a1044: Aristide's Security Force Offensive to most People in Haiti. (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Clotilde6@aol.com

L.A Times
As Aristide's Support Ebbs, Tensions Grow
By J.P. SLAVIN

J.P. Slavin worked as a freelance foreign correspondent in Haiti from 1990-93. From 1994-98, he was the editor of Haiti Insight, the newsletter of the U.S.-based National Coalition for Haitian Rights.

March 3 2002

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Haitians were still dancing in the streets at the end of this year's Mardi Gras. But the moves were not lascivious, as they had been a week earlier. By Fat Tuesday, the dancing in this capital city was aggressive, furiously spirited, near riotous. The American guards protecting the Caribbean country's embattled president were on high alert, as were the U.S. Marines at the U.S. Embassy.

Things turn dangerous quickly in Haiti today, especially in the sprawling and increasingly lawless capital, Port-au-Prince. The slums, plagued by a dangerous mix of firearms and hunger, have become near-war zones, overrun by gangs. Humanitarian relief organizations need armed guards to work there. Most foreign journalists enter the casbah only after negotiating in advance with local warlords, who provide gang-member bodyguards armed with assault rifles. For President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the turmoil is a threat to his government. In some neighborhoods, like Cite Soleil, one of Port-au-Prince's most notorious ghettos, the liberation-theologian-priest-turned-married-Head-of-State is still revered as the righteous man who whipped former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier and his Tontons Macoute thugs. Cite Soleil residents remember how Aristide persuaded then-President Bill Clinton to deploy more than 20,000 U.S. troops to Haiti in 1994 to put him into power after he was exiled in a 1991 coup.

But in the cross-town slum of St. Martin residents are openly contemptuous of the president. "I voted for Aristide but I won't again. The government has failed," a 24-year-old unemployed high school graduate told me during a recent visit. "We need a hospital, schools, food and more electricity. At best we get six hours of power a day. The president is doing nothing. How long can we live without food? One day we will do something."

Port-au-Prince has become a tinderbox, with growing tensions between Aristide's supporters and detractors. The question of the moment is whether there will be a popular uprising against Aristide. A European diplomat warned, "Once the good cheer of carnival wears off, we're expecting trouble."

Judging by the size of his personal security detail, Aristide sees the threat as real. While the National Palace is protected by a force of hundreds, Aristide looks for his own protection to a personal security force of 40 to 60 foreign guards on private contracts. Most are former U.S. military personnel, including some from the U.S. Army Special Forces. About 10 are with him nearly always. When he leaves the palace it is always in a motorcade with an escape helicopter rented from the Dominican Republic flying overhead. In a country where government employees--from surgeons to garbage collectors--are sometimes not paid for years, Aristide's foreign bodyguards earn as much as $90,000 a year, plus living expenses.

While the security force is in some way understandable--Aristide has survived multiple assassination attempts--it is offensive to many HaitianHAITI
As Aristide's Support Ebbs, Tensions Grow
By J.P. SLAVIN
J.P. Slavin worked as a freelance foreign correspondent in Haiti from 1990-93. From 1994-98, he was the editor of Haiti Insight, the newsletter of the U.S.-based National Coalition for Haitian Rights.

March 3 2002

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Haitians were still dancing in the streets at the end of this year's Mardi Gras. But the moves were not lascivious, as they had been a week earlier. By Fat Tuesday, the dancing in this capital city was aggressive, furiously spirited, near riotous. The American guards protecting the Caribbean country's embattled president were on high alert, as were the U.S. Marines at the U.S. Embassy.

Things turn dangerous quickly in Haiti today, especially in the sprawling and increasingly lawless capital, Port-au-Prince. The slums, plagued by a dangerous mix of firearms and hunger, have become near-war zones, overrun by gangs. Humanitarian relief organizations need armed guards to work there. Most foreign journalists enter the casbah only after negotiating in advance with local warlords, who provide gang-member bodyguards armed with assault rifles. For President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the turmoil is a threat to his government. In some neighborhoods, like Cite Soleil, one of Port-au-Prince's most notorious ghettos, the liberation-theologian-priest-turned-married-Head-of-State is still revered as the righteous man who whipped former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier and his Tontons Macoute thugs. Cite Soleil residents remember how Aristide persuaded then-President Bill Clinton to deploy more than 20,000 U.S. troops to Haiti in 1994 to put him into power after he was exiled in a 1991 coup.

But in the cross-town slum of St. Martin residents are openly contemptuous of the president. "I voted for Aristide but I won't again. The government has failed," a 24-year-old unemployed high school graduate told me during a recent visit. "We need a hospital, schools, food and more electricity. At best we get six hours of power a day. The president is doing nothing. How long can we live without food? One day we will do something."

Port-au-Prince has become a tinderbox, with growing tensions between Aristide's supporters and detractors. The question of the moment is whether there will be a popular uprising against Aristide. A European diplomat warned, "Once the good cheer of carnival wears off, we're expecting trouble."

Judging by the size of his personal security detail, Aristide sees the threat as real. While the National Palace is protected by a force of hundreds, Aristide looks for his own protection to a personal security force of 40 to 60 foreign guards on private contracts. Most are former U.S. military personnel, including some from the U.S. Army Special Forces. About 10 are with him nearly always. When he leaves the palace it is always in a motorcade with an escape helicopter rented from the Dominican Republic flying overhead. In a country where government employees--from surgeons to garbage collectors--are sometimes not paid for years, Aristide's foreign bodyguards earn as much as $90,000 a year, plus living expenses.

