28035: Hyppolite Pierre (FWD) Kathie Klarreich's article "The Fight for Haiti" in the Nation (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Hyppolite Pierre <hpierre@irsp.org>


The Fight for Haiti
by KATHIE KLARREICH 
[from the March 13, 2006 issue] 
It seemed almost too good to be true, and it was. And then it wasn't. Haitian 
politics played out in classic form in February, with all the drama aptly 
associated with this enigmatic and impoverished nation. Guns had gone 
underground, kidnappings had stopped and Port-au-Prince streets that had 
resembled target practice became accessible as an unprecedented number of 
voters took to the polls to vote in Haiti's presidential and parliamentary 
elections February 7. The elections were as much a triumph for the Haitian 
people, whose resolve for change was matched only by the absence of organized 
violence and intimidation previously associated with Haitian elections, as they 
were a vote for a new government. 
But like so much of what happens in Haiti, the tide of good will quickly 
dissolved into a sea of protest, confusion and bitter dÃjà vu as days dragged 
on without electoral resolution. Initial results showed that the most popular 
candidate, Renà Garcia PrÃval, was leading with more than 60 percent; when 
his numbers began to drop, the Carnivalesque atmosphere in the streets morphed 
into angry demonstrations that paralyzed the capital, halted traffic, closed 
schools, shut down businesses and caused flight cancellations. Partisans 
stormed the mountainside hotel that had become ground zero for election 
results, with hundreds of clothed protesters taking a dip in the pool to cool 
off as visiting South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu looked on from his 
balcony. Six days after the election, with 90 percent of the vote tabulated, 
PrÃval's lead had dipped to 48.7 percent, just short of the 50 percent he 
needed to declare a first-round victory. Stolen again, the people cried, taking 
to the streets the next day, and the day after, until they finally heard that a 
technical decision had been reached allowing the Electoral Council to announce 
that PrÃval was the winner, reigniting the celebratory pumping and gyrating. 
There had been reason for concern. The most polarizing figure in Haiti's recent 
political arena, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, had twice won the presidency and had 
twice been forced out, first in a 1991 military coup d'Ãtat seven months after 
taking office and then again in 2004, two years shy of the end of his five-year 
term. Although the former president currently lives in exile in South Africa 
with his wife and two daughters, the distance hasn't diminished his influence 
on the Haitian political scene. He remains wildly popular at the same time that 
he is feared and despised, a contradiction that accurately reflects Haiti's 
fractured society and that was played out again in the allegiances of the 
thirty-three presidential candidates. And therein lies the quandary, the 
decisive make-or-break challenge for PrÃval: Can he unite a country that has 
as many divisions as political parties? Can he negotiate a dÃtente with an 
actively hostile opposition, a wary international community and armed 
supporters? Finally, can the man who ten years ago stumbled into his first 
presidential term on the coattails of his predecessor demonstrate that he is no 
longer Aristide's twin? 
In Haiti perception is everything. For PrÃval partisans, many of whom rose 
before dawn to form long lines that snaked down country dirt roads or alongside 
urban piles of garbage and sewage, no amount of explanation was going to 
justify their candidate having to compete in a second round. That would be like 
losing Aristide a third time. In contrast, anti-Aristide people viewed the 
presence of tens of thousands of PrÃval supporters on the streets as a clear 
signal that the tactics of the two leaders were the same, to be feared and 
tempered. They denounced the negotiated solution, questioning the power of mass 
demonstrations in a country where the rule of law has never been practiced by 
the book. In this case, the ambiguity of the law served to keep the lid on the 
powder keg: The electoral law required that blank votes be included in the 
final tally. An unprecedented number, about one out of twenty-five, had 
decreased PrÃval's percentage; but when the blank votes were divided 
proportionally among the presidential candidates, PrÃval's total tipped over 
the 50 percent mark, allowing a first-round victory. 
The international community was quick to embrace the solution, in which its 
members had played a part behind the scenes but which they just as quickly said 
was a "Haitian solution to a Haitian problem with a president who is a favorite 
of the majority of the country," according to United Nations spokesman David 
Wimhurst. This was not necessarily the best solution, admitted one of PrÃval's 
closest advisers, because it left unanswered the question of what role fraud 
had played in the election. "What else can you do?" he asked. "You have a 
population about to erupt. It may come out later what this was all about, but 
for the time being, there aren't any other options. Let's look forward now." 
How things play out over the next five years depends in large part on PrÃval's 
leadership, which doesn't seem to be a trait critics and even some of his 
friends say is strongly developed, yet was evidenced in his handling of the 
electoral crisis. While he is credited with building roads, beginning the 
implementation of a national agrarian reform program and lowering the price of 
fertilizer during his 1996-2001 term, he was also perceived as a puppet of 
Tabarre, the area where Aristide settled after his first five-year term ended 
in 1996. PrÃval may be most famous for being Haiti's only democratic leader to 
complete his five-year term, a remarkable feat given that Haiti has had more 
than forty governments since it declared independence in 1804 and at least 
twelve just since the 1986 fall of the Duvalier dictatorship. In 2001 PrÃval 
retreated from the public eye to his family's home in Marmelade; with an 
investment from Taiwan he developed coffee, citrus and bamboo plantations. He 
re-emerged on the political scene and registered as a presidential candidate on 
the last day possible with a new party, Lespwa--"hope" in Creole--rather than 
with Aristide's party, Family Lavalas. 
