Diplomats say there is little chance that anything but the use or serious threat of force can now dislodge a Haitian army that has bloodily secured its hold on the nation while gorging itself on drug money and contraband since the coup last Sept. 30. Such a rescue seems remote. If anything, as time has passed, the world consensus against taking action on Father Aristide's behalf has hardened. For different reasons, likely defenders seem not to want to get involved.

At the United Nations, increasingly stretched by compelling crises from Yugoslavia to Somalia, most diplomats agree there is little chance that the body will take up Father Aristide's expected call to actively work for his return. Nor is the Organization of American States as indignant as it once was. Having announced plans for a 500-member observer mission to Haiti, the O.A.S. is now ploddingly assembling a corps of 18.

As for the United States, since shortly after the overthrow -- when Secretary of State James Baker echoed President Bush's famous "this aggression will not stand" statement about Iraq -- little consideration has been given to backing up American principles in Haiti with American muscle.

Virtually all observers agree that facing down Haiti's ill-equipped and undisciplined 7,000-man army would take little in the way of force. Recently, an adviser of the provisional Government of the army-backed Prime Minister Marc L. Bazin repeated Father Aristide's longtime complaint when he said that "all it would take is one phone call" from Washington to send the army leadership packing. Certainly in Haiti, it is keenly recalled that the United States played a critical behind-the-scenes role in forcing out the last military leader, Col. Prosper Avril, setting the stage for the democratic elections that Father Aristide won in a landslide.

Father Aristide has undoubtedly been frustrated that other nations have found ways to avoid effectively rallying to his cause. Mexico, for example, has invoked deep-seated opposition to American or even multilateral intervention by the O.A.S. in a member country's internal affairs. The European Community has failed to even slow its trade with Haiti.

Indeed, supporters and opponents of Father Aristide agree, nothing more threatening than a leaky and ineffective embargo, quickly imposed on Haiti after the coup, has ever been seriously contemplated, which reflects Washington's deep-seated ambivalence about a leftward-tilting nationalist whose style diplomats say has sometimes been disquietingly erratic. Father Aristide rose to popularity on the wings of his calls for redemption for the hemisphere's poorest and most oppressed people and on stinging speeches that often depicted the United States as a citadel of evil and the root of many of his country's problems. His salutations have long invoked the name of Charlemagne Peralte, a leader of the Haitian resistance to the United States' occupation early in the century, so he himself recognizes the trickiness of calling for stronger American measures.

Despite much blood on the army's hands, United States diplomats consider it a vital counterweight to Father Aristide, whose class-struggle rhetoric during his nearly eight months in office, threatened or antagonized traditional power centers at home and abroad. For months Washington has mixed almost rote-like public statements of the need to restore Haitian democracy with private comments that confess its unwillingness to take on the military. "He wants us to get rid of his enemies for him so that he can have a free hand to mop up, and we're just not going to do that for him," a senior official said in a comment that has been repeatedly echoed in American diplomatic circles.

For Father Aristide there remains only the slim possibility that a new effort at mediation by the former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael N. Manley, who was recently recruited by the O.A.S. for the task, can revive diplomatic efforts to restore him to office. Failing that, Father Aristide's backers can only hope that a people who have so far remained quiescent, will rise up again, as they did in 1986 to cast off the Duvalier family dictatorship, and reclaim the right to choose their leaders. "It is possible that the international community fails to find the instruments to help us and even that our civilian Government fails," said Father Aristide's Ambassador to Washington, Jean Casimir. "But time cannot help these gorillas, and given time, the Haitian people cannot lose."

Source: New York Times

A HAITIAN PRIEST IS OUSTED BY ORDER

A Roman Catholic priest who has been one of the most outspoken critics of social injustice in Haiti has been expelled from his ecclesiastic order and accused of using religion to incite hatred and violence.
In a statement prepared in Rome, the Salesian order, one of the largest groups in the church, accused the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a 35-year-old Haitian priest, of desecrating the sacraments by using them for political purposes.

Father Aristide, who preached on a need for a ''real revolution'' in Haiti and alluded to armed warfare as a means of ending military domination of the country, had refused an order by Salesian officials to leave Haiti by Oct. 17 and take up duties in Canada.

The priest, who has been seen in public only once since narrowly escaping death in early September in an attack on his church in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, has been in contact with Haitian radio stations by telephone, but has expressed no reaction to his expulsion. No Public Response From Avril
The expulsion order came as the Government of Lieut. Gen. Prosper Avril began its third month in office at a time of rising disappointment over its slow progress in moving the country toward democracy.

For several days in October, thousand of Haitians protested the efforts to transfer Father Aristide to Canada. But there has been no public reaction since the expulsion was first reported on Haitian radio stations on Thursday. There has also been no comment from either General Avril or the Haitian Conference of Bishops. Both have been criticized by Father Aristide.

In a statement in November on Radio Metropole, an independent station, Father Aristide accused several bishops of plotting against him. He said the Avril Government was incompetent and guilty of failing to curtail violence by right-wing thugs known as Tontons Macoute.

Shortly after General Avril, an adviser and confidant to the dictators who ruled Haiti for nearly 30 years, assumed power in a coup in September, he said he wanted to go down in history as a leader who had ''saved the country from anarchy and dictatorship'' and had established ''an irreversible democracy.'' Washington Is 'Still Encouraged'

Though no date has been set for elections, United States officials in Haiti say that they are ''still encouraged'' by the things General Avril ''has been doing and saying'' and that they feel he is making progress toward democracy.

The Haitian Government said Friday that the last comments and suggestions by political and civic leaders on a proposal by General Avril to form a body to conduct elections would be accepted Thursday and that a public meeting to discuss the plan would be held in early January.
Many Haitian political leaders have expressed concern that General Avril is trying to limit the independence of the electoral body But have praised him for fostering debate on the plan.
In recent statements, General Avril has reaffirmed a pledge to respect human rights. But he has been criticized by some religious and civic leaders for jailing a group of noncommissioned officers who he asserts tried to overthrow him in mid-October.

There have been continued reports of unrest within the armed forces and new rumors of a coup circulated this week as the retirement and transfer of a half dozen key noncommissioned officers was announced.

Source: New York Times