In Haiti, a Stalled Turn Toward Democracy
Silencing of Opposition Blocks Foreign Aid That Could Ease Unrest and Poverty
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
PETIT-GOAVE, Haiti -- Being a government critic in this country has
never been the path to a long life. And Brignol Lindor must have known
the risk he was taking
by skewering the dominant political party each Wednesday on his call-in
radio show.
If Lindor did not fully appreciate the dangers, Mayor Dume Bony spelled
them out with chilling clarity during a Nov. 30 news conference in this
seaside city of rusting
tin roofs and filigreed verandas. Bony, a member of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide's Lavalas Family party, told his audience -- including those listening
on Lindor's
own Radio Echo 2000 -- that "we must . . . apply zero tolerance to
all members of the [opposition]. We need to mobilize a vigilance brigade
against this terrorism."
Bony listed five enemies of the party. Lindor, whom the mayor nicknamed
"Iron Pants" for his unyielding opposition, was first among them. On Dec.
3, after leaving
his other job as a customs inspector at the dock, Lindor drove to the
L'Acul neighborhood on an errand. Awaiting him were members of a "popular
organization"
linked with Lavalas, alerted to his route by the head of the customs
house.
The mob pulled him from the car, beat him and slashed him to death with
machetes used in the nearby sugar cane fields. The killing touched off
three weeks of
bloody rioting -- attacks and reprisals from both political camps --
that shook this city of 180,000 inhabitants 35 miles southwest of the capital,
Port-au-Prince, and
provided vivid proof yet again that Haiti's 16-year-old struggle from
dictatorship to democracy has not progressed very far.
A year after Aristide took office for a second time with a promise to
bring impoverished Haitians "peace in the stomach, peace in the head,"
there is significantly less
of both in this tiny Caribbean nation. An unresolved dispute over how
to open Haiti's democracy to opposition parties continues to hold up international
aid to a
country with virtually no resources of its own. The resulting unrest
has greatly undermined Aristide's ability to maintain order in the hemisphere's
poorest nation.
Aristide, the inscrutable former priest who became Haiti's first elected
leader in 1991 and was overthrown less than a year later, was the target
of two coup attempts
last year. U.S. officials have soured on Aristide and hold him responsible
for many of Haiti's problems. Most of the political opposition does not
want to deal with
him, calling him sneaky and power-hungry.
This is not the way the Clinton administration planned it when 20,000
U.S. soldiers were dispatched to restore Aristide's populist presidency
in 1994. Since then,
Washington has poured $3 billion into Haiti to fortify its nascent
democracy while watching with trepidation as Lavalas, which means "great
flood" in Creole, has
taken control of the country from the neighborhood to the national
level.
Although three decades of Duvalier family dictatorship are long gone
-- Jean-Claude Duvalier fled in 1986 -- Haiti's raw democracy is still
viewed by many here as a
winner-take-all proposition designed to benefit the victorious party's
most ardent supporters. As a result, Aristide and a largely unpopular coalition
of opposition
parties known as the Democratic Convergence have been unable to agree
on a more equitable political system and, as a result, have helped replant
the signposts
pointing Haiti's way toward chaos.
Asked at a news conference at the National Palace last week what his
biggest achievement has been over the past year, Aristide said: "When you
see the economic
resources we have had to work with, just preserving what peace we have
has been a major accomplishment."
The immediate political dispute stems from legislative elections held
in May 2000. Opposition leaders, backed by the United States and other
foreign governments,
contend the Lavalas-controlled Provisional Electoral Council unfairly
tabulated results from 10 Senate districts to make sure Lavalas candidates
avoided runoff
ballots.
Responding to the complaints, Aristide pressured those senators to resign
in July to make way for new elections he has proposed for later this year.
He has also
invited opposition members to join his government, agreed to a new
way of selecting an independent electoral oversight board and offered to
push forward all
legislative elections by two years.
But the United States has continued to block more than $500 million
in international loans -- a sum equal to roughly 5 percent of Haiti's gross
domestic product. It
says the government must take more steps to protect opposition members,
citing the attack on Lindor and another on opposition headquarters following
the most
recent coup attempt, on Dec. 17. Responding to a request by the Caribbean
Community to start releasing the money, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
said last
week that "we do not believe enough has been done yet to move the political
process forward."
While acknowledging that Aristide has taken steps toward an agreement,
a U.S. official here said, "the goal posts have moved" for what will be
required of the
government to ensure the safety of opposition members before new elections.
