Kerry: Bush should have backed Aristide

Mail and Guardian Online, www.mg.co.za

United States Senator John Kerry criticised President George Bush for failing to back Haiti's elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, saying the administration's policy was "shortsighted" and sent "a terrible message" to the region and democracies, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, told the newspaper that he would have sent an international force to protect Aristide as rebel forces were threatening to enter the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.

"I would have been prepared to send troops immediately, period," Kerry said, in a wide-ranging interview on foreign policy issues conducted on Friday with Times reporters.

Kerry told the newspaper that it was wrong for the Bush administration to withhold any aid from Aristide, and then help spirit him into exile after saying the United States could not protect him from the rebels.

"Look, Aristide was no picnic, and did a lot of things wrong," Kerry said in the Times interview. But Washington "had understandings in the region about the right of a democratic regime to ask for help. And we contravened all of that. I think it's a terrible message to the region, democracies, and it's shortsighted." Full Article