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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 29, 1995                   TAG: 9503290063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5 NATL/INTL   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder Newspapers
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                  LENGTH: Medium

HAITI MISSION A SUCCESS, BUT WILL IT WORK IN LONG TERM?

Six months ago, Bill Clinton lurched into the riskiest, most dramatic moment of his presidency by sending 21,000 U.S. troops into Haiti to restore order and democracy and end a flood of illegal immigration.

Whatever Clinton's motivations, tiny impoverished Haiti wasn't worth the trouble, his critics insisted at the time. ``There's not one reason to risk one American life,'' said Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan.

On Friday, Clinton will visit Haiti to proclaim the mission a success and to pass the baton of responsibility to the United Nations. For the president, it can only be a moment of sweet vindication.

But has the intervention truly been a success? So far, yes, unquestionably. On that most analysts agree.

``I think you have to say that ... the Haiti experience has not turned out to be nearly as bad as the critics feared,'' said Arnold Kantor, who was undersecretary of state in the Bush administration and quite critical of the Haiti mission himself.

But if the purpose of the mission was to restore democracy - or to eliminate conditions inside the Caribbean nation that made the mission necessary - then there is a long, hard, dangerous job still to be done before success can be proclaimed. On that, even top Clinton advisers agree.

``I think it's fair to say that our mission there is succeeding,'' Samuel ``Sandy'' Berger, deputy national security adviser to President Clinton, told reporters this week. `` ... That is not to say that there are still not daunting challenges in Haiti, plenty of uncertainties on the road ahead.''

Those who see success cite reasons such as these:

The military dictators who ousted elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power in 1991 stepped down peacefully last October.

Aristide was restored to power peacefully.

Only one U.S. soldier has died from hostile fire.

Hundreds of Haitian refugees no longer flee to the sea seeking asylum in the United States.

U.S. forces demobilized Haiti's corrupt police and military organizations, confiscated some 33,000 weapons and restored relative order.

Legislative and local elections are scheduled for June 4 and a new presidential election for November.

The United States assembled a $1.2 billion economic aid package for Haiti from many nations. At $200 million, the U.S. share is unusually small.

The U.S.-led international rescue effort is feeding 1 million Haitians a day, providing medical care to 2 million and has immunized 90 percent of the children in the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

U.S. troops peaked at more than 20,000 last fall, are now down to 5,000 and will number only 2,500 within two weeks. That contingent will remain as part of a 6,000-member U.N. force - led by U.S. Gen. Joseph Kinzer - that will maintain order until the next Haitian president is inaugurated in February 1996, when the U.S.-U.N. mission is to end.

Most analysts agree those are impressive achievements. Yet they are offset by other troubling concerns. Among them:

U.S. troops did not confiscate weapons systematically as Aristide requested, and independent experts believe extensive arms remain stored throughout the nation.

U.S. troops did not demobilize extensive paramilitary organizations, such as FRAPH, which have simply gone into hiding. FRAPH includes many former Ton-Ton Macoutes, thugs long used as enforcers of Haiti's class-based system of vigilante terror.