• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

16 March 2004

U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Warns Against Violence in Haiti

Says those planning violence will be "dealt with accordingly"

By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Anyone planning violence against the U.S.-led Multinational Interim Force in Haiti or against Haitian civilians will be "dealt with accordingly," warns Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Myers said during a March 13 visit to Haiti that "if there is to be hope" in the Caribbean nation, "there has to be peace and stability."

Myers said the interim force, which the United Nations authorized to be in Haiti for 90 days, is securing and stabilizing conditions for a follow-on U.N. force to stay in the country. A U.N. assessment team in Haiti is determining what should be the size of such a follow-on force. Myers was in Haiti to see the U.S. troops deployed there as part of the interim peacekeeping force.

The Voice of America reported that several hours before Myers' comments, U.S. Marines killed two Haitians in a firefight near the presidential palace in the Haitian capital city of Port-au-Prince. A total of five Haitians have been killed in firefights with U.S. troops since the American force arrived in Haiti following the February 29 resignation of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Meanwhile, Haiti has suspended diplomatic relations with Jamaica following the arrival March 15 of Aristide to the Jamaican capital city of Kingston. Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue called Jamaica's decision to receive Aristide an "unfriendly act" which would stir up tensions in nearby Haiti.

Bush administration officials have said they oppose Aristide's decision to go to Jamaica, following his brief exile in the Central African Republic.

U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice called Aristide's decision to visit Jamaica a "bad idea," while U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the Bush administration hopes Aristide did not "come back into the [Western] Hemisphere" in order to "complicate" the Haitian situation.

The government of Jamaica says Aristide is not seeking political asylum in the Caribbean nation. Rather, the government says Aristide wants to stay temporarily in Jamaica with his wife in order to be reunited with his two young children, whom Aristide sent to the United States when Haiti's situation began to further deteriorate in February. The Jamaican government says Aristide must not use his visit to the country to provoke unrest in Haiti.

The United Nations announced March 15 that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy for Haiti landed in Port-au-Prince to work for a solution to the country's political impasse. The U.N. said Reginald Dumas, a diplomat from Trinidad and Tobago, will have a "broader political role" than the U.N.'s assessment mission in Haiti, which is examining Haitian security, transportation, and humanitarian conditions.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)