One little word buried in a clause at the end of the 16-point Organization of American States (OAS) Resolution 822 on Haiti betrays the essence of the document: "security."

Article 13, B instructs the OAS Special Mission to Haiti to "coordinate efforts of the international community to provide technical and financial electoral assistance, including electoral planning, technical assistance, security, and observation of the elections in 2003 (our emphasis)."

As banal as it may appear, this word opens the door for the OAS -- also known as "Washington’s Ministry for Colonial Affairs" -- to deploy whatever "security force" it sees fit to oversee Haiti’s next elections, which it will also plan, finance, observe, and "technically" assist.

The last OAS Electoral Mission in 2000 touched off a two-year political crisis when it illegally challenged the verdict of Haiti’s sovereign Electoral Council (CEP) on how to compute election results. The OAS felt that seven senators should go to run-offs, a relatively minor complaint which was expanded, through synergy with the Washington-financed Democratic Convergence opposition front, to become a censure of all that year’s elections for some 7,200 municipal and parliamentary posts and the presidency. Two years ago, the OAS didn’t have a "security force" in place.

Res. 822, passed on Sep. 4, represents just one more loop in the noose being tightened around Haiti’s neck. It is the latest in a series of OAS resolutions over the past two years maneuvering the Inter-American Democratic Charter into place to be invoked against Haiti, if necessary. The Democratic Charter is a hemispheric accord, approved one year ago, which empowers the OAS to take action against any member state which deviates from Washington’s definition of democracy (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 44, 1/16/2002).

Some Haitian government officials gleefully welcomed the resolution, thinking that it will liberate $500 million in multilateral loans which have been blocked by Washington since 1999. Indeed the document calls for the "normalization of economic cooperation between the Government of Haiti and the international financial institutions and urge[s] those parties to resolve the technical and financial obstacles that preclude such normalization."

"You would all like to ask me questions about the situation, but let me give you a foretaste," Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, laughing heartily, told journalists on Sep. 5. "I am happy."

But Neptune’s optimism is not shared widely, even by some of his subordinates. "It doesn't mean anything in terms of actual disbursement of funds," one unnamed government official told Reuters. "There are still many conditions to be met, and huge financial and technical obstacles in the way."

More ominous still was the warning delivered by Peter de Shazo, deputy U.S. Representative to the OAS, in a Sep. 4 statement to the body about Resolution 822. "The United States, of course, reserves the right to make decisions on international financial institution projects in Haiti on the merits of each individual proposal," he said. Of course.

Furthermore, the political obstacles to an aid release may be greater than the "technical and financial" ones. For example, the government is obliged to form in conjunction with the Convergence "an autonomous, independent, credible and neutral CEP" within two months, and, 30 days after that, the CEP is to form an "Electoral Guarantees Commission" drawn from "representatives of a national coordination body formed on the basis of experience of coordinating electoral observation in Haiti and of civil society organizations," all of which is to be overseen by the OAS Special Mission. In the past decade, forming a CEP has always ushered in months of tortuous political wrangling. That will be even heightened because the new CEP would "monitor" Haiti’s police force "in connection with the electoral process."

Also, echoing last January’s Res. 806, Res. 822 demands that the Haitian government disarm its partisans with "the active cooperation of the International Community" and undertake the "effective prosecution of any person, and dismissal, when appropriate, of any person found to be author of or accomplice in the violence of Dec. 17, 2001, and subsequent days." On that date, government partisans burned and looted opposition leaders’ homes and headquarters following an unsuccessful attempted assassination of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide by a 30-man armed commando unit (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 40, 1/19/2001).

The penniless Haitian government is also commanded to undertake "prompt reparation for organizations and individuals who suffered damages as a direct result of the violence."

In July in Gonaïves, the government arrested Amiot "Cubain" Métayer, the leader of a popular organization which rampaged on Dec. 17. The arrest sparked a prison break and massive uprising, in the face of which the government backed down (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 21, 8/7/2002).

On Sep. 9, the Justice Ministry, under previous commitments to the OAS recalled in Res. 822, was supposed to issue a report about what it had done to round up those involved in the Dec. 17 reprisals. At press time on Sep. 10, no report was forthcoming. When a Haïti Progrès reporter called the ministry to inquire about the report, he was told that "no one was available" to answer that question.

The Convergence, observing the corner into which the Haitian government has painted itself, is now sitting back with its arms crossed. "We remain skeptical," said Gérard Pierre-Charles of the Convergence-linked Struggling People’s Organization (OPL). "We are not yet ready to name any names for any electoral council... What about the Justice Minister’s report on Dec. 17? Nothing has been done yet... The government had other engagements under Res. 806 which it hasn’t yet accomplished... We are not ready to step into a situation which is not yet clear."

Res. 822 also "instruct[s] the Secretary General to strengthen further the Special OAS Mission to Haiti in order for it to support, monitor, and report on implementation of this and all other pertinent OAS resolutions and on commitments of the Government of Haiti."

"This is a commission of guardianship," observed Ben Dupuy, secretary general of the National Popular Party (PPN), which has called on Haiti’s progressive forces to join with it in forming an alternative to the Convergence and the Aristide’s Lavalas Family party (FL). "Students of history will remember that before Napoleon sent 40,000 troops [to try to reimpose slavery in the French colony of St. Domingue in 1801], he sent a series of commissions, whose role was to create division, and ready things for what was to come... That’s the same role the Special OAS Mission to Haiti plays today: preparing the ground for another intervention, another occupation of the country."

He noted that both the Convergence and FL were falling over each other to do the bidding of Washington, which "one day favors one, one day favors the other, pitting them against each other to further its own agenda."

Dupuy pointed out that the U.S. was so pleased with the passage of Res. 822 that it immediately gave $500,000 to reinforce the Special OAS Mission, whose mandate is completely open-ended (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 51, 3/6/2002). He chastised the Convergence and FL for slavishly currying Washington’s favor and trading away sovereignty for ephemeral loans, which only cover interest payments and deepen the country’s debt. "Both the Convergence and FL have but one policy," he said. "To beg for money from Washington."