26641: Hermantin(News)The rise and fall of Haiti's `savior' (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>


NONFICTION
The rise and fall of Haiti's `savior'
 The author deftly chronicles Aristide's transformation from a perceived
 messiah to a master manipulator.
BY DON BOHNING


NOTES FROM THE LAST TESTAMENT: The Struggle for Haiti.

Michael Deibert. Introduction by Raoul Peck. Seven Stories. 448 pages. $22.95 
in paper.

Notes from the Last Testament should convince all but those few remaining 
foreign believers in former President Jean Bertrand Aristide -- many of whom 
were on his payroll -- that he was just one more would-be tyrant in a long line 
of self-serving and corrupt Haitian leaders.

The book has problems, particularly an overload of Haitian history and culture 
that distracts from what essentially is a memoir. But this is a minor flaw in 
Deibert's powerfully documented exposé of what amounts to Aristide's criminal 
rule of Haiti.

Deibert was the Reuters news service correspondent in Haiti as well as a 
contributor to several foreign newspapers. He got to know leaders of 
Aristide-financed slum gangs, called chimeres, who were, as Deibert documents, 
on call for word from the National Palace to disrupt an opposition 
demonstration or carry out other nefarious tasks on Aristide's behalf.

As Deibert observes in recounting the infamous massacre of an opposition group 
in St. Marc a few weeks before Aristide's flight to exile on February 29, 2004: 
Haitians ``were forced to endure unimaginable agony so that one man -- with the 
aid of a small cadre of killers for hire, corrupt officials and cynical, 
avaricious foreign advocates -- could attempt to build his own personal empire 
on the ruins of what was once a country.''

Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, came to power in a December 1990 
presidential election generally regarded as the only free and democratic 
election in Haiti's 200 years of independence. He won by more than some 
two-thirds of the popular vote by an electorate that hailed him as a savior.

Deibert deftly chronicles Aristide's transformation from a perceived messiah to 
a master manipulator as he moved to consolidate his control over the 
hemisphere's poorest country. Even before he was overthrown by a military coup 
seven months after taking office on Feb. 7, 1991, there were clear signs he was 
not the savior that many had hoped. Among the early signals was his call to 
supporters for street violence to thwart an attempted coup by Roger LaFontant, 
an old-line backer of former dictator Francois ''Papa Doc'' Duvalier.

Those answering the call destroyed the historic cathedral in downtown 
Port-au-Prince and burned scores of people in old tires.

After his ouster in September 1991, Aristide went to Venezuela, where he soon 
wore out his welcome, spending the remainder of his three-year exile in 
Washington. The Clinton administration restored him to power in the fall of 
1994, following an invasion by 20,000 troops. Bitter that the United States 
would not accept the extension of his term for the three years spent in exile, 
he increasingly took on the mantle of his authoritarian and corrupt 
predecessors.

He was elected president again in November 2000, a largely sham vote boycotted 
by the opposition, in which he ran against six unknown candidates. 
Anti-Aristide sentiment grew, though, and negotiations began for his departure 
in late 2003, and on Feb. 29, 2004, in a plane provided by the United States, 
he left for eventual exile in South Africa, where he remains. But after his 
departure, and as duplicitous as ever, Aristide claimed he had been 
``kidnapped.''

Don Bohning is a former Herald Latin America editor and author of the recently 
published book: The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba 
1959-1965.