PrÃval, who had voted in Marmelade, wasn't planning to return to the capital 
until the vote was certified, but recognizing the potential for a social 
explosion, he boarded a UN helicopter six days after the elections to consult 
with his core group of advisers as well as key members of the international 
community. On February 14 he announced that he was going to launch a legal 
investigation into the vote, charging massive fraud, which was supported by the 
discovery a day later of thousands of ballots and other electoral material in a 
dump just outside the capital. In a calm but passionate appeal, PrÃval 
defended his supporters' right to demonstrate but asked them to do so 
peacefully and with respect. And they did. PrÃval's statesmanlike call and the 
response that followed were in marked contrast to a similar situation that had 
occurred in 1991, in the weeks between Aristide's election and inauguration, 
when thousands of his supporters took to the streets to prevent a coup, then 
went on a rampage and destroyed property. Aristide's defense as to why he 
didn't tell people to go back home was that he was just president-elect. 
"PrÃval took leadership this week," said Robert Maguire, a longtime Haiti 
observer and professor at Trinity University, shortly after the election. "He 
spoke clearly and directly to the people and asked them not to back off but to 
protect their interest, and people listened. It was quite a change of pattern 
from what we've seen in Haitian leadership previously." Jocelyn McCalla of the 
New York-based National Coalition for Haitian Rights, who has been highly 
critical of the Aristide government, added, "It demonstrates an understanding 
that for Haiti to move forward, it is going to need peace, calm and stability 
and a lot of effort and compromise from people with various backgrounds and 
ideologies to work together." 
But trust is in as short a supply as dollars in this bankrupt country, where 
only 10 percent of the $1.2 billion of development aid pledged by the 
international community in 2004 has been delivered. These elections were 
Haiti's most expensive--$75 million--and run by an incompetent Provisional 
Electoral Council (CEP). The nine-member board was sanctioned by an equally 
incompetent interim government that had been strong-armed into place by the 
international community, then left on its own. Many people wonder how, if the 
CEP can't get the little things right, like the spelling of candidates' names 
on its website or math calculations that show percentages going down when votes 
go up, it could possibly have the capacity to oversee any vote at all. 
But even those who experienced the chaos of the election firsthand still 
believe the electoral process can work. CÃsar Joynel oversaw the voting at 
twenty-three stations (which could accommodate 400 voters each); he worked more 
than forty-two hours straight for a mere $50 to insure a change in government. 
Although he lost his voice and went without eating or sleeping, his 
determination to be part of the electoral process never wavered. "My vote is 
the only thing I have," the 34-year-old unemployed father said. "Take this away 
from me, and I've got nothing." 
Ironically, it was the intervention of the UN peacekeeping force that saved 
Joynel from being mobbed by poll workers, who thought he, rather than the 
electoral council, was responsible for their paychecks when the last of the 
ballots in his station were counted. Joynel is no fan of the blue helmets--he 
lives in Cità Soleil, the seaside slum that had become such a hotbed of gang 
warfare that even the peacekeepers were unable to bring stability. Over the 
past two years 1,500 have died, and Haitians have been gripped by a kidnapping 
craze that at its height claimed more than ten victims a day. The UN mandate in 
Haiti was renewed in mid-February for another six months; PrÃval has said that 
the international force should stay as long as it is needed, which, given the 
wretched state of Haiti's security force and the country's corrupt judicial 
system, could be years. 
The soft-spoken president-elect, who according to friends is better known for 
his abundance of good will than his long-range planning, is counting on massive 
international aid to jump-start the country's economy, which has been declining 
steadily for years. He knows it will take decades to improve conditions in this 
poorest country in the hemisphere, where 80 percent of the population lives in 
dire poverty. While PrÃval may not convince his fiercest rivals, Charles Henri 
Baker and Leslie Manigat--whose combined votes were less than half of 
PrÃval's--to work with him, he has won over some members of the business 
community, who helped bankroll his campaign. He also has the support of other 
presidential candidates, who recognize his indisputable popularity. "A more 
difficult question," asked University of Virginia Professor Robert Fatton, "is 
what is he going to do with the armed Aristide supporters who want to bring 
Aristide back?" 
PrÃval has said publicly that as a private citizen, Aristide is welcome to 
return, but it seems counterintuitive for PrÃval to encourage the move if he's 
trying to create a new image as an independent leader. Just one day after the 
election, acting US chargà d'affaires to Haiti Timothy Carney said, "Aristide 
is on his way to becoming as irrelevant to Haiti as Jean-Claude [Duvalier], and 
with no future. Aristide is now demonstrated to be a man of the past." That may 
be wishful thinking, but it also provides an insight into the direction the 
United States would like the new government to take. 
PrÃval, who according to James Dobbins, President Clinton's special envoy to 
Haiti, was not the GOP Administration's first choice in these elections, is 
aware of the delicate line he's walking with the Americans, whose meddling in 
Haitian affairs has been heavily criticized as destabilizing the country's 
democratic process. Despite reinstating Aristide with the support of 20,000 
troops in 1994, the United States not only undermined his presidency publicly 
by imposing an international embargo a few years later but is generally thought 
to have actively worked behind the scenes to help depose him. PrÃval 
recognizes the potential for the international tide to turn against him, and he 
has to juggle that, just as he has to strike a balance with the armed gangs 
that support him. How he handles such issues will ultimately define his second 
term, which is scheduled to begin March 29.