Word: junta
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...White House basement's Situation Room last week, a dozen or so of Bill Clinton's senior foreign policy and defense officials were supposed to be planning the invasion of Haiti -- but quickly fell to bickering. The policymakers clashed over setting a deadline for the junta to step down, after which an invasion would be launched. Defense Secretary William Perry was vociferously opposed: he was certain a deadline, even a secret one, would leak -- forcing the U.S. to invade. "They always want us to knock heads," says a Pentagon official, referring to the State Department, "because they see 15 other...
Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott was vocal too -- more so than his boss, Warren Christopher -- in insisting that the time for negotiations had passed. It would be morally distasteful, Talbott declared, to help set up the junta's leaders outside Haiti. Perry countered that Talbott's inflexibility represented a peculiar morality. The U.S., he said, should explore all peaceful alternatives before risking American lives and hundreds of millions of dollars to oust Haiti's bosses...
...sanctions and trade embargo are creating a "sense of rising frustration" in Haiti. But there is contrary evidence that the outside pressure is forcing the business elite to seek common cause with the military. The Chamber of Commerce in the capital has begun hanging banners of support for the junta across many main streets...
...United States is dangling $15 million in aid to Haiti over the ruling junta's heads, most of it to come from sales of U.S.-donated wheat flour. The catch, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said, is that Haiti's impoverished people won't get the bulk until the military welcomes back exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Even so, about $3 million will immediately go to feed children, the elderly and disabled. BTW: The last time the U.S. gave Haiti aid -- $20 million last year -- the de facto government in Port-au-Prince reportedly froze several banks accounts so much...
...Last night, hours after the regime had declared a state of siege, a truckful of soldiers and armed civilians opened fire on a former member of the Haitain Senate, Reynald Georges, an outspoken political opponent who appeared on international television and in foreign newspapers in recent days criticizing the junta. Georges was in hiding this evening after a private clinic removed three bullets from his back and arm. Haiti's de facto authorities, meanwhile, ordered local news outlets to stop issuing "foreign propaganda" or face closure or take-over. One local radio station fudged the issue by vowing to keep...