 Secretary
of State Colin L. Powell
Bridgetown, Barbados
June 3, 2002
QUESTION: ...twenty missions in Haiti, all of them
failed? So what is your... excuse me, so what is your
(inaudible)?
SECRETARY POWELL: It is not the missions that have
failed. It is the political leaders in Haiti who have
failed. And the political leaders in Haiti must take
the ultimate responsibility for resolving the political
crisis that keeps the international community from providing
the kind of help that the Haitian people deserve. And
so we hope now that once again the OAS will be able
to use its good offices to help bring a political solution
to Haiti. But it's not the failure of the missions;
it's the failure of the parties in Haiti who should
be desperately searching for a solution to help their
people. Meanwhile, the United States will continue to
provide quite a bit of aid to the people of Haiti. It's
been over $300 million in the last several years, $73
million last year; it's going to be $20 million this
year, and a total of about a $100 million contribution
to the people of Haiti in this two-year period upcoming.
So we are doing everything we can to give hope to the
people of Haiti, political hope to the OAS delegation,
but also financial assistance. But Haiti needs more
than that. It needs the assistance of the international
financial community, the international financial institutions;
but it is difficult to provide that kind of aid until
there is political stability so that the money will
be invested in a proper way in a country that has political
stability and a government that is functioning. Without
that, it is difficult to persuade, and it seems to us
to be not the smartest thing in the world to do to send
money into that kind of unstable political
environment. Thank you.
|
Haiti@inxil.com
· James
R. Morrell, executive director