Haiti: 'No short-term miracles'
Donald Canaday
I though this was an Interesting article.
10/15/97- Updated 12:10 AM ET
Haiti: 'No short-term miracles'
JACMEL, Haiti - The dock is crumbling, almost ready to collapse into the
sea. The warehouse is empty and riddled with holes. Ocean waves bring only
drift wood and dead fish to the shore.
None of this seems to matter to Jacques Pieter. Each day the 32-year-old
artist carries his watercolor paintings to the dock. He places the art
upright against creaky posts. Then he watches the horizon for ships he
hopes will bring tourists to buy his paintings.
"When I look out into the sea, I can imagine the ships coming," Pieter
says. But these days, Pieter says, "it takes much imagination" to keep his
hope alive.
When the man many Haitians considered their messiah, Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, was returned to power three years ago today, Pieter was among
many Haitians who felt certain the promise of democracy would bring a
better life. Most had cheered the arrival of 23,000 U.S. troops, and the
promise of better roads, schools and hospitals.
But three year's after Aristide's return, the country is paralyzed and
people are angry. Many fear a complete collapse at the end of November.
That is when the remaining 1,300 United Nations peacekeeping troops will
leave Haiti, passing control of law-and-order to a new, untested national
police force.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will go to Haiti on Friday to show
continued U.S. support. But concern about new chaos is so strong that
signals are emerging that some type of multinational force may remain in
Haiti after U.N. peacekeepers leave next month.
"If the government and the people (of Haiti) want some kind of residual
international security presence, we ought to be prepared to give serious
consideration to that," U.S. ambassador William Swing said in an interview.
"My sense is we ought to be looking at the retention of some kind of
international civilian police force here."
Swing added, "There are no short-term miracles in a country that's fallen
as far as Haiti has."
There have been some improvements. Inflation, once a crushing 50% annually,
is now 20% a year. The lifting of economic sanctions has restored 50,000
jobs. The nation has a new $1.5 million emergency communications system,
and European and Japanese tourists are tentatively returning to Club Med
and other attractions here.
But Haiti remains the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Only 40% of
the population can read or write, and seven families control about 90% of
the wealth. Even worse for many of Haiti's 6.7 million people, the hope lit
by the arrival of U.S. troops in 1994 has been snuffed out like a voodoo
candle in a tropical storm.
"We have obtained a level of misery we have never reached before," says
Haitian businessman Georges Barau Sassine. "Moving one millimeter at a time
is not seeing progress. You can't ask people who don't have the habit of
planning, you can't ask people who live day to day, to have that kind of
long-term vision."
Restoring democracy only part of the answer
The hopes for a new Haiti began in violence. The elected president,
Aristide, had been in office only nine months when the military, led by
Gen. Raoul Cedras, overthrew the government Sept. 30, 1991. That became a
test of democracy in the Caribbean, drawing the United States into three
years of negotiations aimed at restoring Aristide to power.
President Clinton enlisted a powerful trio - former president Jimmy Carter,
Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff - to tell Cedras in September 1994 that it was time to leave.
Within a month, Cedras and the other coup leaders were in exile, Aristide
was home and U.S. troops were quietly in place. Not one U.S. soldier died
from hostile fire in Haiti.
U.S. intervention was sold to Congress and the American public primarily to
stop the flow of Haitian boat people to Florida. The flow stopped, but
Haitians heard other promises.
The impression left was that democracy would be a magic cure-all. Many
Haitians believed it when they saw U.S. soldiers who had black skin and
spoke Creole like they did. They believed it even more when they heard
diplomats promise to make the country livable, in part by confiscating guns
and educating new leaders.
Very little of that has happened.
A new five-mile road built by the U.S. military runs by the home of
Augustine Champage, but she finds little benefit. "Yes, it's a nice road,"
says Champage, 42, who lives with 11 family members in a small one-room
shack, "but it doesn't bring water for my beans and corn to grow."
Even if she could get a pump, there rarely is water in the nearby river.
Ideally, Haiti would have an irrigation system. But that project is far
down the recovery road.
Champage's situation typifies what Swing calls the "ultimate cycle that has
to be broken" before Haiti can rise. "The problem is that so much is in
need of repair in this country or in need of creation for the first time,"
Swing says.
Swing says the job of the U.S. government and other "friends of Haiti" is
to remind Haitians that "while things are not what they want, they are lot
better than they were and certainly not as bad as they think they are."
The mean streets of Haiti
Many disagree. Streets here still smell of garbage. Health care is minimal.
Most roads are a collection of chunks of asphalt. There actually is less
electrical power now than before the coup. And the slums in the capital of
Port-au-Prince remain rife with disease.
Because of the tough economic conditions, street violence has returned to
Haiti in full force. Motorists drive with locked doors. Restaurants and
hotels employ shotgun-wielding guards to escort guests to cars.
The economic violence is new. But political violence, for years contained
by armed foreign soldiers, also is resurgent and resembles the blatant
street killings that sent residents fleeing during the coup years.
