20573: Esser: On Roots, Trees and Liberty (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Africana
http://www.africana.com

03/17/04

On Roots, Trees and Liberty
By Avi Steinberg

Ten days after his rousing address to the Haitian people and the
world from his exile in the Central African Republic, Jean-Bertrand
Aristide has returned to the Caribbean. He arrived in Jamaica on
Monday and his presence 130 miles from the island of Hispaniola is
anything but neutral. During his trip to Jamaica — a visit that will
reportedly last two months, if not longer — Aristide's followers in
Haiti will hit the streets and demand the return of their elected
leader. In addition to large protests, these demands will sometimes
take the form of violence. The US troops on the ground have in fact
already taken a good deal of fire; an American soldier was wounded
during a patrol through a predominately pro-Aristide neighborhood.
Antsy US troops, of course, means a steadily increasing number of
Haitian casualties. As a thinly legitimate government takes shape,
emboldened anti-Aristide goon squads have vowed to keep fighting.

Each faction knows from experience that US protection is very
temporary and that it would be unwise to find itself unarmed once the
Marines pull out. There is a decidedly revolutionary tone to
Aristide's repeated allusions to Haitian hero Toussaint L'Overture's
famous words, "In overthrowing me, you have cut down only the trunk
of the tree of liberty. It will spring up again by the roots, for
they are numerous and deep." Although Aristide advocates
non-violence, his pointed references to the revolutionary struggle
for independence —and to the martyrdom of Toussaint L'Overture —
amount to a carefully worded call for popular armed struggle.
Napoleon, after all, was forced out not merely by the brilliant
direction of the Haitian general, but by the deep and numerous roots
of the country: an armed populace. The phenomenal Haitian slave
insurrection at the start of the nineteenth century is an archetypal
just war — it's no wonder Aristide wants to link his struggle with it.

The US has made disarmament of the warring factions a priority. But
Haiti is a heavily armed society and this goal might prove elusive.
Each faction knows from experience that US protection is very
temporary and that it would be unwise to find itself unarmed once the
Marines pull out. The simmering battle in Haiti is, after all, more a
civil war than an anti-colonial war of independence (though, as
usual, the colonial powers play a major corrupting and purely
self-interested role). Beyond Aristide's rhetoric of a united front
fighting oppression in the name of liberty a la 1804 lies the Haitian
reality of 2004: a deeply divided nation that has endured 200 years
of instability and increasing poverty. It's possible that the
Marines' presence there now is nothing more than opportunity for the
warring factions to reorganize themselves for a wider, protracted war.

The pro-Aristide camp certainly gained a small political victory when
Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson defied US wishes and invited
Aristide to visit as his guest. As the head of the Caribbean
Community (Caricom), Jamaica is an important player in the region and
their policy has been pro-Aristide from the beginning. The
anti-Aristidists in Port-au-Prince and in Washington have denounced
Aristide's return to the Caribbean but, so far, Jamaica has remained
defiant. In late February, Jamaica had sponsored a power-sharing
compromise that both the US and Aristide signed but which the
anti-Aristidists fervently rejected. Without irony, the US had
interpreted this rejection as evidence of Aristide's collapse of
authority. Under the circumstances, this was a correct assumption —
but the responsibility for this collapse falls largely on the US and
this is the more fundamental issue.

Since Bush took office, the US has given sizeable sums of money to
anti-Aristide factions and has sponsored political training for these
groups in the Dominican Republic. At the same time, they cut off all
aid to Aristide's ruling party. This radical imbalance of support
obviously doesn't foster democracy. Much of the money given to the
opposition was funneled through the International Republican
Institute (IRI), a non-profit organization dedicated to the
advancement of democracy around the world. This organization aids
countries' ruling parties as well as opposition parties in the stated
hope that democracy is strengthened if all sides are given equal
support and training. This didn't happen in the case of Haiti.
Instead, the IRI was used as a vehicle to bring Aristide to his
knees. Aside from the material advantage given to only one faction in
Haiti, the US gave anti-Aristidists a much more significant gift: the
green light to rebel. Although it seems unlikely that the US planned
or even desires this conflict at the moment (let's not forget that
the Bush campaign mantra is "No War in '04"), the fact is they and
Clinton have laid the groundwork for it.

Haiti's recently sworn-in Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has vowed
that his new government "will do its utmost to plant the seeds, to
establish the foundations of democracy so that it will germinate and
grow and become strong." In contrast to Aristide's image of a tree
re-sprouting itself from existing roots — an image of popular
revolution — the new governors say they will ignore these roots and
simply plant a new tree. This image is a top-down metaphor: these new
leaders, associated with Haiti's small business elite (and their
sponsors in Washington), say that democracy can trickle down into
empty soil and produce a tree of liberty. But Haiti is not an empty
field. In fact, it is rather stony and needs a good deal of
preparation — at least ten years, according to Kofi Annan — before
anything can sprout.

If Haiti is ever to be a functioning democracy these two images will
have to be reconciled: the tree of liberty will grow neither of its
own accord (from popular roots) nor simply by the trickling efforts
and occasional good-will of elitist governors and foreign powers. It
will grow only if enough care is given by the United States to both
cultivate the roots and support all of the nation's planters. The
profound and widening economic divide in Haiti, coupled with a
widespread suspicion that the government was just taken over by
US-sponsored businessmen and murderers is indeed fertile ground for a
revolution. The new governors know this. Once the U.S. leaves — and
this day is nigh — talk of democracy will subside and a new weak
government will flex its muscles in order to prove its authority.
This is counter-revolution and superpower-sponsored oppression, not
democracy.

First published: March 17, 2004

About the Author

Avi Steinberg is a freelance writer living in Boston. After studying
American foreign policy at Harvard, he received a fellowship in
2002-3 to live in Jerusalem and study international conflict. He is
on staff at Transition Magazine.
.