HAITI-DISARMAMENT: Power and the Military

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Nov 17 (IPS) - Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias Sanchez, visiting Haiti this week, reiterated his view that democracy would be strengthened if the Caribbean nation abolished its notoriously trigger-happy army.

That proposal has become a refrain for the former Costa Rican president, whose own country and Panama are unique in Latin America in having no standing armies to maintain.

It has yet to find wide application, and in Haiti the reception was polite, despite the country's bitter experience with power- hungry soldiers determined to maintain their profile and keep their hands on the levers of control.

A recent report published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that aggregate worldwide military expenditure grew at a relatively modest rate during the 1970s, then accelerated duiring the 1980s.

There was a slowdown in 1988 and a reversal of the growth trend in 1989, coinciding with the end of the Cold War.

Still developing countries (including China, and all the countries of Asia with the exception of Japan) devoted 150 billion on defence expenditure in 1990 - or 15.7 percent of the orld total.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that in Haiti - generally cited as the poorest country in the western hemisphere - military eaxpenditure as a percentage of GDP in 1990 was 1.4. That was higher than Mexico, Colombia and Brazil and Venezuela and Argentina.

Arias, former president of Costa Rica (1986-90), urged members of the Haitian parliament to work for the consolidation of democracy in Haiti by carrying out urgent demilitarisation. Such a measure would require a constitutional amendment.

Passing such an amendment "would be equivalent to establishing civil authority as an institution," said Arias in a speech delivered before the Haitian parliament earlier this week.

Denying that he wanted to interfere in Haitian affairs, Arias said "the future of Haiti must be built according to the sovereign decisions taken by the Haitians".

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service