18932: Loveayiti:The little priest who became a bloody dictator like the one he once de (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: love haiti <loveayiti@hotmail.com>

  By Andrew Gumbel

 The Independent - UK



<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
/>21 February 2004

There was a time, 20 years ago, when anyone wishing to come to grips with the
grotesque poverty and fitful violence of Haiti under the crumbling Duvalier
dictatorship would have been itching to meet Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Back then,
he was known as le petit prêtre, the little priest, a man whose modest stature
belied a lion-hearted courage in denouncing social and political injustices.

At the Salesian church of St Jean Bosco in Port-au-Prince, surrounded by
ragged, hungry children, cripples and beggars, he quietly preached his message
of revolution and empowerment for the poor. He cut an odd figure, with his
gaunt face, his goggle glasses and his strange mixture of self-effacement,
populist charisma and fierce erudition.

In the early 1980s, he was forced into exile after denouncing Baby Doc
Duvalier's violent repression of the masses and calling for an end to "this
regime where the donkeys do all the work and the horses prance in the
sunshine". In 1985, just before Duvalier's fall, Aristide returned to plead for
a new Haiti that would be evangelical, popular and socialist.

As the Duvalier regime gave way to a period of military coups and tentative
stabs at electoral democracy, he was the target of countless assassination
attempts. Aristide never wavered. "Tout moun se moun," he preached in Creole.
Every human being is a human being. The masses loved him, and together they
founded a movement called Lavalas, the Flood. By 1990, he was the new
president, and the great new hope for the most corrupt, most dysfunctional,
most desperately impoverished nation state in the western hemisphere.

Fast-forward to the present, and Aristide the petit prêtre is barely
recognisable. He has become the very thing he used to despise: an autocratic
political leader, seemingly intent on enriching himself and his inner circle,
resorting to gangsterism and violence to enforce his will and counter all
dissent.

In today's Haiti, everyone is out for themselves, from the politicians to the
masses. Allegiances are fickle, and interest groups are shockingly easy to buy
off or coax into acts of violence. There is no professional class,just an
elemental urge to grab whatever you can as quickly as possible. Poverty has
spread, and the democracy Aristide promised is an empty shell, without even
basic institutions such as an independent judiciary or a functioning
parliament.

Aristide has alienated many of those who were his most enthusiastic supporters,
and also created a monster he can no longer control. Haiti is in the grip of
full-scale gang turf wars, and some of the worst elements of the old military
hierarchy say they intend to seize the country by force.

Aristide admits an eclectic crowd to the presidential palace, from foreign
ambassadors to slum gang leaders with whom he exchanges favours. When the
foreign press was invited in days ago, he crammed then at one end of a
reception room, and sat regally at the other end of a long wooden conference
table. Two rows of 12 empty chairs separated him from the journalists, who had
to stand.He tried to act the stern father, denouncing the "lies" the world was
telling about Haiti and tried to paint his political adversaries as terrorists
subverting the will of a peace-loving, non-violent people. It was miserably
unconvincing, while pro-Aristide thugs were brandishing guns and burning the
houses of suspected opponents.

In 1990, Aristide seemed a providential, almost messianic figure. Hope was
snuffed out by a military coup after just seven months. He was forced into
exile, left the priesthood, married and started a family.

Then in 1994, undaunted, he returned, messianic again, backed by 20,000 US
troops and disbanded the Haitian military, He had the goodwill of the world,
the overwhelming support of his electorate and plentiful funds from
international aid agencies to breathe life into Haiti's moribund economy. And
it all went horribly wrong.

By the 2000 elections, the agencies found up to 70 per cent of their money was
lining the pockets of elected officials, leaving little for the projects it was
intended for. Aristide and his Lavalas party won by a landslide, but
international observers found widespread fraud, so the Americans and the
European Union cut off all aid.

A western observer in Haiti said: "The problem is not that Aristide controls
everything. It is that he controls nothing." So the country has fallen prey to
former death squad commanders returning from exile, armed gangs, and every
conceivable stripe of criminal, racketeer and drug smuggler.

To Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, who was once among Aristide's most ardent
followers, now le petit prêtre is "nothing but a political cadaver who will
pass like garbage through the history of Haiti".




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