Only 500 U.S. soldiers will remain after November, primarily to build roads
and train local authorities. The U.S. troops have clear orders not to serve
as peacekeepers.
Marine Col. John Stull, the outgoing commander of the U.S. force in Haiti,
says the United States hopes to "leave behind some projects that people can
use that improve their lives."
U.S. soldiers have rebuilt schools and clinics. They have collected food,
clothing and toys for distribution in Haiti. Military doctors have helped
provide some health care. Some roads have been built or repaired.
"I tell my troops you don't understand the impact you have, to set an
example of what we can do," Stull says. He tells his troops to "work with
dignity" and be "a role model to the Haitians on what a unified effort" can
produce.
A new 5,200-strong national police force is being trained to provide
internal security. But the force lacks experience and competent senior
leadership, Swing and other officials say.
Aristide ready to run again?
The politics of Haiti remain another great unknown. Aristide ended his term
peacefully, and Rene Preval was elected president of Haiti in December
1995. It was the first time in Haitian history that one democratically
elected president was followed into office by another.
Aristide was the spiritual soul of the masses when he returned three years
ago. He was viewed as a holy leader from the Catholic Church and a
political leader as important as South Africa's Nelson Mandela. Aristide is
now married and the father of a 11-month-old girl. He lives behind his
walled house outside of Port-au-Prince along a new $20 million paved road.
Aristide has hired 1,200 former soldiers as his personal bodyguards. That
move infuriated some Haitians who fear Aristide is building a personal
army, which historically in Haiti results in political unrest.
Many poor Haitians now refer to Aristide as "a big eater," a term of scorn
in a country where few have enough food for one good meal a day.
By most accounts from diplomats and businessmen, Aristide seems eager to
hold his political capital for 2000, when he can run for a second term as
president. Aristide also has resumed criticizing the United States for
causing Haiti's problems, including calling U.S. and U.N. troops an
"occupation force."
It is similar to the criticism he used when running for president in 1991,
criticism he dropped while exiled in Washington awaiting U.S. help to
return to power.
A tourist stop, but for how long?
Ironies are everywhere in Haiti. One of the hot, new gourmet coffees now
marketed in the United States and Europe is called New Blue Mountain. It is
grown in the mountains of southeast Haiti by farmers who received initial
funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Exports now
total $22 million.
Club Med reopened its Haiti facility in 1996 and has a steady stream of
European guests. Tourist ships have returned to the north coast of Haiti. A
branch of Carnival Cruises is considering adding a stop at Cap-Haitien, in
northern Haiti, as part of a new Caribbean itinerary. There also are
organized ground tours of Haiti, primarily from European countries, but
with a smattering from Japan.
"Haiti is not a bad tour for those wanting a little bit of roughing it,"
says Andreas Herhaus, with TUI, a German tourist agency.
But in the real Haiti, supporters of the armed intervention wonder how
"democracy" has been defined in the minds of Haitians.
"There were inflated hopes and now all the energy is worn off," says
Sassine, the businessman. "The masses of the people are finding a country
they do not want. They are comparing this situation to democracy and this
is no good."
Joseph Miedai, 21, survives by selling fish along National Route 1, the
main north-south road in Haiti. Each month, it seems he has to swim farther
and farther out to catch the fish he will sell to fewer and fewer
customers. He casts the problem in a traditional Haitian analogy. Some day
"the water will be too deep," Miedai says. And then his life will be over.
By Tom Squitieri, USA TODAY
--
My views are my own and in no way represent the views of NCR.
Have a nice day.
Don
lau...@mass-usr.com
In article <01bcd9cd$dbbdbfa0$d643...@canadd-cn.ncr.com>,
Very interesting indeed...:
> 10/15/97- Updated 12:10 AM ET
<snip>:
> Aristide has hired 1,200 former soldiers as his personal bodyguards. That
> move infuriated some Haitians who fear Aristide is building a personal
> army, which historically in Haiti results in political unrest.
>
1200 personal bodyguards? Damn, I need a gig like his. What is he afraid
of? Where did he find the kind of money to finance such venture? Do most
SCHers still see him as this messianic figure?
> Aristide also has resumed criticizing the United States for
> causing Haiti's problems, including calling U.S. and U.N. troops an
> "occupation force."
>
Is that the same Titid who invited the foreign troops to Haiti?
My analysis:
With so many armed bandits and fragmented armies roaming the streets
of Haiti, we are setting the stage and dynamics of yet another
Lebanon or Ethiopia. The country is ripe for a civil war, all the
elements are in place, all we need is a lit fuse, and kaboom!
I think the withdrawal of the UN troops will be the catalyst of our
next era of darkness, in the meantime, the actors and fomentors
are basking in an incestuous pool of incompetence, nepotism and
"sans-hontisme". Usual victims: Pitit Soyette yo.
As for me, I am seriously considering moving to Cuba, this sh*t
is too depressing....
Aly
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