QUESTIONS REMAIN IN HAITI, LOCAL OBSERVERS SAY

The last-minute accord that would oust Haiti's military leaders has earned some diplomatic stripes for President Clinton, two Southeast Missouri State University political scientists said Monday.

But troubling questions still remain over the future of the impoverished and violence-wracked Caribbean nation, they said.

Faced with a U.S.-led invasion, junta leaders agreed Sunday night to step down next month and allow exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to return to power.

The accord, reached after Clinton ordered the deployment of American paratroopers, halted a land, sea and air invasion.

"I think it is clearly a foreign policy success," said Peter Bergerson, chairman of the political science department at Southeast.

"It obviously is not risk free, but you could say he earned some diplomatic stripes in the last month," said Bergerson, referring to the president's handling of the Haitian crisis and the Cuban exodus.

The United States and Cuba have reached an agreement designed to rein in the chaotic exodus.

Political scientist Russell Renka views Clinton's success on the Haitian front as short term.

"It is still essentially a reactive foreign policy," said Renka. "Frankly, that has been true of President Bush as well in the post-Cold War era."

Renka said American policies on Cuba and Haiti have been prompted by a desire to prevent uncontrolled immigration to the United States.

Referring to Clinton's willingness to invade Haiti, Renka said: "If it wasn't a refugee problem, we wouldn't be doing anything."

Renka said Clinton was willing to order an unpopular invasion of Haiti in order to avoid "a long-term political crisis" over Cuban and Haitian refugees.

Bergerson said there was a significant national sigh of relief that the invasion was averted.

Both Republican and Democrat leaders had criticized Clinton's willingness to invade Haiti. U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson, R-Mo., said Monday too many questions till are unanswered.

Emerson attended a briefing conducted Monday in Washington, D.C., by Secretary of Defense William Perry, Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Shalikashvili, former Chairman Colin Powell, and Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia.

"I am glad that U.S. service personnel will not, at least ostensibly, have to enter Haiti under hostile fire," Emerson said. "But I'm no less concerned about all of the implications of this undertaking than I was last week when invasion was threatened."

Emerson said he doesn't understand how President Clinton could have decided after a weekend of talks that it was OK to extend by nearly a month the deadline for military leader Gen. Raoul Cedras to leave.

And Emerson said he still questions why the president was willing to subject Americans to potential harm in Haiti, where the United States has no vital security of economic interests at stake.

Renka also said key questions remain to be answered in terms of any U.S. or U.N. occupation of Haiti. "Will the killings be reduced? Will there be some breakdown in the extreme class division within the society?" he asked.

It is uncertain if Cedras will leave the country, assuming he steps down by the agreed-upon Oct. 15 deadline, said Renka.

The political science professor also doubts that a complete amnesty can succeed in a country which has been wracked by political violence, much of it state-sanctioned terrorism.

Renka compares the situation in Haiti to that in Cambodia. "It is a shattered country, with an extensive record of really brutal occupation and it is an economy in ruins," he said.