Will poor Haiti ever be Free? Not if the U.S. can help it
by William H. Slavick
Jean Bertrand Aristide
In January, Haiti celebrated the bicentennial of its independence from Napoleonic France. Its independence was, Kofi Annan observed, "the beginning of the end of slavery." The president of South Africa and the prime minister of the Bahamas were present for the celebration; the U.S. and the old colonial powers that had created the slave economy in the Americas, gave the occasion short shrift.
Haiti went unrecognized by the U.S. until 1862, and by just about everybody else for decades, all fearful of encouraging slave insurrections. France embargoed Haiti, and then exacted payment of 150 million gold francs, $30 billion US today, for yielding sovereignty, leaving Haiti in financial straits for a century or more. European naval vessels periodically steamed into Haitian harbors and threatened destruction if they were not paid blackmail. William Jennings Bryan dismissed Haiti: "Imagine, niggers speaking French." From 1915, except for a few months in 1991, the U.S. has either occupied Haiti or indirectly controlled its affairs.
Where the "Pearl of the Antilles" had once produced more sugar than Brazil, Cuba, and the Bahamas combined and led in coffee production, its agriculture declined after independence and plummeted under the 29-year dictatorship of the Duvalier family and the 1991 U.S. backed Cedras coup. In the last 25 years, forests have succumbed to charcoal production, the last means of peasant survival. Haiti's topsoil is now in canals, rivers and the sea or baked hard by an unrelenting sun — a nationwide sub-Saharan ecological disaster. With only three per cent formally employed, 70-80 percent unemployed, Haitians survive largely on $800 million in annual remissions from "Tenth Department" emigres abroad.
Haiti has the worst drinking water in the world, is the third poorest country and poorest in the hemisphere. Infant mortality is 74 per 1,000; 123 children per 1000 die before the age of five. AIDS produces 163,000 new orphans and 30,000 adult cases annually. As Boston doctor Paul Farmer, who practices primarily in Haiti, observed recently, his Boston hospital has a budget ten times that of Haiti's government.
In the 1980s, USAID ordained that Haiti should become a cheap labor offshore assembly station for US goods. When President Jean-Bertrand Aristide raised the minimum wage to almost half the next lowest in the hemisphere in 1991, Washington provided millions of dollars to the opposition, and, in short order, a Haitian CIA operative, Gen. Raoul Cedras, led a coup. Aristide's return was facilitated by Bill Clinton only after thousands of Haitian democrats had been killed and Aristide agreed to abandon much of his program of progressive socialism designed to achieve "poverty with dignity" for all Haitians.
The bicentennial was a bittersweet celebration. The resilient, independence-minded Haitian people had a democracy headed by the once-widely-loved Aristide, fondly known as "Titid," but his efforts had been largely frustrated by lack of funds and his weak administration, which was clouded by corruption and the violence of his party, Fanmi Lavalas, and allied toughs' against opponents.
Coinciding with the anniversary, the U.S.'s low-intensity campaign against the diminutive liberal theology champion, that began in 1991, erupted into the streets, threatening to forcibly remove him from office again. Bottom line: the U.S. will not acquiesce to the existence of any country in the Americas that puts its people's interest before our right to exploit its labor and markets. And our officials do not scruple as to means.
The latest chapter in Haiti's long agony began with mid-year parliamentary elections in 2000. The constitution requires runoffs when a majority of the total vote is not achieved. The counting method had not been challenged by the opposition or OAS observers beforehand. But afterwards, a US government-financed International Republican Institute operative instigated a challenge of the counting method, providing a pretext for international challenge of the election and an opposition excuse to boycott the December presidential election in which Aristide would certainly have been returned to office.
Fanmi Lavalas offered to rerun the contested elections that fall. The opposition rejected that obvious solution. But the Democratic Convergence — 4-5% of the electorate — which included parties so small Haitian journalists call them "particles," had found a means to occasion US interference and paralyze Aristide's government. It has since refused to negotiate unless Aristide resigns, and has stopped the Electoral Commission from holding elections by refusing to name members. The DC cannot elect a government but it would rule — however, if only by frustrating rule.
President Bush's appointed administration initiated international arm-twisting to block loans that had already been granted Haiti — $142 million from the Inter-American Development Bank and $500 from international lending agencies. Haiti, whose national education budget is $6 million, was obliged, in order not to lose the IADB loan, to pay over $10 million in interest for three years before receiving a penny! Later, Colin Powell acknowledged that it had been Washington policy since 1998 to use loan denial to force government power-sharing with the small minority.
At his 2001 inaugural, Aristide had warned, all too prophetically, that, without aid, he would fail. Washington — and the tiny opposition who made clear in the Cedras years that they should rule by divine right and not be answerable to democratic majorities — now became fast allies in the undoing of Aristide's second term. When, a year later, Aristide accurately called it "economic terrorism," the US Ambassador, Portland-born Brian Curran, said that he should watch his mouth.
Haitian medical needs are extreme. Bad roads and depleted topsoil prevent economic progress. Literacy is low, schooling grossly inadequate. People are starving — eating clay, bark, and weeds, and dying of bad water. Yet, Washington has, since 1995, blocked any significant international aid to Haiti's democratic government. Humanitarian aid, solely through NGOs and much of it wasted, has been cut by half. In Madeleine Albrightese, let them die; it is worth the price to enforce our will on everyone in reach.
