20562: Esser: Regime change in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

The Daily Star [Bangladesh]
http://www.thedailystar.net

Vol. 4 Num 287 	Fri. March 19, 2004 	 
 	 
Point-Counterpoint

Regime change in Haiti
A.H. Jaffor Ullah writes from New Orleans, USA

Perhaps everyone on the earth knows by now that Mr. George W. Bush is
very big on regime change. Oh, yes! He removed both Mullah Omar and
Saddam from the catbird seat. The third one he has engineered is that
of Haiti's Aristide. In his zeal to straighten out some democracies,
Mr. Bush hastened the departure of President Aristide. The trouble,
however, is that Aristide was an elected president who wanted to
bring reform to Haiti. Mr. Bush did not want to help Aristide to
achieve such a noble goal. Talk about Bush's fairness!

The island nation of Haiti, which is located about 140 miles from the
eastern edge of Cuba in the Caribbean Sea, has been in the news since
mid-February 2004. As political violence escalated in Haiti, the
elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, left Port-au-Prince on
February 29 aboard a US-chartered airplane bound for the Central
African Republic. To justify the departure of Aristide, US Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State Peter DeShazo told the reporters, "The
chaos in Haiti is obviously not the work of the US government. This
was the direct result of president Aristide having armed and
empowered gangs and groups of thugs."

However, Aristide later said from his exile that he had no desire to
leave Haiti and he was the victim of a political kidnapping by the US
military, and he blamed the US for the chaos that had erupted in
Haiti after his departure. The US however denies these allegations.
It is a mystery as to why Mr. George W. Bush did not support
President Aristide when President Bill Clinton went out of his way to
reinstate President Aristide to power in 1994. Mr. Bush claims that
he is a champion of democracy and to prove his point he even ordered
soldiers to Iraq a year ago in late March 2003 to topple Saddam
Hussein, who he claims to be a despot. Mr. Bush's political
philosophy clashed in Haiti. After all, President Aristide was
elected democratically in Haiti.

President Aristide had to dismantle Haiti's corrupt military because
he thought they would topple his government as the military had done
in the recent past. But in the process, Aristide had given arms to
his loyalists to maintain law and order. Some of these armed men, for
whatever reasons, had joined the ex-military men who were hiding in
the countryside and they finally challenged Aristide's authority. Mr.
Bush should have supported Mr. Aristide in this conflict even though
we knew that his policy to arm some civilians was a mistake of
monumental proportion. Mr. Bush is yet to tell the world the reason
he favoured Aristide's forced exit from Haitian politics.

On March 11, 2004, we learned from a Jamaican official in Kingston
that the ousted Haitian president Aristide would like to visit
Jamaica, which is located only 140 miles to the south of Haiti. This
news does not bode well for the US-backed newly appointed government
of Haiti. Mr. Aristide has a huge following in Haiti who are
considered a formidable political force in the country. This recent
uprising in Haiti is the work of armed militia and ex-soldiers who
have no broad public support. Notwithstanding Mr. Bush's dislike for
Aristide, the supporters of the deposed president will rally in
Port-au-Prince and other cities. Therefore, Mr. Aristide's presence
in Jamaica may cause some concern to the US and French governments
who appointed Gerard Latortue, a Haitian who lives in Miami, Florida,
to the position of Prime Minister of Haiti.

During the campaign for the White House this fall, Mr. Bush's
opponent will surely ask him the reason for deposing Aristide.
Aristide now openly says that the US army kidnapped him and put him
on an airplane bound for the Central African Republic. Knowing the
turbulent history of Haiti, one may predict that more is yet to come,
and Mr. Bush's policy towards this impoverished nation is bound to
fail. Aristide is no aristocrat and because of his humble background
and popularity among slum dwellers, he is a force everyone in Haiti
has to reckon with. Only time can tell whether Aristide will return
to power one more time. Lest we forget, he was ousted by the military
in 1990, but he returned by a popular demand. Mr. Clinton was there
to help the leftist preacher to come to power in 1994.

To analyse what is happening in Haiti, one has to know the turbulent
history of this island nation. Spaniards collectively named Haiti and
the other nearby islands Hispaniola when Columbus first discovered
them in 1492. Later, both the Spanish and French settlers controlled
the eastern and western part of Hispaniola. In 1804, the islanders
revolted against the French colonists and declared Haiti an
independent nation. By the early twentieth century, the US had gained
commercial privileges in Haiti. Because of the instability in Haiti,
the US marines occupied the country from 1915 to 1934. After the
troops were withdrawn from Haiti, the islanders fought with the
next-door nation, the Dominican Republic.

In September 1957, after considerable unrest and several provisional
presidents, a native doctor by the name François Duvalier, who was a
former US employee on a medical aid project, took control of Haiti.
He promised to end domination by the mulatto elite and to bring
political and economic power to the black masses. Violence continued,
and, after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Duvalier in July
1958, he organised a gang of violent adherents -- the Tontons
Macoutes -- who terrorized the population. In 1964, Duvalier, also
known as "Papa Doc," was in firm control in Haiti, and had himself
elected president for life. Duvalier was a quintessential dictator
who turned Haiti into a police state. Before his death, he designated
his 19-year-old son Jean-Claude Duvalier, who was affectionately
called "Baby Doc," as his successor and made him president for life
in 1971.

