Haiti: 'How-Not-To' Lesson in Peacekeeping.

When the United States invaded Haiti in 1994, Bob Shacochis covered the invasion and the occupation that followed. His stories appeared in publications such as Harper's Magazine and The Washington Post.

Now, Shacochis' experiences in Haiti have culminated in a book entitled "The Immaculate Invasion" (Penguin Books, $14.95, paperback). Within its pages, Shacochis has dropped the reporter's objectivity for the author's crusade. He tells a poignant--sometimes even poetic--tale of an oppressed people trusting in the mighty Americans to save them and the Special Forces soldiers who want nothing more than to do just that.

Through Shacochis' eyes, however, the reader watches the fighters' enthusiasm turn to frustration and finally disgust as their mission is turned into tragedy by Washington politics. Haiti was one of the first lessons in peacekeeping for the United States, and as depicted in "The Immaculate Invasion," it was an example of a kind of "how-not-to" guide.

Shacochis sets the mood and the background for the book by developing the situation in Haiti that led the United States to intervene. He uses the story of a song.

In 1993, a very popular Haitian band, RAM, led by Richard Morse, a Haitian-American, put out a song called "Fey." It became an anthem for supporters of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, president-in-exile, and his Lavalas party, the hope of Haitian democracy. Despite threats to his own life and that of his family, Morse continued to lead RAM in performing the song.

The story of RAM and the band's musical defense is a perfect vehicle for Sacochis to use to show the injustice and tyranny that had taken over Haiti yet again. He recounts concerts where all the power was shut off and RAM kept playing, not knowing what was going to come at them from the darkness, and harrowing nights at Morse's hotel, The Oloffson, when dancing and music turned into gun fights.

Enter the Troops

In August of 1994, the United Stares finally sent troops to Haiti. Among them were the Green Berets of Operational Detachment A-Team 311, led by Capt. Edmond Barton. They liked to call themselves "The Quiet Professionals." Shacochis describes them as "The Peace Corps with guns."

The Green Berets were stationed eventually in a town called Limbe. They were there to help free Haiti. They wanted to help these people. They were trained to fight for these people. That is not what happens in Shacochis' tale.

One of the first frustrations for the soldiers was the lack of action--the unwillingness of the higher-ups to make a "hard" entry into Haiti and show the "bad" guys that the Americans meant business. Shacochis writes:

"Was Haiti worth one American soldier's life, that gut-check measurement appropriated by political partisans? Perhaps it would have been better to ask how strong an army can truly be, if the dread of casualties induces paralysis. In the vast space between isolationism and nuclear warfare, the soldiers had business to take care of, staying alive right at the top of the task list, and they didn't bother to ask themselves such questions."

The biggest issue Shacochis addresses is the lack of a clear mission. Soldiers need orders, defined lines between the "goodies" and the "baddies." They never had that in Haiti.

One Special Forces major called it "Vietnam without the bullets ... all the way down to 'What are we doing here?'" These men were trained to fight and follow orders. Now, they were being told to be policemen and diplomats.

Not even provided with an interpreter, Barton was instructed to reform the local government and police force. The soldiers' mission changed on a daily basis. They had come in soft, and now the troops were told to do nothing more than wait.

The Green Berets, the author writes, had to stand by while atrocities were committed. There was no line between the "goodies" and the "baddies." The terrorist group, Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), more feared than the actual Haitian army, suddenly was "the loyal opposition" and considered a political party. Shacochis writes:

"Unlike me, they [the Special Forces] had spent their adult lives training to help people in crisis, even if it meant killing others, but politicians were just as likely to risk these men's lives shoring up the guilty as rescuing the innocent, and the government did not want them here, nor did the Pentagon or the public.

"Nobody really wanted them except these broken people clinging to the world, a world bigger or smaller than any other where you pray for mercy, and sometimes even a lifetime of training made no difference whatsoever.

"'It would be nice,' [a Special Forces] sergeant major told me one day in Cap Haitien, 'to be part of something that actually worked."'

Stopped at Every Turn

This frustration weighed heavily. Shacochis follows Barton, who after a rift with command and his men was removed, and his successor Mike Stefanchik. He admires both men, who try to do what they can. But they are stopped at every turn by lack of support and unreasonable decisions by some of the military commanders and politicians.

The less that was getting done, the more resentment built. The Haitians in Limbe had a saying about the United States. "It looks like you wash your hands and dry them in dirt."

At the same time, the troops--who had come with the best intentions--were starting to resent the people. Shacochis describes the situation: "This was Limbe, the supply and demand of truth brokered by criminals, decent citizens tragically obedient to their fears. This was Limbe, and this was Haiti, a place that confounded the American soldiers, and against their will and desire, most of them learned to hate it."

And eventually, that is the attitude they took home, feeling that they had spent a year or more of their lives, doing nothing.

While Shacochis paints vivid pictures of the day-to-day trials of the Special Forces soldiers and the Haitian people, he also adds interviews with various embassy and military players and excerpts the field notes of Col. Mark Boyatt, head of Special Forces in Haiti.

Shacochis has done the research to back up his own experiences, and they come together to form a thoughtful, yet critical, look into the beginnings of American peacekeeping.