21384: Esser: In Haiti, the power is an absolute power (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Trinidad & Tobago Express
http://www.trinidadexpress.com

April 18, 2004

In Haiti, the power is an absolute power
by Selwyn Ryan

Jean-Bertrand Aristide is currently a guest of the Government of
Jamaica and Caricom is rightly calling for an investigation into the
circumstances of his enforced departure from Haiti. Not surprisingly,
the US is unwilling to support this demand.

The United States has always played contradictory roles in Haiti. The
US always insists that its aim is to empower and support the forces
working for the democratisation of Haiti. Yet it is invariably found
supporting the forces of reaction in Haiti, particularly those which
are important to US economic and strategic interests.

The US, for example, gave strong political and financial support to
Papa Doc Duvalier who tyrannised Haiti for 14 years. It is estimated
that during his first 4 years in power, Duvalier received some US$40m
from the CIA as "aid", money which was in effect outright gifts.
These were however cold war years and the US declared concern was to
deny Haiti to the communists who had established a toe-hold in Cuba.
The US also wanted Haiti's support for matters that came up in the
OAS and the UN. Ideology and strategic and economic interests
coincided.

Duvalier reciprocated by declaring communist activities crimes
against the state. As an official document proclaimed, "the authors
and accomplices of these crimes shall be sentenced to death and their
movable and immovable property shall be confiscated and sold for the
benefit of the state."

Duvalier went from the "Palace to the Cemetery" in 1971, and was
succeeded by his son as part of a deal worked out with the Nixon
administration. The deal was that the US would support the
continuation of the Duvalier dynasty in return for the regime's
facilitation of US economic interests in Haiti ,the aim of which was
to transform Haiti into one of the sweat shops of the Americas. Haiti
was to ensure that there were no customs duties on US goods, that
minimum wages were to be kept miserably low, labour unions
suppressed, and US firms would have the freedom to repatriate profits
without restrictions.

The US was in fact taking Papa Doc's word when he said in 1969 that
"Haiti could be a vast reservoir of man-power for Americans
establishing re-exportation industries-closer, safer and more
convenient than Hong Kong."

The "industrialisation of Haiti" under the Duvalier regime benefited
US firms, many of which outsourced production and assembly activities
to Haiti. The Haitian masses who worked in these operations remained
miserably poor. Unable to protest in support of their demands for
living wages, many became "boat people". Haiti in the meantime
remained the poorest country in the hemisphere and one of the 25
poorest in the world. Popular protests against the Duvalier regime
however mounted, notwithstanding the repression of the Tonton
Macoutes. The Duvalier dynasty collapsed in 1986 as populist forces,
inspired by Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, progressively "uprooted"
(dechoukaj) it. Baby Doc fled Haiti in a US cargo plane on February
7, 1986.

Faced with a seemingly irresistible political populist force, the US
withdrew its support for Baby Doc but not before a cosmetic
succession plan had been worked out. A US-backed junta led by General
Namphy was given the green light to continue "Duvalierism without
Duvalier." Ironically, the junta was seen as "Haiti's best chance for
democracy."

The Americans had however not factored in the Aristide phenomenon.
Aristide returned to Haiti in 1985 after graduate study in Montreal.
He had previously studied biblical theology in Israel, and had plans
to complete a doctorate. Instead, he found himself assigned to a
large slum near the Port-au-Prince waterfront where he began
preaching sermons that frightened the social and religious
establishment. Aristide progressively became the pastor of Haiti's
poor, the symbol of the resistance against Duvalier. The Catholic
hierarchy sought to transfer Aristide abroad, but thousands of
Haitians blocked the access to the airport, insisting that Aristide
(Tidid) was not going anywhere. Thwarted, the Salesian order to which
he belonged expelled him from the church.

The radical priest was accused of "putting the eucharist and the
sacraments at the service of politics,' of "profaning the liturgy,"
of "inciting the masses to hate and violence", and "exalting class
struggle."

Following his expulsion, Aristide was urged to run for the Presidency
in elections which were due in 1990. He initially refused do so,
arguing that elections would change nothing in Haiti since US money
would contaminate the political process as it had always done and
would make Haitians more dependent on the "cold country to the
North." In one particular political address, Aristide told listeners
that "the election drums are sounding, but for what kind of
elections? Without judgment, many of the criminals will return to the
polling place, even more demonic to drink the people's blood, to kill
people, to burn, to empty guns into radio stations, to fire on
rectories, to hunt down priests, to hunt down lay people, to
persecute the organisations of the people."

Aristide was eventually persuaded to run by progressive elements in
Haiti as the candidate of national unity ,but not before making it
clear that he was doing so on the assumption that through him the
Haitian people would take over the machinery of the state in the
interest of the Haitian poor.

The Haitian right, the army, and the commercial elite remained
bitterly opposed ,some seeing Aristide as a "cross between the
Ayatollah and Fidel," or a "socio bolshevik." Their opposition
notwithstanding, Aristide won the 1990 election by a landslide. In
his Inaugural address, Aristide indicated that his plan was to turn
the Haitian social system on its head. As he warned, "the majority of
soldiers are born under the table, but the system turns them into
sycophants and kept boys who sit at the table next to their masters .
If there is enough for the rich, there must be enough for the poor.
If the National Palace was formerly for the rich, today it's for the
poor.

Yes to all around the table of democracy. No to a minority on top the
table. No to a majority under the table." Rooting out corruption and
empowering the souvrev pep were however tasks that were not easy for
Aristide to accomplish. Making a social revolution as opposed to a
coup requires that one has the institutional scaffolding to sustain
deep social change and the active support of citizen groups who are
prepared to man the political barricades on a continuous basis.
Aristide was confronting 200 years of entrenched corruption and
dictatorship, the power of the Petionville elite, the Catholic
Church, the army, the macoutes and the hostility of American
interests which resented his attempts to increase the miserly daily
minimum wage (50 cents US). The forces arraigned against Aristide in
2004 were the same as that in 1991. As some wag put it, "everyone who
is anyone is against Aristide." The problem was that everyone who
wanted a place at the table was for Aristide. The former prevailed in
1991 just as they prevailed in 2004. Aristide was escorted out of
Haiti on a plane provided by the then Venezuelan President destined
for Caracas.

One of Haiti's poets, Jean-Claude Martineau, explains very well what
Aristide was up against. "Why do the elite hate him so much? All
their traditional privileges have been questioned; the way they make
their money, most of the time illegally; drugs contraband, and abuse.
All these kinds of things have been questioned, with a very strong
possibility of changing the way the country is run; changing the way
people perceive power. Because in Haiti, the power is an absolute
power."

- To be concluded
.