While the security force is in some way understandable--Aristide has survived multiple assassination attempts--it is offensive to many Haitians. In this poorest country of the Americas, where two-thirds of its nearly 8 million people live in poverty and infants die from diarrhea, Aristide's security costs seem a gross extravagance--especially for a ruler who came to power as a "man of the people."

Security is not his only problem. While Aristide remains the nation's only political leader with legitimate popularity across the country, he has been increasingly associated with scandals. Recently a group of Aristide supporters--including some elected officials--diverted rice from an Aristide-linked food program and sold it on the open market.

The United States is sufficiently alarmed at Aristide's failings that U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell recently warned that the U.S. would continue to block $200 million in much-needed international loans to Haiti out of concern that Aristide has done too little to further democracy in the country. The U.S. is pushing Aristide to resolve a long-running dispute with opposition parties over rigged parliamentary elections held in May 2000 and to improve its record on human rights, something that has concerned even the Cuban ambassador, who recently raised concerns to other diplomats here about Aristide's treatment of opposition political parties.

The United States is also slapping Aristide where it hurts most, in his personal security. Since late last year Washington has been removing active-duty U.S. military personnel and intelligence operatives it had covertly placed in Haitian security units that are charged with helping to protect the president and National Palace.

But despite the U.S. stance, the Bush administration will continue to work with Aristide, because the alternatives are worse. No one in the opposition is credible or popular, and the most likely successors to Aristide from within his own political party are tied to drug trafficking or racketeering schemes.

Washington is deeply concerned that if Aristide were elbowed aside, it would make room for the ambitious Sen. Dany Toussaint, a man who has been compared to Liberian President Charles Taylor--a strongman whose trademark is a necklace with a dangling bullet. Toussaint, a former army major and Aristide bodyguard, received military training in the United States in the 1980s and proudly displays on the wall of his office a framed certificate for completing a course in covert photography at Fort Benning, Ga. Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla), a former CIA officer and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), have accused Toussaint of being "credibly linked...to narcotics trafficking." Toussaint has also been charged with involvement in the April 2000 murder of Haiti's most prominent journalist, Jean Leopold Dominique, but has avoided trial by claiming parliamentary immunity. Toussaint has enough gunmen at his disposal (an estimated 1,500 in Cite Soleil) that even Aristide has been reluctant to move against him.

If Washington faces a dilemma about whether or not to support the Aristide regime, for the people of Haiti the situation is even more dire. As a Haitian intellectual, an early supporter of Aristide who is now a harsh critic, told me recently, "The future holds more isolation for the country. And we are again part of a mad dream."
s. In this poorest country of the Americas, where two-thirds of its nearly 8 million people live in poverty and infants die from diarrhea, Aristide's security costs seem a gross extravagance--especially for a ruler who came to power as a "man of the people."

Security is not his only problem. While Aristide remains the nation's only political leader with legitimate popularity across the country, he has been increasingly associated with scandals. Recently a group of Aristide supporters--including some elected officials--diverted rice from an Aristide-linked food program and sold it on the open market.

The United States is sufficiently alarmed at Aristide's failings that U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell recently warned that the U.S. would continue to block $200 million in much-needed international loans to Haiti out of concern that Aristide has done too little to further democracy in the country. The U.S. is pushing Aristide to resolve a long-running dispute with opposition parties over rigged parliamentary elections held in May 2000 and to improve its record on human rights, something that has concerned even the Cuban ambassador, who recently raised concerns to other diplomats here about Aristide's treatment of opposition political parties.

The United States is also slapping Aristide where it hurts most, in his personal security. Since late last year Washington has been removing active-duty U.S. military personnel and intelligence operatives it had covertly placed in Haitian security units that are charged with helping to protect the president and National Palace.

But despite the U.S. stance, the Bush administration will continue to work with Aristide, because the alternatives are worse. No one in the opposition is credible or popular, and the most likely successors to Aristide from within his own political party are tied to drug trafficking or racketeering schemes.

Washington is deeply concerned that if Aristide were elbowed aside, it would make room for the ambitious Sen. Dany Toussaint, a man who has been compared to Liberian President Charles Taylor--a strongman whose trademark is a necklace with a dangling bullet. Toussaint, a former army major and Aristide bodyguard, received military training in the United States in the 1980s and proudly displays on the wall of his office a framed certificate for completing a course in covert photography at Fort Benning, Ga. Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla), a former CIA officer and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), have accused Toussaint of being "credibly linked...to narcotics trafficking." Toussaint has also been charged with involvement in the April 2000 murder of Haiti's most prominent journalist, Jean Leopold Dominique, but has avoided trial by claiming parliamentary immunity. Toussaint has enough gunmen at his disposal (an estimated 1,500 in Cite Soleil) that even Aristide has been reluctant to move against him.

If Washington faces a dilemma about whether or not to support the Aristide regime, for the people of Haiti the situation is even more dire. As a Haitian intellectual, an early supporter of Aristide who is now a harsh critic, told me recently, "The future holds more isolation for the country. And we are again part of a mad dream."