The Organization of American States and CARECOM, the Caribbean countries, have proposed resolutions to the election challenges. Invariably agreed to by Aristide, they are invariably rejected by the Convergence which despises Aristide for displacing them from power.
By 2003, as OAS and CARECOM patience with the opposition's intransigence wore thin, Washington raised the bar, now balking at government corruption.
As Randall Robinson, formerly of TransAfrica, has observed, the US low-intensity warfare strategy is transparent: (1) make the government ineffective, (2) persist until Haitians are disillusioned and international fatigue re. Haiti sets in, (3) isolate Aristide and overthrow him.
Unable to oust Aristide by election protests, the growing opposition has, in recent months, been emboldened to force him out. Old Duvalier and Cedras military, some trained at the School of the Americas, have led attacks on police stations and towns in the drought-stricken northwest,
Group 184, led by an American-Haitian, Andre Apaid, Jr., a Duvalier-supporting, Aristide-hating, tax-evading owner of factories and sweat shops, has urged tax refusals and mounted often violent protests in Port-au-Prince. G184 has demanded that schools strike and called for stoning those who refuse. It has forced police opposition by marching without permits. Apaid has openly fomented insurrection.
The United States refused to disarm Cedras's troops and FRAPH paramilitary headed by another CIA operative,Toto Constant, in 1994 — or establish security. Now it denies funds for police trainers — while faulting unprofessional police violence against demonstrators. It denies funds for tear gas, leaving the police with nothing for self-defense against crowds but firearms — while demanding a more effective control of large protests by the tiny force. Police have been the preferred target of insurrectionists.
The OAS and CARECOM, under Washington pressure, have now become complicit in the opposition, demanding that Aristide appoint a prime minister "neutral and favorable to both sides." Can one imagine the White House resident honoring such a demand from the Greens?
US mass media have been a major player in the anti-Aristide campaign, resuming the 90s' CIA disinformation and defamation campaign against Aristide that Jesse Helms long sustained and whose mantle Sen. Mike DeWine (R OH) has now assumed. The media invariably refer to the election irregularity as a "major crisis," a crisis only because denial of international aid makes it one. The media repeat undocumented charges of Aristide's corruption and resort to violence against opponents. The New York Times recently declared that Haiti was moving toward despotism, because, when Parliament's terms expired in January, the opposition's obstruction of elections left Aristide to rule by decree.
No mention is made of Aristide's espousal — and the opposition's rejection — of the Haitian Bishops' proposal of a temporary council to serve in lieu of Parliament until elections are held. The media fault Aristide's police while ignoring the mass provocations and US role in them. They downplay Aristide's support; Haiti Presse reported 100,000-200,000 in one January pro-government demonstration; the Associated Press said 10-15,000. Aristide's continued overwhelming support among the peasantry is ignored.
Recently returned from Haiti, Rep Maxine Waters (D-CA) points out that despite the aid embargo, Haiti has made improvements in agriculture, public transportation, and infrastructure. It has raised the minimum wage, prohibited the odious "restavik" trafficking in children as domestic slaves, built more schools since 1994 than in the previous 190 years, provided school lunches and textbook and uniform subsidies, improved hospital accessibility, and is training hundreds of physicians.
Will Aristide be forced out? Although the opposition is growing, it would appear that recognition of continued large majority Aristide support has prevented a concerted assault. The insurrectionists and their class might well be swept away in a bloodbath. Washington's silence about opposition violence, a suggestion that Aristide may have to go, and continued financial involvement in the opposition encourage revolt, but Colin Powell's recent insistence on constitutional government appears to signal a recognition that insurrection risks probable defeat. But if, as Amy Wilentz, author of The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier, warns, the "street" abandons Aristide, all bets are off.
Haitian democracy has few friends abroad. Its strongest supporter is the Congressional Black Caucus. But with Republicans in control, the Caucus has little influence, and no funds to bestow. The leftist press has been preoccupied with Iraq. The progressive Catholic press, which one would expect to champion Aristide as it did the South and Central American liberation theology movements, has largely ignored this continuation of Reagan's low-intensity war against Haiti.
Aristide has not been an effective administrator and not succeeded in guaranteeing the opposition's free speech, which may be beyond his power or wish. Now he is committed to OAS and CARECOM to professionalize his police, appoint a prime minister acceptable to the opposition, and hold elections.
But much more is needed: an end to the international disinformation campaign, an end to opposition destabilization efforts, unqualified international support of constitutional government, international approval of elections even if the opposition refuses to participate, and release of promised aid so that the government can begin to meet the direst needs.
Few Americans would approve of Washington policy toward Haiti if they recognized Haiti's desperate poverty and circumstances and that policy's tragic, deadly consequences, especially for Haitian children. None would support an opposition which seeks only power, at the price of denying sovereignty to the Haitian poor, an opposition that never reveals an ounce of concern for the poor, who must be served by any responsible Haitian government.
For more information or sample letters to Congress, Bush, and the press, contact Pax Christi Maine at 242 Ludlow Street, Portland 04102 or william.slavick@maine.edu
Bill Slavick is coordinator of Pax Christi Maine and a founder of the Sacred Heart-St. Dominic twinning project with Notre Dame du Mont Carmel in Haiti. PCM gave Aristide its Oscar Romero Award in 1993.
Back to Peace Talk Index, Spring, 2004