20131: (Chamberlain) Haiti awaits deliverance (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

(Wall St Journal, 1 March 04)


Haiti Awaits Deliverance

By GARRY PIERRE-PIERRE



So what will happen to Haiti now? After weeks of violence, and of a
rebellion that gathered pace with each dizzying day, Jean-Bertrand Aristide
has fled the country. Hence the question, posed both in resignation and in
fear: What will happen to Haiti now? Life before Mr. Aristide was
calamitous for Haiti's people. Life during his time in office was
unimproved. Will life after him be any better?

In the days before his fall, we read of such things as a "Cannibal Army,"
of violent bands calling themselves chimeres (chimeras), and of the "Front
for the Liberation of the Artibonite," whose name refers not to some
shadowy cult but to a valley in central Haiti. Behind these images that
could so easily have been from Evelyn Waugh, or Graham Greene, was a brutal
truth: Haiti was at war with itself again.

Although Mr. Aristide's supporters described him as an embattled defender
of democracy, his opponents -- whose political project, beyond the now
fulfilled desire to oust Mr. Aristide, is still not discernible -- saw him
as but the latest in Haiti's long line of autocrats. And arguably the worst
of those autocrats, some said, for his having betrayed the people's trust
after being elected. After all, rare is the "tyrant" who can boast that his
people have an affectionate nickname for him. Mr. Aristide's is "Titid" --
a playful diminutive that echoes the fact of his boyish frame; but few call
him that anymore, and it is unlikely that the word will form a part of the
vocabulary of those U.S. Marines who will shortly land in Haiti, having
been ordered there -- as of this writing -- by President Bush.

In many ways, yesterday's events in Haiti are an echo of the country's
tortured past. A group of rag-tag slaves had the audacity to defeat
Napoleon's army and proclaim themselves a free Republic in 1804. This past
has always mocked the modern Haitian, who is aware -- and, yes, proud --
that his nation is older than Italy, yet who lives, with no hope of
material improvement, in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Haiti was not always the insignificant place it is today, unimportant to
the world's major powers. Its independence in 1804 was a devastating blow
to France, and not merely to French self-esteem. Economists estimate that
in the 1750s, Haiti provided as much as 50% of the gross national product
of France. The French extracted sugar, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, cotton,
indigo and other products, and grew rich on them. Americans owe a debt of
gratitude to Haiti. After Haitian slaves under Toussaint Louverture wrested
control of their island, Napoleon had no further use for Louisiana -- which
was to have supplied food to Haiti, the hub of France's empire. So he sold
it.

Once freed -- Haiti was only the second free country in the hemisphere,
after the United States -- the Republic began the fall from riches to rags
that has lasted until today. Haiti faced a hostile world, and an
international boycott of Haitian goods and commerce plunged the Haitian
economy into chaos. The boycott was punitive, no doubt; it was also done to
extinguish a paradigm, to stamp out an example of armed slave uprising that
might have led slaves in the U.S., as well as in the neighboring French and
British Caribbean colonies, to act in emulation. The boycott, therefore,
was the slavers' self-defense -- tough, pragmatic, unsentimental. One might
even call it racial segregation as realpolitik.

The U.S. took more than 50 years to recognize Haiti's independence, and did
so only after Haiti handed over more than 150 million francs to France, and
to the former slave-owners who had lost property in Haiti when the
revolution ended in 1803. The amount paid to France was perhaps 10 times
the country's gross national product. (Haiti did not finish payment on this
indemnity until 1922.) Isolated, Haitians began to fight among themselves
and the "Pearl of the Antilles" started its descent into total degradation.

But the political spirit of the Haitians has never been totally
extinguished -- and it is easy to see why not. In what many people
considered the most radical revolution of the 18th century, runaway slaves
from the mountains, espousing the French revolutionary slogan of "Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity", won emancipation on Feb. 4, 1794. In 1801,
Louverture framed a constitution, but the French captured him and exiled
him to France, where he died in 1803. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henri
Christophe and Alexandre Petion led the continuing war with the French,
winning their surrender on Nov. 9, 1803. Dessalines declared the
independence of Haiti on Jan. 1, 1804, was proclaimed Emperor Jacques I
that September, and was assassinated in 1806. Civil war ensued -- and the
truth is that it has yet to end.

One autocrat followed another, relentlessly, from the early 19th century
until the penultimate decade of the 20th, with each having two features in
common -- an unwillingness to cede liberty to the people, and an unwavering
commitment to the interests of the light-skinned elite. In 1986, Haiti
began a democratic experiment when Jean-Claude Duvalier -- "Baby Doc" --
was whisked away on a C-130 to Paris, where he remains in shabby exile. His
departure ended the 29-year rule of a family dynasty notorious for its
brutality and corruption, its Tontons macoutes and its pigmentocracy. And
it gave Haitians, for the first time since 1804, the chance to complete the
political emancipation that had begun with Louverture.

