13912: Blanchet: The Economist on Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>

The Americas:
Frustration boils over Haiti
11/30/02
The Economist

The Aristide regime is holding off its enemies--but for how long?

IT OFTEN seems that affairs in this benighted country can get no worse;
and yet they have. After more than two years of political stalemate over
flawed elections in May 2000, leading to the loss of $500m in vital
international aid, continuous opposition protests are shaking the government
of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, once seen as Haiti' s saviour.

On November 17th some 15,000 people marched in Cap Haitien, and a former
Haitian army officer with coup experience, Himmler Rebu, urged Mr Aristide
to resign. On November 20th, four people were shot dead in Petit-Goave.

Two days later, government counter-protesters filled the streets of
Port-au-Prince, the capital, with burning barricades.

Could Mr Aristide be on his way out, only 21 months into his five- year
term? He lost power in a coup once before, after all, and the United
States  had to reinstate him. Last weekend brought rumours that he was about
to be airlifted out of the country by an American air force plane spotted at
Port-au-Prince airport; but it was there, apparently, only to deliver
Thanksgiving turkeys to the American embassy.

The Americans are watching carefully, especially since a boatload of more
than 200 Haitians made it to the shores of Florida late last month. They
want no repeat of the exodus of 1993-94, when thousands of Haitians took
to the seas and ended up in camps in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba--not least
because those camps are now stuffed full of al- Qaeda detainees.

But frustration in Haiti may be reaching boiling point. This is the
poorest country in the western hemisphere, and getting poorer. The value of
the local currency, the gourde, has fallen more than 30% in the past six
weeks.

As Haiti imports so much of its staple food, inflation is running at 16%
and price increases occur almost weekly. Businessmen speak of "a climate
of fear", and opposition groups complain that the government often uses
local gangs, known as chimeres (after the fire-breathing monsters in Greek
mythology) to break up protests with rocks and guns.

A gleam of light came last September, when the United States agreed to
support the unfreezing of aid for Haiti if proper elections were held next
year, a new electoral council was set up and public security was improved.
But the government has dragged its feet. The deadline for creating the
electoral council passed on November 4th, and the government was also
miserly in compensating opposition leaders whose homes were burned by
pro-government mobs last December. A national programme of disarmament has
taken few weapons off the streets.

Most analysts believe, however, that the opposition still lacks the
popular backing to force Mr Aristide out. He remains a symbol, though an
increasingly tarnished one, of the country's determined independence.
"Haitians are all about resistance," says Richard Coles, a progressive
businessman and former president of the Haitian Manufacturers'
Association.

"They would rather starve than kneel." At present, starving looks a strong
possibility.