France on Wednesday night called for an ”immediate” international civilian force to restore order in Haiti and help stem the poverty-stricken Caribbean state’s slide into chaos.
”This force would be charged with assuring the restoration of public order and support actions in the field of the international community,” the foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, said in a statement. ”It should have the support of a government of national union.”
Paris was highly critical of the embattled Haitian President, Jean-Baptiste Aristide, but did not call for his resignation. ”He bears grave responsibility for the current situation,” De Villepin said.
”It’s up to him to draw the conclusions within the bounds of the law. It’s his decision, it’s his responsibility. Everyone sees that this is about opening a new page in the history of Haiti.”
France has said that as long as the plan gets UN backing, it is prepared to help form such a multinational police force. A ministry spokesman said one possibility would be an international squad of some 250 civilian officers with a brief to help the overwhelmed local police quell violence, distribute aid and restore public confidence in the political process.
”We have to make an assessment of the needs, consult the UN specialists and decide how many and whom,” said the spokesperson, Herve Ladsous, adding that the dispatch of any civilian force would be ”concomitant with an agreement to reopen the political dialogue”.
Providing the UN gives the green light for such a multinational force, Paris would also call for human rights observers to study alleged violations in recent weeks, according to Ladsous.
France, a former colonial power with some 4 000 troops in the region that can theoretically be deployed for humanitarian missions, still hopes to work out a diplomatic solution to the worsening crisis. De Villepin, is in ”daily contact” with his US counterpart, Colin Powell, and other western diplomats, Ladsous said.
At present their main efforts are directed at trying to change the minds of Haiti’s opposition, who have rejected a possible peace plan drawn up by the US, EU and other western countries and accepted by Aristide. The US appeared yesterday to have ceded the lead role in mediating the crisis to France. On Wednesday President George Bush called on the international community to provide security in the impoverished Caribbean state, and said the US would focus instead on preventing Haitian refugees from coming to America.
The US coastguard would ”turn back any refugee” who tried to escape from the Haitian turmoil, the president said.
”We will have a robust presence with an effective strategy, and so we strongly encourage the Haitian people to stay home as we work to effect a peaceful solution to this problem,” he added.
As he was speaking, a small force of US marines was helping the evacuation of the 20 000 American citizens living in Haiti, as looting erupted around the capital. Britain, Australia, France and Mexico have also called on their citizens to leave. But their evacuation was hindered by the encroaching turmoil.
Aristide’s supporters set up burning barricades on the roads leading into the capital in an attempt to block the advance of rebels from the north. The president, who was restored to power with US help in 1994 after a military coup, said thousands could die if rebels attempted an assault on the capital, as they have threatened. So far, about 70 people have died, most of them police officers.
The political opposition repeated its insistence yesterday that it would settle for nothing less than Aristide’s removal, and called for foreign pressure to make him leave.
”It is absolutely necessary for the international community to accompany the country in its quest for a mechanism that will allow for a timely and orderly departure of Jean-Bertrand Aristide,” the Democratic Platform coalition said in a statement.
Despite the opposition’s rejection of a US power-sharing proposal, Bush said he was still hopeful that a political settlement could be found. Meanwhile, he called on other countries to take the lead in restoring order.
State department officials said Colin Powell, the secretary of state, had contacted his De Villepin to express support for a French effort to convene separate meetings in Paris with Mr Aristide and opposition leaders in the next few days. – Guardian Unlimited Â