24028: Slavin: (news) Haiti Had Little to Celebrate in 200th Year of Freedom (LATimes 123004) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

from: Jps390@aol.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bicentennial30dec30,1,1821550.story?coll=la-headlines-world

THE WORLD

Haiti Had Little to Celebrate in 200th Year of Freedom

Armed rebellions, daily violence and deadly natural disasters scar a year that was supposed to herald a change in the country's direction.
By Carol J. Williams
Times Staff Writer

December 30, 2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Across from the National Palace, an unpainted concrete eyesore rises six stories above the Champ de Mars parade ground like a metaphor for the work in progress that is Haiti.

The Bicentennial Tower was supposed to be the centerpiece of celebrations marking the 200th anniversary of Haiti's independence, in a year intended to inspire a new direction for the world's first black republic after a long history of abject poverty and autocratic rule.

But from the gunfire-pocked Jan. 1 ceremonies to the violence still consuming the capital's slums, 2004 has served only to showcase Haitians' pain and failures.

This year, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere experienced an armed rebellion that drove President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile in Africa and pushed his supporters and opponents into sporadic civil war. Compounding the chaos, Haitians suffered two catastrophic floods that killed at least 5,000 people.

Still, those trying to steer this battered nation toward elections next November contend that the future is not as bleak as the past.

"One way to celebrate the bicentennial was to say we don't want dictatorship in Haiti," said Lyonel Trouillot, one of the country's most admired writers, referring to Aristide's ouster.

"People don't talk about the good things. Now when you go to the immigration office, you can get a passport. The airport has been renovated. There are all kinds of normal activities in the southern cities," Trouillot said.

"It won't be easy, but we started a fight for a more just society and if we keep on fighting we'll get somewhere."

Danielle Magloire, a human rights activist who serves in the seven-member Council of Sages that advises the interim government of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, also says the bicentennial balance sheet is in the black.

"The most important thing is that we don't have a government that is repressive," she said. "We have a lot of violence, but it's not the work of the government."

Like most Haitians involved in shaping the post-Aristide transition, Magloire is critical of Latortue, a former United Nations official. She says the prime minister and his Cabinet are moving too slowly to restore order and get business, education and public services working again. But she said Haiti's institutions were so corrupt and dysfunctional that it would take decades to achieve the status taken for granted in other countries.

Latortue's government has succeeded in controlling inflation and collecting customs revenues that were being siphoned off during Aristide's rule, economist Kesner Pharel said.

"The government has done some good things," he said, "but the problem is that people can't feel it."

Poor Haitians such as Natalie Louis, an exhausted convenience store worker in the Cite Soleil slum, say they can't think about the prospects of elections 11 months from now when they can't feed their children today.

"It's in God's hands," Louis, a 27-year-old mother of two, said with a dismissive wave.

Charred cinderblock homes litter the alleys of the slum, near the wharf that is ground zero for gang warfare. Angry young men who once followed Aristide vow to drive out Haitian police and U.N. peacekeepers.

"It wouldn't be like this if foreign troops weren't here," said one youth, Nene Belle, gesturing to the destruction that began months before the U.N. interceded.

Six months into its deployment, the U.N. peacekeeping force is now close to its intended strength, but its Brazilian commander, Gen. Augusto Heleno, has said — loudly and often — that disarming the gangs is not part of his mandate.

That stance may have emboldened the gangs that were terrorizing slum neighborhoods until U.N. forces executed a predawn sweep through Cite Soleil in mid-December to clear flaming debris and roadblocks. Three days later, they ended an armed standoff with disbanded soldiers at Aristide's abandoned residence without bloodshed. They also made the first significant collection of illegal weapons.

"Now we have more forces and the situation is entirely different," said Gen. Eduardo Lugani, the U.N. mission's deputy commander. "We can't accomplish disarmament and demobilization from one day to the next, but we have a strategy at work."

Establishing some semblance of peace across the nation is a prerequisite to starting the election process, a Herculean undertaking even if the violence ends.

The Organization of American States plans to bring in modern equipment to produce photo identification cards for voter registration, yet most roads outside Port-au-Prince are impassible much of the year and electricity is sporadic at best. At least 25% of Haiti's 8.5 million people have no identification document. And with more than half the population illiterate, many don't know how to spell their names.

As Latortue's interim mandate nears the halfway mark, the lack of progress toward arranging a vote threatens to sow discord among the political groups waiting to participate in elections.

"When people have no means of conducting political debate, no game to play in, they can resort to violence," said Leslie F. Manigat, who served as Haitian president for a few months in 1988 before being ousted by a junta. He is one of the few declared candidates for the next election.

Latortue has two vital tasks to fulfill, disarmament and the disbursement of a promised $1.4 billion in international aid, and is failing at both, Manigat said. He also criticized the prime minister, once a close friend, for failing to remove high-level civil servants still loyal to Aristide.

"We have the worst of two worlds," Manigat said. "The population is dissatisfied and the old regime is still in a position to undermine the government from within."

The one saving grace of national disarray, he said, is that there is too little cohesion among the disgruntled factions to allow a coup against Latortue or the figurehead interim president, Boniface Alexandre.

That is little solace for those growing impatient with the daily chaos.

"Everyone is tired of talk, talk, talk. Everyone is scared. Each time we say things couldn't be worse than what we are suffering now, we are proven wrong," said Jean-Claude Bajeux, a human rights activist who spent years in exile during the Duvalier dictatorship and the reign of the junta that first ousted Aristide in 1991. "We've found in the last 50 years that each change has brought us something worse."

He criticized the Latortue government for its failure to crack down on the armed factions wreaking havoc in the slums.

"You can't tell me that the government is incapable of catching a group of young people in Bel Air who for months have been terrorizing the city with two pickup trucks and 10 guys with guns," he said, recalling that just such a meager show of force incited panicked shooting among police and U.N. forces during Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's visit Dec. 1.

Western diplomats say the U.N. peacekeeping mission suffered from the slow arrival of its promised forces. The U.N. Security Council authorized 6,700 troops and more than 1,600 police in late April, yet less than half those were here by late November.

With no money coming in to create jobs and persistent insecurity chasing off foreign investment, Latortue is in a race against time to hold elections and engender hope for recovery.

"The private sector is insistent that we have honest and reliable elections. We've had too many bad experiences in Haiti," said Maurice Lafortune, a leading member of the Chamber of Commerce. "But I'm confident this will happen. There is a will to get it right this time. I guarantee that Haiti will never suffer dictatorship again."

Despite its prominent location, no one is much concerned about the unsightly Bicentennial Tower that would require at least $1 million more to be completed as Aristide intended, with historical representations on each of five floors and a flame of Olympic proportions over the sixth-story belfry.

"It's ugly, and it's there," Trouillot said, gesturing to the gray hulk overlooking the lush green lawns of the capital's center. "But whatever decision is made must come from a national consensus. We have to learn the need for consulting the people."

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

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J.P. Slavin
New York
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