Hurray. The Haitian president has stepped down and the rebel leader has said the rebels will stop fighting. Now for goodness sake, someone please send in some peace-keeping lads from another country so the place doesn't erupt in war.
Oh tops. They already have some peace-keepers. I like peace-keepers. I can imagine there being friendly peace-keepers in heaven with Nerf batons. And amphetamine stun guns that make people so happy they don't want to steal the golden paving stones anymore. Wouldn't it be nice, la la la la.... How does that Beach Boys song go.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/572/572p17.htm
James C / 4:33pm / 1 March 2004
That article doesn’t offer a lot of evidence. It’s hard to know what the people think. But I don’t think it’s very reassuring when I leader of state “refuses” to hold elections. If he’s worried about them being hijacked, he could ask for international assistance. In any case, he would have had to confront it then or in a couple of years.
Although the more I read about it, the more crap America starts to look. I don’t feel that it necessarily improves Aristide’s claim to office, but it’s pretty shabby behaviour on the part of America. They refused a peace-keeping force until the “political solution” was reached. I think their idea of a political solution was for Aristide to disappear entirely.
I guess the risk was that the UN peace-keeping troops could end up supporting an unpopular government.
Perhaps, if you want UN troops you need to either be very democratic, or hand over a lot of control to the UN. It’s a big ask for a third party to come in and protect you from the people you’ve pissed off by ignoring them.
Ryan / 10:03am / 6 March 2004
Oh yes. Those terrorists didn’t really bring law and order at all. They brought violence and misery. Which is probably what you’d expect.
Ryan / 10:06am / 6 March 2004