The Aristide Factor

2006-06-29T09:29:00Z

Jens U. Poppen from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad

One of those never-ending Caribbean tales is the story of Haitian politics with its steady succession of strong-armed potentates, foreign invaders, international administrations and lonely democrats. Currently, it is the turn of silver-bearded René Garcia Préval and his centre-left party Lespwa to lift 75 percent of the country’s population out of abject poverty, loosen the grip of South American drug cartels, pacify the urban ghettos of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, stem the tide of HIV/AIDS among the millions of poor, revive a grotesquely ailing economy and remain on good terms with IMF and World Bank while pursuing the above. Yet there is another challenge waiting for the 55-year old agronomist, who was elected in February 2006 with a 51 percent majority to lead the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, a challenge that might yet prove too difficult for Préval to overcome. While Haiti’s political elites struggle to adjust to the climatic conditions of ideological pluralism, the long shadow of Préval’s charismatic predecessor Jean-Bertrand Aristide casts a murky twilight over what many observers had hoped would be a clean start for a nation ravaged by two centuries of racial division, foreign domination and wicked despots.

When in the final days of February 2004, a few hundred ex-soldiers of Haiti’s disbanded armed forces teamed up with heavily armed paramilitaries of the once notorious Front pour l’Avancement et le Progrès d’Haïtien (FRAPH) to leave their hideout in the Dominican Republic only to force another round of regime change in Port-au-Prince, it seemed as if Aristide’s rule had come to another abrupt end. Military strongman Raoul Cedras had ousted the little priest in 1990 shortly after Aristide’s first electoral triumph and now he was about to meet the ‘traditional’ fate that countless Haitian incumbents had suffered ever since rebellious slaves expelled their French colonial masters and established the world’s first black republic in 1803, for a second time. Although the former slum priest’s reputation as a fearless defender of democracy and as a defiant force for good in the face of the vicious Duvalier dictatorship had reached an almost mystical dimension in the late 1980s, over the years he had come to discover the benefits of authoritarianism himself. His Fanmi Lavalas party - more an old boys network Harvard-style for the personal enrichment of a few chosen disciples than a political organisation that played its constitutional role through work on parliamentary committees – enforced the will of the President on the streets of Port-au-Prince by unscrupulously turning street children into child soldiers. But not even the chimères street gangs with their AK-47s, recruited among the wretched youth of the capital’s sprawling shantytowns could halt the rapid erosion of Aristide’s rule and by the beginning of March, the erstwhile freedom fighter turned autocrat left the imposing surroundings of Haiti’s National Palace to seek political asylum in South Africa. After accusing the hegemonic bully in Washington and Haiti’s former colonial master France of having orchestrated his abduction, Aristide pledged to learn Zulu and to commit himself to an academic career in Pretoria.

However, the little cleric never left the scene completely. The interim government of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue blamed him for masterminding the wave of kidnappings that gripped the Caribbean nation for months making the ‘Pearl of the Antilles’ one of the most dangerous places on the planet. When several Haitian policemen met their gory end by beheading – a campaign purportedly labelled ‘Operation Baghdad’ by its executioners – the U.S. backed transitional government identified the bespectacled liberation theologian as the evil culprit responsible. Aristide in response assembled the international media in regular intervals to express his heartfelt outrage over the ‘black genocide’ committed by foreign occupiers and the ‘puppet government’ against defenseless slum dwellers in places like Cité Soleil, Bel Air and Martissant. Clearly, Titid as Aristide was affectionately nicknamed by his faithful still enjoyed widespread support among the countless have-nots in Haiti’s crammed urban ghettos, and it was this following that his former ally Préval sought to exploit for his own electoral gain. The street gangs, which Aristide had used so recklessly in his fight against political opponents, offered the new champion of Haiti’s disenfranchised masses a ‘truce’ – no more kidnappings and an end to the months-long armed stand-off with peacekeepers of the United Nations Stabilisation Mission (MINUSTAH) – in exchange for the future prospect of having their cause represented in the highest echelons of Haiti’s winner-takes-it-all politics. The benevolently declared ceasefire led the international community sighing relief and enabled the myriad of presidential candidates to campaign freely in places that would have otherwise remained no-go areas for canvassing activists. In the end, the pact between the soft-spoken presidential contender from rural Marmelade and the gangs, many of them deeply involved in the cancerous drug trade that made Haiti one of the most important transshipment points for Colombian cocaine in the Americas, achieved the desired result. When an unusually high number of blank ballots threatened to prevent a first-round Préval victory in the February 2006 elections, hundreds of militant supporters made it clear that a second round of voting would plunge the country back into anarchy and bloodshed. Magically, the downward trend of pro-Préval votes came to a halt and the Lespwa candidate’s lead suddenly climbed up from 49 to 51 percent in the final days of the election thus dissuading Port-au-Prince’s self-styled warlords from taking up arms again.

