1993, January – June 8: (Clinton Reverses on Refugees, Aristide Broadcasts Stay Put, Père Adrien Denounces Mixed Signals, Dante Caputo’s OAS Mission a Total …

1993, January – June 8: (Clinton Reverses on Refugees, Aristide Broadcasts Stay Put, Père Adrien Denounces Mixed Signals, Dante Caputo’s OAS Mission a Total Bust, Bazin Resigns June 8 After Nearly a Year, Resolution 841 Makes the Oil Embargo Global in Mid-June, an Arms Embargo with Less Optimism, and Caputo Wearing a UN Hat Invites Cédras and Aristide to Governors Island): Disappointment was doubly keen when President-elect Clinton reversed his position and announced that the new administration would continue the Bush policy of repatriating refugees. Swallowing his disappointment, President Aristide made good on a previous promise to broadcast to the Haitian people, asking them to stay put rather than taking to the seas. Père Adrien, less constrained than Aristide, stated quite rightly that mixed signals from the U.S. were at the core of the inability to resolve the situation in Haiti. With Aristide’s words echoing in their ears, Haitians witnessed the arrival in mid-January 1993 of yet another OAS team, this time led by veteran diplomat Dante Caputo. Caputo hoped to revive the plan to station five hundred OAS observers around the country, but found himself almost captive in his hotel because of demonstrations by throngs of coup supporters. While managing to meet with Raoul Cédras, the mulâtre general nominally in charge of the factionalized and restive army, he was prevented from making any serious progress — in the words of one diplomat, the mission was a total bust. Wearying of trying to bring together factions at daggers drawn, perhaps nudged by Washington, Marc Bazin resigned on June 8, 1993, having labored for nearly a year. His departure occasioned a flurry of activity that seemed to have promise — the UN, as a result of skillful diplomacy by Ambassadors Casimir and Longchamps, made the leaky hemispheric oil embargo global in mid-June. The move was long overdue. Mindful that plowshares alone might not suffice to resolve the conflict, the body also put in place an arms embargo, but with less optimism as to its effectiveness. Armed with Resolution 841, Dante Caputo, now wearing a UN hat, invited General Cédras and President Aristide to New York — there, on an island in New York harbor, access to which would be restricted given the size of the Diaspora population nearby, the parties would try yet again to cobble together an agreement that would solve the Haitian impasse.