12965: Strife shows waning faith in Aristide, August 29, 2002 Newsday (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stanley  Lucas <slucas@iri.org>

Strife shows waning faith in Aristide
Haitians Frustrated by Decline

By Letta Tayler
LATIN AMERICA CORRESPONDENT

August 29, 2002


Gonaives, Haiti - Even by the distressed standards of Haiti, the coastal city of Gonaives looked like a war zone.
Charred carcasses of cars and garbage trucks littered the potholed streets. The windows of city hall and the courthouse lay in glittering shards across the sidewalks. A whale-sized hole in a wall of the local prison served as testimony to a breakout a week earlier of more than 150 prisoners during an armed uprising against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

On the walls of decrepit shops and houses, freshly painted graffiti declared in Haitian Creole: "Aba Aristid!" (Down with Aristide!).

The sacking early this month of Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city, was the latest sign that Aristide may be facing the worst crisis of his presidency since a U.S.-led invasion ousted a military junta and restored him to power eight years ago.

Increasing numbers of Haitians, who once overwhelmingly hailed Aristide as the savior of the poor, are expressing frustration over his seeming inability to stem this steamy Caribbean nation's joblessness, corruption, violence and despair. While many cling desperately to their faith in the populist priest-turned-president, armed gangs in city slums have started rising up against the president.

A frustrated international community is withholding $500 million in desperately needed aid because of an impasse between the opposition and the government over allegations that Aristide's Lavalas party rigged the 2000 Senate elections. AIDS is rampant and, once again, desperate Haitians are boarding rickety boats for Florida.

"All these elements seem to be coming to a head, and without a resolution I don't think Aristide can continue much longer," said Robert Maguire, a Haiti expert at Trinity College in Washington, D.C., during a recent trip to Haiti.

Government officials, along with many international observers, blame Haiti's problems on the aid cutoff, saying it is hampering their ability to provide basic services. They also blame the opposition coalition, Democratic Convergence, whose members are demanding Aristide's resignation.

"Maybe their objective is to create a situation where those who are hungry will become hungrier, until there is such an unstable situation that they will rise up," Prime Minister Yvon Neptune said. "We don't have all the means to build the kind of democracy we want at the pace we want."

With opposition parties in shambles, the charismatic Aristide, whose election in 1990 ended decades of dictatorship, remains the most popular figure in Haiti. But in interviews this month, dozens of Haitians from all walks of life said they'd never seen times this bad.

"Aristide has brought us nothing," fumed Saurel Bruno, a gaunt 30-year-old man from Raboteau, a seaside slum in Gonaives, who voted for Aristide in 1990 and again when he was elected to a second term a decade later. "Look at this place: This is our future."

Bruno pointed a spindly finger at Raboteau's shacks of rusted tin and crumbling mud. Around him, children urinated in open, fetid sewage canals and pigs braved hordes of flies to snuffle through mounds of garbage.

Haiti is the poorest nation in the hemisphere. The average wage is less than $1 a day and half of all children under 5 are malnourished, according to the United Nations. Eighty percent of the nation's drinking water is polluted. Twelve percent of the urban population has AIDS.

"Where am I going to find food to feed my children tonight?" demanded Rosemarie Jean, a mother of three in Raboteau, her voice crazed with desperation. "Aristide pays the Cannibal Army to have a good life while we are starving."

Authorities and local residents blame the Cannibal Army - a group of Raboteau militants whose name reflects their intimidating reputation - for the Aug. 2 jailbreak and three subsequent days of pillaging.

According to eyewitnesses, gun-wielding Cannibal Army members rammed a bulldozer into the local jail, freeing their influential leader, Amiot Metayer, and more than 150 other inmates, including Jean Tatoune, a convicted leader of a 1994 anti-Aristide massacre in Raboteau.

After his jailbreak, Metayer contended the government had given his followers weapons and money before bowing to international pressure and incarcerating him in July on charges of ordering the murder of an opposition aide.

A few days later, however, Metayer retracted his statement and declared he'd made peace with Aristide, prompting widespread accusations that the president had bought his allegiance anew.

Metayer and Aristide government officials denied there had been a payoff. "I forgive Aristide for putting me in jail because I love the people and don't want more massacres," said Metayer, a massive man dressed in a golf shirt, denim shorts and pink flip-flops. He spoke in an interview at a safehouse in Raboteau.

Whatever the truth, Metayer and Tatoune remain free in Raboteau, despite international appeals for their arrests.

Unlike Metayer, Tatoune is calling for the president's ouster. "I have no fear of being captured," Tatoune said at a separate safehouse, surrounded by dozens of supporters. "My people will protect me. Even some of the police support me."

The unrest in this city of 200,000 is considered significant because of Gonaives' proud tradition of spearheading dissent.

It was here that the movements began that ousted the French in 1804 - making Haiti the modern world's first black-led republic - and overthrew the long-ruling Duvalier family dictatorship in 1986.

Aristide's perceived inaction against Metayer and Tatoune has appalled many in this nation of 8 million.

"I'm revolted that the government is negotiating peace with criminals who break out of jail," said the Rev. Marc Eddy Dessalines, the Gonaives coordinator for the Roman Catholic Church's Justice and Peace Commission, which investigated the Raboteau massacre. "It's as if all our work had been for nothing."

Neptune said authorities hadn't arrested Metayer and Tatoune because they wanted to avoid provocation. "We have a responsibility to protect innocent lives," he said.

Opponents and some western diplomats believe Aristide, whom they accuse of self-absorption, also has a responsibility to address the corruption that has plagued regimes here for centuries.

"For Aristide, the most important thing is retaining power," charged Evans Paul, a former ally who is now a leader of the Democratic Convergence. "He has become a dangerous autocrat."

Besides the Gonaives uprising, Aristide has been hurt by the collapse this summer of dozens of lending cooperatives that promised monthly returns of up to 12 percent.

Encouraged by Aristide, thousands of Haitians dumped their savings into the unregulated accounts before they were exposed as pyramid scams. Though the government has promised to refund investors' money, Haitians have little faith that it can scrounge the $200 million lost.

Aristide also suffered a blow when a recent Organization of American States investigation concluded that a mysterious armed attack on the presidential palace last December was not an attempted coup, as the government claims.

Instead, the report accused government officials of arming and aiding thugs who ransacked opposition offices and committed other violence immediately after the attack - including the slaying in Gonaives for which Metayer was jailed.

Meanwhile, the number of Haitians caught trying to flee aboard perilous, makeshift boats - most bound for Florida - has  good life while we are starving."nearly doubled since last year, according to Haiti's National Migration Office. Nearly 7,000 were detained from January to July, and government officials say thousands more have gotten through.

Students have clashed twice this month with pro-Aristide militants over what they perceive as a government attempt to control the national university. Fuel shortages are exacerbating transportation problems in a country with almost no infrastructure.

And corrupt police and local traffickers are battling for control of the estimated 15 percent of cocaine destined for the United States that is shipped through Haiti.

Aristide supporters believe he simply needs more time. "The president was brought here by God, and although he hasn't done his job yet, we know God will help him do it," said Jacqueline Merisier, a grandmother headed for Mass in the Gonaives cathedral.

Skeptics, however, invoke a proverb in Creole:

"Déyé món, gen món," which means, "Behind the mountains are more mountains."
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.