Things improved a bit in Haiti during the 1970s and 80s, but
political freedom was nowhere close. In fact, the secret police
Tontons Macoutes (estimated at 15,000 men) were let loose to torture
and kill Duvalier's opponents. A popular upsurge in Haiti brought
down Duvalier's despotic regime in February 1986, and the deposed
ruler left Haiti with US assistance for France. Haitians saw the
military take control of the nation for the next four seven years. In
December 1990, a leftist Roman Catholic priest, Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, contested in a free election and won the presidency by a
landslide. Two months later in the parliamentary election, Aristide's
supporters captured a majority of the seats. After barely 7 months in
office, the military sacked Aristide via a coup. The Clinton
Administration did not support the military coup and imposed a trade
embargo. Thousands of Haitians attempted to flee their country in
small boats bound for the US, but the US government insisted on
returning the vast majority of the refugees to Haiti. The US,
together with the UN and the Organisation of American States (OAS),
sought to negotiate Aristide's return to the presidency. A peace
agreement in July 1993 promised Aristide's return to power by
October, but renewed military violence prevented the transition.

In 1994, President Clinton mobilised some twenty thousand American
troops to Haiti to restore Aristide to power. Many Clinton haters in
the Republican Party criticised this action of Bill Clinton. It was
not fashionable then as it is now to do regime change in support of
establishing democracy in other countries. Later, Aristide abolished
the Haitian armed forces to bring stability to Haiti. However, the
ex-army never did reintegrate to Haitian society. Many ex-army
officers fled to the countryside and to Dominican Republic to bide
their time. Aristide was fearful that the newly created police force
would not be strong enough to maintain law and order in Haiti. Thus,
he created an armed militias loyal to him. Members of these gangs are
known as chimeres, which means a fire-breathing monster as per
Haitian legend. A section of the chimeres in a countryside started
calling themselves the Cannibal Army. Aristide gave the Cannibal Army
rifles to protect polling places in a Presidential election in 2000
in which no opposition candidates had contested. Once Aristide was
reëlected, the armed Cannibal Army moved on to new territories such
as extortion, drug running, and terrorising the opposition.

In fall 2003, allegedly a supporter of Aristide killed one of the
leaders of the Cannibal Army. This changed the entire scenario. The
Cannibal Army instead of supporting President Aristide revolted
against him and took up the name Artibonite Resistance Force. In the
meantime, the members from the dark past -- death-squad leaders who
just returned from Dominican Republic, joined the turncoat
militiamen. The ex-military men saw the opportunity to destroy their
archenemy, President Aristide, and to seize power. The nation of
Haiti had other problems as well. A near famine-like condition now
exists in Haiti while the economy is stagnant due to an American-led
block on loans.

In the aftermath of Aristide's forced departure from Haiti, the New
Yorker published an article entitled "Ten Years After" written by
George Packer. Mr. Packer wrote, "Politics in Haiti is an
all-or-nothing contest. Personal relationships and power determine
the winners. The American intervention in 1994 seemed designed to
help free Haiti from the logic of its own history. But the return to
power of an elected President -- a priest who raised his voice on
behalf of Haiti's legions of poor people -- simply put a mild,
bespectacled face on the traditional way of running the country.
Aristide always showed a tendency toward demagogy, and the poor have
fared at least as badly under him as under his predecessors, who
ruled on behalf of the rich. Democracy depends in part on the
political culture in which it grows, and Haiti's is poisoned."

As of March 11, 2004 I read news in the Internet that in
Port-au-Prince more than 1,000 supporters of ex-president Aristide
demonstrated in the capital city demanding Aristide's return. The
demonstrators from the slum districts of the capital were chanting,
"Aristide must return" and "arrest (US ambassador) Jim Foley for
kidnapping," and "Bush terrorist." Suffice it to say, violence may
continue in Haiti because many of the Aristide's supporters have
firearms.

By siding with armed rebels in Haiti, Mr. Bush showed his double
standard for democracy. In case of Iraq, Mr. Bush opted for a regime
change to bring democracy to Iraq. However, in Haiti, he did quite
the opposite. Aristide may have made some mistakes by giving arms to
his supporters, but that should not be the ground to punish him.
After all, he was elected democratically in a fair election. As the
news about Haitian debacle spreads worldwide, tales of Mr. Bush's
erratic foreign policy unveil. It will be interesting to hear how Mr.
Bush justifies the removal of a democratically elected president of a
weak and meek nation. Sad part is, however, the immediate suffering
the Haitians have to endure. Democracy should be given a chance to
flourish in Haiti, a nation ruled by some despotic regimes for over
half a century. Mr. Bush, in my opinion, erred a big time by
facilitating the removal of Mr. Aristide from power.

Dr. A.H. Jaffor Ullah is a researcher
.