1991, October 2–5: (Baker’s Rousing Address to the Emergency OAS Session: This Junta Will Be Treated as a Pariah Without Friends Without Support and Without …

1991, October 2–5: (Baker’s Rousing Address to the Emergency OAS Session: This Junta Will Be Treated as a Pariah Without Friends Without Support and Without a Future, Bush Affirms We Want to See President Aristide Restored to Power, the OAS Embargo, U.S. Freezes All Haitian Government Assets Except the Exiled President’s, and the Fatally Flawed Concept — the Western Hemisphere Signs On but Not All the UN, and Haiti’s Long Porous Border with a Conservative Dominican Government): Hurried and frequent conversations with the State Department and White House ensued, concluding with a rousing address from Secretary of State Baker to an emergency session of the OAS convened on October 2, 1991. Baker’s words in support of a government with which the U.S. administration had been so uneasy were unequivocal: the junta would be treated as a pariah, without friends, without support, and without a future — this coup must not succeed, and it was imperative to act collectively to defend the legitimate government of President Aristide. The applause of the assembled delegates gave heart to the Haitian president, as did George Bush two days later, who affirmed to the press that he wanted to see President Aristide restored to power. Following the U.S. lead, the OAS cobbled together language calling for an embargo against Haiti. More concrete actions taken by the U.S. — such as freezing access to all Haitian government assets by anyone save the exiled president and a few aides — guaranteed that Aristide would not starve. From the outset the embargo concept was fatally flawed: first, while the Western Hemisphere had signed on, not all of the UN felt bound by it; second, Haiti enjoyed a long and porous border to its east with a conservative Dominican government whose sympathies were scarcely calculated to run in Aristide’s favor. Overlooked, these two details vitiated the embargo’s effect and would continue to do so for nearly three years. The OAS embargo — proclaimed with the rhetorical fervor of a hemispheric crusade for democracy, undermined from the first day by a border that could not be sealed and a UN membership that had not consented — replicated the structural pattern of every international intervention in Haiti since the nineteenth century: the great powers declaring principles they lacked the will or the means to enforce, the gap between rhetoric and reality filled not by Haitian suffering diminishing but by Haitian suffering increasing, the embargo’s costs borne entirely by the population it was supposed to liberate while the officers it was supposed to dislodge found in its very leakiness new opportunities for enrichment.