20924: Burnham: Globe and Mail: Aristide's real sin (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: thor burnham <thorald_mb@hotmail.com>

Aristide's real sin

Forget the rebels and double-crossing Americans, reports MARINA JIMENEZ.
Haiti's hard man should never have snubbed the voodoo gods

By MARINA JIMENEZ
Saturday, March 27, 2004 - Page F3

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- 'If you do something bad, the spirits will abandon you."

And that, Edgard Jean-Louis says, is why Jean-Bertrand Aristide is cooling
his heels in Jamaica today instead of wielding power at Haiti's National
Palace.

Mr. Jean-Louis, 73, is one of Port-au-Prince's more prominent hougans,
voodoo priests. He insists that the former president dabbled in the mystical
religion so closely associated with Haiti, and that his downfall a month ago
tomorrow was due to neither the rebel uprising nor U.S. duplicity. Rather,
he offended the voodoo spirit world.

In a country where many people believe Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier, the
feared dictator who died in 1971, lives on as a spirit named Loa Os 22, this
is not a good thing.

"Aristide had mystical protection and physical protection. He had the
spirits walking with him," Mr. Jean-Louis said in an interview in his
open-air shack in the capital's Bel Air shantytown. "But then Aristide
offended the voodoo priests."

To outsiders, it may seem far-fetched that Mr. Aristide, a former Catholic
priest, would follow such a spiritual path, but many hougans claim that he
not only understood voodoo's influence on Haitian life and made the
much-maligned practice legal, he himself was initiated as one of its
priests.

"Voodoo is part of Haitian politics," said hougan Philippe Castera, who
lives in a shack but carries a cellphone. "The National Palace is filled
with the spirits of the ancestors, and the president must be introduced to
these spirits and deal with them."

According to a foreign diplomat, it was no secret that Mr. Aristide had
adopted the rooster as his voodoo icon, and had several voodoo advisers on
staff. He distributed money and food to hougans in the slums, an important
element of his support base.

Was he serious? "Until we all meet our loas [spirits], we'll never really
know for sure," the diplomat said. "But what is clear is that Mr. Aristide
understood that voodoo was part of the Haitian consciousness and he used
certain symbols and references in his speeches."

He also had an unofficial priestess, named Sister Anne, who attended
government rallies, handed out sticks to the crowd and urged people to
demonstrate for the president. But after Mr. Aristide fled, she also went
into exile, and other hougans involved with the government went into hiding.

Emmanuel Lerbout, whose uncle Jean Lerbout was among those who disappeared,
said he is certain Mr. Aritside followed elaborate voodoo ceremonies in the
hopes of increasing his clout. "He told us he wanted to be a hougan himself,
so he could tap into the mystical power of the spirits. He had a shrine in
his home and used the religion in both a good and a bad way."

Mr. Castera said he never wanted any part of Mr. Aristide: "Without voodoo,
there is no government. But Aristide misused the religion. There was nothing
he wouldn't do to try to keep power. Duvalier used the spirits well and
respected voodoo celebration days. I didn't agree with the things Aristide
did and, though he invited me to work with him, I declined."

Only the loas know for certain what role religion played in Mr. Aristide's
downfall. But voodoo has always played a leading role in Haiti's turbulent
political history, said Chantal Jorg, a doctoral student in anthropology at
the University of Montreal who is in Haiti completing a thesis on voodoo.

Sometimes called "the government of the night," voodoo is a unique blend of
14th-century West African beliefs, Roman Catholicism and the rituals of the
Caribbean's native population. Most Haitians are officially Catholic, but
many -- especially among the poor -- also practise voodoo, whose shrines
often contain pictures of Christian saints alongside offerings of rum,
cigars and flowers. This duality harkens back to the days when slaves had to
mask their religion by incorporating Catholic icons, Ms. Jorg explained.

For years, the church tried to outlaw the religion, and Protestant
missionaries here still lead anti-superstition campaigns, but Catholic
priests have come to accept the inevitable co-existence. There are more than
550 officially registered voodoo temples in Port-au-Prince. Brightly beaded
voodoo flags, rattles and offerings fill smaller shrines hidden away in city
slums. In the fields of Artibonite province, the heart of the religion,
voodoo temples dot the countryside.

Voodoo helped to inspire the slave revolt that led to the country's
independence from France in 1804, and the creation of the world's first
black republic. In the 1960s, Papa Doc Duvalier, an anthropologist who
understood the religion's potential, dressed in a black suit and hat to
represent Baron Samedi, the spirit of the cemeteries, and to appeal to the
peasantry.

The rebels who overthrew Mr. Aristide also sought voodoo support. In the
northern city of Gonaives, members of the "Cannibal Army" who once backed
Mr. Aristide turned against him and led the rebellion. They made offerings
to Ogun Feray, the warrior god, and carried the black cross of the dead at
their protests, to symbolize a willingness to die for their cause.

So why did their voodoo succeed and his fail?

"Mr. Aristide was initially seen as a liberator and almost a messiah of the
people," Ms. Jorg said. "Then he began trampling on people's rights,
creating violent gangs. In the end, even the hougans who'd supported him
demonstrated against him."

Some believe that he angered the spirits of Toussaint L'Ouverture and
Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the great heroes of Haitian independence, by
engaging in violence and by practising "with the left hand" -- that is,
misusing the religion for negative ends. It was also rumoured that he
dabbled in sorcery; after his government fell, a popular radio station even
reported that he had offered human sacrifices.

Mr. Jean-Louis is still afraid to say too much about the ex-president. After
all, his neighbourhood was a bastion of support for Mr. Aristide, and it was
here that the chimères, the gangs still at large, recently shot a U.S.
Marine in the arm.

Even now, gang members can be seen lurking near his home, eavesdropping on
the conversation. Only when they move out of earshot, do he and Silva
Joseph, another hougan, explain why they think Mr. Aristide's political
longevity finally came to an end:

"He understood the force of the country is based on voodoo," Mr. Joseph
said. "But he offended the voodoo priests -- he supplied people with
weapons."

Marina Jimenez is a Globe and Mail correspondent now in Haiti.

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