Interviews by the Haiti Democracy Project have determined that the Meech Lake meeting described in the adjoining L’Actualite article did not reflect any sort of consensus on a qualitatively greater foreign oversight role for Haiti. At the meeting were representatives of the French and U.S. governments, of Francophonie, and of El Salvador among others, as well as Canadians. Indications we have are that the gist of the meeting did not go beyond the usual ideological and political parameters of such official meetings. We are not convinced, either, although Denis Paradis obviously made a number of telling points, that the Canadian government is prepared to support the more activist role suggested by the newspaper account of the meeting.
We do not preclude, however, that worsening conditions in Haiti might yet draw forth such an intervention. A major intervention seemed unlikely in 1993, yet occurred in 1994.
We wanted to print this clarification because several leading Haitians, including Evans Paul and Leslie Manigat, have commented publicly on the L’Actualite account of the meeting which has been extensively covered by Radio Metropole.