21135: Esser: Heartache in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

MotherJones.com 
http://www.motherjones.com

March/April 2004 Issue

Heartache in Haiti
Aristide may no longer be president of Haiti, but is his country any
better off?

by Kate Cheney

Jean-Bertrand Aristide may no longer be president of Haiti, but it's
an open question whether his country is any better off. The immediate
prospects for putting one of the world's poorest countries back
together again are hardly assuring given a current situation that
features a U.S.-backed interim regime that is already showing signs
of corruption; an exiled former president who may be trying for his
third comeback; an infrastructure beyond the breaking point after
decades of mismanagement and violence; and a distracted Bush
Administration that just wishes the Haitian problem would go away.

U.S.-backed Interim Prime Minister Gérard Latortue came out of his
Florida exile only to embrace the rebel groups -- drug lords and
convicted murderers among them -- responsible for last month's
political violence. He praised their efforts, calling them "freedom
fighters"-- much to the amazement of human rights activists who have
observed how they operate. Neither Latortue nor the U.N.-mandated
forces have prevented the rebels from tormenting remaining Aristide
supporters and former cabinet members. In an ironic twist, Latortue
has blacklisted dozens of Aristide's supporters and forbidden them
from leaving the country until they are cleared from any 'ill-doing'
under Aristide's rule.

A recent Reuter's report described how an attorney and member of
Aristide's Lavalas party was severely beaten and nearly lynched by an
angry mob of Aristide opponents while walking home from his office.
Cowering inside the local police station, the 33-year-old told a
reporter, through tears and blood:

"They hit me just because I support Lavalas! Lavalas is no longer in
power, but that's my party. That's democracy."

The Miami Herald reported that even the new chief of police has
entered into talks with rebel leaders on how to incorporate their
forces into police units despite protests from U.S. and human rights
officials:

"French peacekeeping troops observed the closed-door talks between
rebel leader Guy Philippe and Renan Etienne, the new police chief for
northern Haiti, who said afterward that he was willing to accept some
rebels into his force but not without a screening process."

Basic services, like electricity and garbage collection, while always
erratic, are virtually nonexistent in Haiti now, and so far the U.N.
has raised only a fraction of the estimated $35 million needed to
rebuild the country. Interim Prime Minister Latortue is scheduled to
meet with foreign donors on April 14 to ask for additional funding.
Many interim officials blame the country's decayed state on years of
corruption during Aristide's tenure.

The Guardian's Stevenson Jacobs spoke with frustrated new government
officials. Cabinet Minister Robert Ulysse said:

"We have all this urgency and no funds to do anything. We're still
trying to get the engine started, but we're not moving anywhere.''

And Ann-Marie Issa, one of the seven-member Council of Sages that
helped form the new government said:

"The corruption ruined the country. People are poorer, children can't
afford to go to school and institutions aren't functioning. We can't
afford to have another government like that.''

And Aristide? On Thursday, the New York Times reported that Aristide
had filed suit against unnamed French and American officials,
accusing them of "death threats, kidnapping and sequestration." (Both
countries deny his allegations.) Aristide's lawyers confirmed that a
similar suit will soon be filed in the U.S. Aristide claims he is
still the democratically elected president of Haiti, and that he was
removed from power illegally.

He's not the only one crying foul. After a two-day summit last
weekend, leaders from Caribbean Community countries (CARICOM), a key
player in Haitian stabilization, "postponed" its recognition of the
interim government, calling for a U.N.-led investigation into
Aristide's ouster. Leading the charge are Jamaica and Venezuela who
have both granted Aristide asylum and support.

The BBC was quick to point out the obvious link between Chavez and
Aristide:

"Mr. Chavez, who is himself accusing the US of fomenting the
opposition to his rule in Venezuela, said he supported Mr. Aristide's
claim to be the rightful leader of Haiti and would refuse to
recognise the government of new Prime Minister Gerard Latortue."

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered this statement:

"My government does not recognize the one (government) placed by the
United Stated in Haiti and we call on the other countries of the
continent, as the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) has
already done, to pronounce this."

While Aristide ponders a comeback, the U.N. has called for more
support from the international community. U.N. special envoy Reginald
Dumas told the U.N. Security Council after returning from a 10-day
visit to Haiti that it will take at least twenty years to put things
right again. Dumas told the council:

"We cannot continue with the start-stop cycle that has characterized
relations between the international community and Haiti. You go in,
you spend a couple of years, you leave, the Haitians are not
necessarily involved and the whole thing collapses. This has to stop."

This is not good news for the Bush administration. Despite President
Bush's grudging offer to supply 1,900 Marines to the interim
multi-national force mandated by the U.N., Haiti can expect no
additional funding or major military support from the U.S.

The Washington Post characterizes the Bush administration's response
to the U.N.'s proposal as "another dodge":

"Today the most senior U.S. official to visit Haiti since before Mr.
Aristide's departure is to arrive in Port-au-Prince -- a deputy
assistant secretary of state. His boss, Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell, recently told a congressional committee that the
administration will not ask for any supplemental appropriations for
Haiti this year. The current budget is $44 million -- about 2 percent
of what the United States is spending on reconstruction in
Afghanistan."

In a seeming effort to quell criticism that the Bush administration
is "ignoring" the situation in Haiti, Secretary of State Colin Powell
made a brief, one-day visit to Haiti on Monday -- the first such
visit from a top American official since Aristide was "escorted" out
of the country by U.S. troops six weeks ago, and the first secretary
of state to travel there since Madeline Albright did in 1998.
According to a statement made by the U.S. State Department on Friday,
the purpose of Powell's visit on Monday was to:

"... observe firsthand United States and international efforts to
bring stability to the country and address the humanitarian needs of
the Haitian people."

Powell got his answer. Just hours before Powell arrived, two
employees of a frozen food company were robbed and then shot in a
Port-au-Prince suburb -- two hours passed before the police responded.


© 2004 The Foundation for National Progress
.