But although the deal between the politician and the gangs ensured stability during the elections, it was never quite clear if voting for Préval was not in fact voting for Aristide by proxy. Many of the former’s election rallies had supporters waving placards and pictures showing the moustached face of the latter and Lavalas leaders made no secret out of their belief that with Préval in the National Palace, the return of the fiery priest from exile would only be a question of time. Now, that the new Presidency is in full swing and a government under the leadership of Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis has been formed, Aristide followers might be in for a rude awakening. But so might be Préval. Prominent gang leaders with creative noms de guerre such as ‘General Toutou’ or ‘Commander Evans’ have publicly called on the new political leadership to allow Aristide back into the country so that the former Silesian brother could wear the mantle of Third World saviour once again. In case, Préval had the chutzpah to express a different opinion on the matter, the agitated crime bosses have threatened to withdraw any support for the Lespwa leader and the recent resurgence in kidnappings indicate that their patience is running thin indeed. None of the gangs has been effectively disarmed and they therefore still possess the military means necessary to re-engage in ‘armed resistance’ of the more sophisticated kind. Also, since Préval’s inauguration on May 14, tensions have flared up again between MINUSTAH’s peacekeepers, Haiti’s National Police (HNP) and the chimères, particularly in Port-au-Prince’s largest and most volatile slum Cité Soleil.

However, Préval’s leeway to make political concessions remains extraordinarily limited given the international community’s unveiled hostility towards any involvement of Aristide, no matter how small. The country depends on foreign funding and the goodwill of U.S. and European leaders, and the re-appearance of a man, who once praised the beauty of political competition through ‘necklacing’ – the rather nasty method of burning one’s opponent to death by throwing a gasoline-filled tyre around the victim’s neck – on the political stage would certainly dry up crucial financial lifelines in Western capitals.

How will the tale end? The chances are that the new President tries to buy time seeking to extend his political honeymoon by appeasing Lavalas radicals where it hurts the least. The first concessions are in sight with Préval announcing the probable release of former Prime Minister Yvon Neptun and ‘community activist’, singer and Lavalas diehard Annette Auguste better known as ‘Só Ann’ from jail. Aristide’s former Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert, who is accused by many of having co-ordinated the political indoctrination of many HNP units, has already been granted a free-of-charge walk out of prison a couple of weeks ago. Without doubt, more supporters of the old regime will follow swiftly bringing the era of ‘political persecution’ by the Interim Government to an end. The going on Haiti’s streets will certainly get tougher again once Aristide loyalists fully realise that the return of their former ruler does not feature anywhere on the current President’s political agenda. The real litmus test for Préval will come with the inevitable crackdown on armed gangs, a confrontation that the state cannot afford to shun. The last bastions of Aristide militants will prove to be the biggest hurdles to overcome on Haiti’s road to recovery. Préval should have thought about that before the elections as a Creole saying will remind him that “aprè bal tanbou lou”, when the party is over, the drums grow heavy.

IBC Today Field Journalist

The Aristide Factor