Duvalier's departure also gave Haitians their first full taste of
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a dark-skinned man of the people. I first heard
about Mr. Aristide in 1985, when I was a senior at Florida A&M University.
I was impressed by him because of the courage he had shown in speaking out
against the Duvalier excesses. Anyone who dared to speak out against the
Duvalier regime would either have to flee or be killed.

I became disappointed when I learned later that Mr. Aristide was a
candidate in the elections in 1990; I felt that he was the conscience of
the country -- and that protest, not reconstruction, was his metier. I also
had deep reservations about a priest as Haiti's president. Coming out of
the Duvalier dictatorship, I felt the country cried out for -- as it still
does -- a strong cadre of technocrats who would set out to do the
unglamorous job of nation building. But such suggestions were dismissed by
other Haitians, who were seduced by the electricity of the times -- and of
Mr. Aristide's priestly appeal -- into believing that he could "deliver"
the people from evil.

In December 1990, Mr. Aristide was elected by more than 60% of the vote and
promised to improve the lot of the poor Haitian. Despite his best
intentions, he lacked the resources and the power to carry out his promises
as quickly as he had wished, considering the deep social and financial
problems that Haiti faced then. He was soon ousted in a violent coup and
fled to the U.S. After three years in exile there, he was restored to power
by the armed and righteous might of Uncle Sam. Few other figures in recent
history have been as polarizing as Mr. Aristide, seen as either a saint by
his supporters or the devil incarnate by his detractors. The reality is
that he is neither, and such caricatures have prevented the country from
moving forward. The problems of Haiti preceded Mr. Aristide's mismanagement
and slide into autocracy, and they will linger long after his latest exit
from power.

There are many who will wonder why Mr. Aristide did not step down earlier;
after all, he had lost grip on power and had no apparent support. The
answer lay directly with the make-up of parts of the opposition, led by
light-skinned Haitians. This provided Mr. Aristide with the rhetorical
argument that as a dark-skinned Haitian, he would find it difficult to hand
power over to a light-skinned person -- thereby handing Haiti back to the
same "forces" that had impoverished its people through history.

But Mr. Aristide failed to sway people with this argument because his
achievements were so few and his enemies were not merely from the
traditional base of the small, mostly light-skin elites. His detractors
included the intellectual left, instrumental in forming the Lavalas popular
movement which swept him into power 14 years ago; and they also included
women's groups, church groups, and the labor unions, which, all taken
together, made clear that there was no part of his original radical base
that was not against him. (Only the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus, far
removed from Haiti and from reality, stood by its man.) Add to these the
groups -- such as the chambers of commerce -- which were never with him in
the first place, and you have a portrait of an isolated (and paranoid)
leader who knew his time was up.

The seminal question remains: How to resolve Haiti's entrenched problems
(for Mr. Aristide's departure is only the first chapter in the next
crisis)? In 1994, as in 1915, the U.S. thought that military intervention
was the solution. President Bush said yesterday that a multinational force
will arrive soon to impose order. And there is pressure within Haiti for
the country to hold new elections immediately. However, one must ask
whether the people are ready for democracy. They are in shock, and
confused. In fact, this is the time for Haiti to go back to history and
remember what Louverture said before he was deported to France. He argued
that the country should ensure its liberty by building economic stability,
and that this project should coincide with a transitional period from
"freedom" to "independence." Yet after his departure, Haiti hurtled toward
formal "independence" without consolidating its "freedom."

That is why today, the day after Mr. Aristide's flight, we should consider
a period of two to three years to build an administrative and economic
base, as well as the institutions of civil society. Only then can we offer
meaningful elections and democracy. Of course, this period of consolidation
will not happen by magic: the United Nations, working with the two
countries that have the most clout in Haiti -- the U.S. and France -- needs
to establish a considerable policing presence in the country. French
gendarmes would be the obvious solution, and not merely because the
existing American commitment to Iraq, with its resulting troop shortages,
may not allow for an extensive U.S. deployment in Haiti. For linguistic and
cultural reasons, the French are better-suited to the job. Politically, the
French have much to gain from this opportunity to re-establish their
international stature, and their presence would also serve a broader
justice -- making reparation for the damage inflicted by France's
19th-century blockade of Haiti.

For Haiti to finally turn the corner this time, several forces have to come
into play. The international community has to bring the country's middle
class not merely to the table, but back to Haiti. This middle class has
been fleeing Haiti for the U.S., where it has consolidated itself, for the
last 30 years. We should look to that group, the Haitian diaspora, educated
at the best schools in the U.S. and Canada, to help lead the country out of
its perpetual cycle of violence and misery. The Clinton administration
allowed its Haiti policy to be dictated by the Congressional Black Caucus
and other liberal activist groups, with disastrous results. As the Bush
administration hastens to formulate an ad hoc response to Mr. Aristide's
departure, it could start by consulting America's own Haitians. Louverture,
who left the country under duress, would have relished the idea of
patriotic Haitians returning to Haiti, bringing with them the prospect --
however precarious -- of redemption.

______

Mr. Pierre-Pierre is publisher and editor-in-chief of New York's Haitian
Times.