"We have not seen any proposal from the government that addresses all
of these issues adequately," the U.S. official said, adding that if such
an offer were made and
the Convergence refused it, "we would do something about it."
By holding up the money, Lavalas officials argue, the United States
is fostering instability that undermines its own interest in preventing
Haiti from becoming a major
source of illegal migration and a gateway for drugs passing north from
Colombia. As a result, Aristide's allies say, the real U.S. goal is to
replace Aristide with
someone more ideologically acceptable to the Bush administration.
U.S. Ambassador Brian Dean Curran dismissed that idea as "rubbish."
But on the street it has stirred resentment against the United States,
once revered here for
restoring the diminutive Aristide to power.
"The U.S. is committing a crime against Haiti," said Rene Civil, a Lavalas
member who rallied his Youth for People's Power organization to a recent
march in front of
the U.S. Embassy that included protesters wearing National Palace identification
cards. "The international community is only listening to the malicious
opposition, and
they are hoping for another coup."
As the political haggling continues, conditions in Haiti remain miserable
and show signs of deteriorating. Less than half the 8 million people have
access to potable
water. After twilight in the countryside, homes and business are lit
by candle except for the large Elf and Texaco gas stations, which have
their own generators.
Students gather by the gas pumps under the neon lights to finish homework.
In the capital, families pick lettuce from street-side garbage piles
as goats, pigs and dogs root around nearby. In a new phenomenon, kidnapping
networks have
begun to seize wealthy Haitians for ransom. Recent arrests have revealed
that the groups frequently work with the National Police, whose members
make less than
$200 a month.
Many of the poor still believe in Aristide, whose liberation theology
and brave defiance of the Duvalier dictatorship won him legions of followers.
But corruption has
cast a shadow over his party. Last month, riots broke out at a warehouse
on the Port-au-Prince docks on rumors that Lavalas senators were stealing
rice stored
there as part of a government aid program. The president has removed
a handful of party mayors accused of theft.
"There is only one person who can help us, and that is the president,"
said Manita Jean-Paul, 26, who with two friends sells warm Coke, dried
fish and ketchup from
a tin-roof shack in the dusty Delmas neighborhood. "It's not so much
that he is failing, but the people around him are."
Authorities say the Dec. 17 attack on the National Palace was connected
to an assault in July on a police academy in the capital during which five
officers were killed
and a cache of small arms was stolen. Those guns, authorities say,
were used in the December raid carried out by a roughly 30-member commando
team that
included former members of the Haitian military.
As the attack unfolded, security officials with Aristide, who was at
home in Tabarre, a suburb, were contacted by a commando taking part in
the coup attempt. The
commando said the attack was being carried out by a group of former
military officers and active members of the National Police, according
to a security agent who
heard the conversation. The commando identified the head of the group,
according to security officials, as Guy Philippe, a former Cap-Haitien
police chief.
Philippe, also a former member of the military, has denied involvement
from the Dominican Republic, where he has been detained. He fled Haiti
in November 2000
after U.S. officials passed the government intelligence that Philippe
and Jean-Jacques Nau, another member of the military and police chief,
were plotting a coup
before Aristide's election later that month.
Within hours of the attack, a mob of Lavalas supporters arrived at Convergence's
downtown headquarters and at the homes of at least three opposition members
in
the capital. They burned the buildings down. A U.S. official described
the reprisal as "a guided response" by the party to the palace attack.
"Aristide knew exactly what was going on," said Claude Roumain, a Convergence
leader. "He used the coup [attempt] to make a new political situation,
and to
reinforce his position."
Government security officials acknowledge that much of the network that
financed, planned and carried out the attack is still in place. The two
.50-caliber machine
guns used in the attacks are now being used to protect the palace,
and Aristide travels with a helicopter escort. His security detail of former
U.S. Special Forces
members, employees of the California-based Steele Foundation, has increased
from 10 to 16 agents.
"His assassination is the worst-case scenario that will evoke what happened in Rwanda," said Leslie Voltaire, the minister of Haitians living abroad.
Since Lindor's death, Aristide has fired Bony, the police chief and the two other "mayors" that make up the Petit-Goave town council.
But the radio station has yet to restart Lindor's call-in show. Many
opposition members have left town or gone into hiding, as have some members
of the "popular
organization" that killed him. Unrest, however, remains: On Saturday,
an attack on the police station by a mob apparently linked to the opposition
killed one officer
and prompted a mass arrest of Convergence members.
© 2002