Bon voyage, Aristide.

• Position: Haitian Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide returns - Editorial

And good luck! Haiti's exiled president will need it when he finally returns home on October 30 from the United States. Under the terms of the accord signed at Governors Island, New York, by Haiti's popularly elected president and the military leaders who overthrew him, Aristide stands less of a chance of returning to power than he does of ending up dead before the year is out.

The U.S. Government's role in Haiti's struggle for democracy has been confusing at best. Most recently, the Clinton Administration supported a U.N. Security Council resolution to deploy 1,200 soldiers to Haiti in October "to help with the restoration of democracy." But earlier this year, the Administration offered similar protection to Haitian military leaders if they would step down, "as if it were the military who needed to be guarded from the Haitian people," James Ridgeway wrote in the Village Voice.

Who is the United States protecting from whom in Haiti? And what are U.S. interests there?

At Governors Island, American diplomats presented Aristide with an ultimatum, insisting that he sign a peace accord that leaves the military intact and establishes a "coalition" government comprised of Aristide's cabinet and members of the military junta. (In the meantime, the military has remained in charge of maintaining the "peace." Not surprisingly, repression, massacres, and the persecution and murder of Aristide's supporters have escalated dramatically.) This arrangement was hailed by President Clinton as an historic moment for the Haitian people, for the hemisphere, and for the principle of democratic rule."

Platitudes about democracy and freedom don't stack up against the actual history of U.S. policies in Haiti. Economically, the United States has always placed itself squarely on the side of Haiti's anti-democratic elite. According to a recent report by the National Labor Committee, a group that monitors worker and human...