Why Haiti is Poor (IV): the Aristide Failure

by on January 26, 2010 9
5sharesFacebook
0tweetsTwitter
0stumbledStumbleUpon
0sharesReddit
0recommendGoogle

Some day, a Haitian writer (maybe Edwidge Danticat?), should do a novel based on the rise and fall of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the brave priest-turned-president who raised the hopes of Haiti’s poor majority, only to later turn toward authoritarianism, corruption, and violence. Haiti is still poor partly because Aristide failed, and it does no one any good to pretend otherwise.
Aristide took office in 1991 with the greatest hopes in modern Haitian history. Only 9 months later, the military, supported by the Haitian elite, overthrew him, and launched yet another terroristic dictatorship that ended with the U.S. invasion in September 1994. Aristide was only allowed to finish the last year and a half of his elected term.
After his ally, Rene Preval, served from 1996-2000, Aristide was elected again, although with diminishing support, once more toppled in February 2004, and forced into exile.
My friends in Haiti, all of them once Aristide enthusiasts, agree that over time he went bad. They say he armed some of his supporters in Port-au-Prince slums, who functioned as lawless street gangs who extorted from shopkeepers and terrorized entire neighborhoods. Human rights groups, like the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, accused his second government of “illegal and arbitrary arrests, summary executions, disappearances and police brutality.”
Some Haitians even believe he was responsible for the murder of political opponents, like the courageous radio journalist Jean Dominique, killed in 2000, (who is the subject of an affecting Jonathan Demme documentary, The Agronomist). The charitable view among the Haitians I know is that Aristide lost control of his supporters and looked the other way; the more sinister view is that he actually ordered these crimes.
It is absolutely true that Aristide faced tremendous obstacles. The small selfish elite showed it would do anything to stop him, starting with the first coup in 1991. The international financial institutions imposed their unfair version of globalization, whatever the social costs, which included the destruction of Haiti’s domestic rice industry. The George Bush II administration turned over its Haiti policy to its most hateful right-wingers, who almost certainly aided the armed “rebels” – some of them actually human-rights criminals – who overthrew Aristide in 2004.
But Aristide’s one-time supporters, who besides my friends include people like Nancy Roc, a brave journalist, and Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, a leader of the rural poor from the central plateau, insist the obstacles do not justify the violence, authoritarianism, and corruption that came to scar his rule.
The most extreme apologists for Aristide try to deny his human rights violations, despite overwhelming evidence. Others, more reasonable, point to the ferocious opposition, and wonder whether any president could have succeeded. They could well be right, but Aristide should have still governed democratically, and explained to a once sympathetic outside world why Haiti continued to stagnate.
The tragedy is that the Haitian elite had by the time of the earthquake regained all their lost power. Richard Morse, the colorful Haitian-American bandleader who also owns the legendary Oloffson Hotel, has been tweeting from the stricken capital, keeping the world informed. The other day he posted, “Haiti’s elite families are probably lobbying in Washington as I write this; gotta get that gravy train untracked..”
Haiti still needs a genuine revolution. But Aristide’s failure makes it harder.

Posted in Israel/Palestine, US Politics

{ 9 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Richard Parker says:
    January 26, 2010 at 2:16 pm

    Haiti has been a pseudo-colony of America, for which America claims no responsibility, for more than 100 years.

    The irresponsibility is breathtaking.

    Hillary Clinton visited Haiti on the fourth day (16 Nov) after the earthquake, when the response to it was gearing up, and every moment of access to the country’s only working airport was precious.

    The international airport was shut down for 3 hours to give ‘security’ to Ms Clinton.

    At one point, she even sent an airplane out to bring her a new pantsuit.

  2. Richard Parker says:
    January 26, 2010 at 2:36 pm

    James – Aristide never had a chance, as the first Haitien president since the American Marines’ occupation, to give a fuck for his people
    You give a very good description of the so-called deteroration of democracy under his presidency. He was using (perhaps) exactly the same methods, but with a very different, better purpose, as his predecessors.
    He is still the democratic choice of the majority of the Haitien people, but the US has sent in 20,000 troops to stop his return.

  3. Avi says:
    January 26, 2010 at 3:27 pm

    …Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the brave priest-turned-president who raised the hopes of Haiti’s poor majority, only to later turn toward authoritarianism, corruption, and violence.

    It would be an interesting psychological research into the circumstances, factors, personal and professional backgrounds of leaders like Aristide and Fidel Castro in understanding the transformation people often go through, especially when in positions of power.

  4. Jeffrey Blankfort says:
    January 26, 2010 at 6:47 pm

    I guess you and I know different Haitians, James, but those I do know disagree with the positions of your Haitian friends regarding Aristede. What I do know, as should you, is that the white European West in which I include the US, has never forgiven the Haitian slaves for overthrowing their French masters and the US, as well as the rest of Europe, including the French who demanded millions in reparations for their “lost” enterprises, have successfully kept the Haitians suppressed for more than two centuries. Fearful of their example spreading to the slaveholding South, the US blockaded its ports, then invaded and occupied the country from 1915 under that faux humanitarian but outfront racist, Woodrow Wilson to 1934 when FDR recalled the troops and ushered in two generations of Duvaliers. Aristede would be no more allowed by the US to succeed than any other leader in the Caribbean only doubly so. Cuba under Castro began under very different conditions and did not have another country on its border such as the Dominican Republic from which subversive attacks by armed terrorist groups could be carried out. Now, we see another US occupation under what may rightfully be called the Obamnation.

  5. Les says:
    January 26, 2010 at 7:36 pm

    This overlooks that President Clinton kept Aristede under a kind of house arrest in Washington until Aristede agreed to knuckle under to the demands of the IMF. That same Clinton, in charge of the relief effort no less, promoted the idea of Haiti as America’s sweat shop.

  6. James North says:
    January 26, 2010 at 8:56 pm

    Both Jeffrey Blankfort and Les are absolutely correct as far as you go about Haiti’s history, and about the pressure from the international financial institutions — which I have written about in this and previous posts. But I concentrate on Aristide’s increasingly bad human rights record, which is fully documented by both Haitians and by international human rights organizations, and which cannot be excused by history or IMF demands.

  7. Ael says:
    January 26, 2010 at 9:47 pm

    Good thing the disaster in Haiti is over. The IDF can go home now.

  8. Oscar Romero says:
    January 28, 2010 at 12:23 am

    I would appreciate some reference sources for the hit job on Aristide. The only things I have seen in the 4 parts is some “friends” of yours and your reference to the NCHR, whose website hasn’t been touched for 5 years. I don’t know anything about that organization and cannot find any way to see their documentation. You certainly provide none. “My friends,” “they say,” “Some Haitians even believe” — just doesn’t cut it. And what’s your point? That there is no hope for Haiti? Haiti’s lack of a genuine revolution is Aristide’s failure? That’s a good one. Do you think there were any other forces at work besides Aristide? Psyops, maybe? Black flag operations, maybe? He must have been doing something right because they got rid of him twice. I suppose you were cheering because he was not governing democratically like we do.

  9. James North says:
    January 28, 2010 at 10:56 am

    The NCHR in Haiti was renamed the National Human Rights Defense Network a few years ago. link to rnddh.org
    Its director is the brave and distinguished Pierre Esperance. Its findings about the second Aristide government are corroborated by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.