Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 15, 1993                   TAG: 9311030380
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE U.S. INTEREST IN A FREE HAITI

Indignation is the proper response by a world community that had negotiated a peaceful return to power of Haiti's democratically elected president.

Indignation is also the proper response for the majority of Haitians who saw plans for the return of their legitimate government evaporating.

The "day of indignation" staged this week by thugs of the Haitian military was actually a day of intimidation - aimed at anyone, at home or abroad, committed to a return to democracy for that poverty-stricken nation.

In blocking the landing of U.S. and Canadian troops from the USS Harlan County, Haitian attaches wrapped their activities in a flag of nationalism. But it is continued dictatorship by a military and business elite they were protecting, not national honor.

Obviously, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras has no intention of sticking to the U.N.- brokered plan to restore democracy to his nation - a plan that calls for his resignation and the return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide by Oct. 30. When the ship bringing the U.N. forces that were to smooth the transition can't even dock, it's fruitless to continue the effort.

And so the economic sanctions that had forced the agreement in the first place must be reimposed, despite the added suffering this will mean for Haiti's poor. To truly help the poor, who have fled in such numbers to U.S. shores, the United States and the world community must stand firm in their determination to restore Haiti's legitimate government.

Unlike Somalia, another small, poor nation torn by internal conflict and looking to the United Nations and United States to reverse its disintegration, Haiti is properly perceived as being within the U.S. sphere of influence. What happens there matters directly here.

Prime Minister Robert Malval may have sounded like he was making a veiled threat Sunday when he warned that hordes of Haitians will flee to the United States if the U.N. mission fails. But the warning likely is true.

The poverty, inequality and political oppression in Haiti are a policy issue for the United States if for no other reason than because Haiti is so close to the United States. When its people grow too desperate, they can head here. And do, in great numbers.

And unlike Somalia, there is a legitimate government to be restored, and it is supposed to be a democracy.

Aristide was elected president of Haiti in 1990, the first democratically elected president in the country's nearly 200-year history. The radical Roman Catholic priest, whose electorate was the poor, was in office less than a year when his policies and reforms prompted a military coup.

There's a reasonable chance democracy can take root and flourish in Haiti - if the forces of military dictatorship and oligarchy can be kept from blocking it by terror. The United States has an interest in protecting the growth of democracy anywhere. It has a particular interest and obligation to protect one so close to its shores. Let's keep up the pressure.