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Another military intervention in
Haiti
• President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide affirms he was removed from power by the
United States
BY LIDICE VALENZUELA
—Special for Granma International—
Haiti is once again facing foreign military
intervention, after Jean Bertrand Aristide, the
constitutional president, a former Catholic priest
who assumed government in 2001 with wide popular
backing, was forced by the United States and France
to abandon the country.
Aristide stated that he was kidnapped and the victim
of a coup undertaken with the complicity of
Washington, whose authorities took him to the
Central African Republic, where he is in the custody
of French soldiers.
In a
telephone interview with CNN, Aristide said that a
group of U.S. soldiers came to his residence and
forced him to sign a document resigning from his
position.
Meanwhile the CARICOM member countries were called
to an urgent meeting by that regional organization’s
president, Jamaican Prime Minister Percival
Patterson, to discuss the crisis in Haiti. Patterson
expressed his reservations over the circumstances
that resulted in Aristide’s departure from the
Port-au-Prince National Palace.
This
is the second time that Aristide, aged 50, has been
forced to abandon his small nation – considered the
poorest in Latin America and the Caribbean – and
precisely in the year of the bicentenary of the
Haitian Revolution and the constitution of the
Republic.
Initially under French colonial rule and
subsequently looted by continuous military
dictatorships, Haiti shares its island territory
with the Dominican Republic, where Aristide traveled
prior to arriving in the Central African Republic.
Analysts believe that the origin of the current
crisis goes back to the violent murder last December
of opposition leader Amoiot Metayer, one of those in
charge of the paramilitary groups that have now
brought chaos and death to various cities.
The
government of the former Salesian priest was accused
of Metayer’s murder by the opposition, after which
the violence began to escalate that had its climax
on February 5 with 80 deaths, hundreds of injuries
and incalculable material losses.
Diplomatic sources state that generations of
Haitians have lived in fear of the military and
their murderous gangs, and are consigned to inferior
roles by a minority sector of individuals who make
up just one per cent of the population but control
and dominate the national wealth.
At
this juncture, despite his conciliation attempts
towards the opposition, Aristide was forced to
abandon his post, in a repetition of his own
political history. Elected in 1990 in the first free
elections after more than 20 years of the Duvalier
dictatorship (father and son), he was toppled one
year later by a bloody military coup led by General
Raoul Cedrás, but returned to the country to popular
acclaim in 1994 despite international pressure, and
thanks to a secret agreement negotiated with Cedrás
by former U.S. President James Carter.
The
return of the former priest was backed up by 20,000
soldiers sent in by Carter with UN consent.
René
Preval replaced Aristide in the 1995 elections as
the Haitian constitution prohibits a second
consecutive mandate. Five years later, Aristide once
again stood for election and won the current
mandate, due to conclude in 2006.
On
the two occasions that he found himself Haitian head
of state, the former priest – who was ordained in
1982 and expelled from his order in 1988 for his
defense of Liberation Theology – was the great hope
of the Haitian people. He had a key role in the
popular uprising that brought decades of
dictatorship to an end during the 1980s.
But
his second government was tainted by allegations of
irregularities during the election process, pressure
from ex-military personnel who wanted to occupy
positions of power at all costs and even, according
to many analysts, not meeting the commitments given
to Washington when it helped him return to the
presidency.
In
September 2002, the Organization of American States
(OAS) passed a resolution in support of lifting the
economic sanctions imposed on Haiti in exchange for
creating an Electoral Council within two months in
order to organize elections in 2003, but the time
period expired without anything happening. At the
end of the year, the opposition called the first
general strike demanding Aristide’s resignation from
government. Right-wing media channels launched a
series of campaigns directed at creating chaos and
confusion and, according to official spokespersons,
making libelous claims in an attempt to discredit
the president and his followers.
It
was his former protector the United States that
eventually pressured Aristide into resigning at the
end of last week, subsequently acknowledging that it
had “facilitated” his departure under top security
in order to save his life.
FRUITLESS ATTEMPTS TO AVOID CRISIS
Over
the last few weeks, the advance of armed gangs led
by former military leaders and members of the coup
faction placed President Aristide in a compromising
situation, despite the fact he insisted on several
occasions that he would not resign. He attempted to
hold talks with the opposition and requested aid
from international organizations.
He
never closed the door to conciliation efforts, as
was seen on February 21 when he accepted a plan of
action from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
presented by an international mediation delegation,
made up of representatives from the United States,
Canada, France, the OAS and CARICOM.
The
project, which never progressed because of the
opposition’s stance, contained a compromise formula
though which a new prime minister with certain
constitutional powers would be named. Although it
appeared that the United States was supporting the
president, in private that nation had continued to
distance itself from him.
Meanwhile the OAS, the organization supposedly
responsible for security and peace within the
region, went in for ineffective remedies and failed
to adopt a firm position in order to defend the
constitutional president. Nor did the United Nations
play its part. It only responded when Aristide had
gone, by sending in a multinational force hours
after military troops from the United States,
Canada, France and Brazil – all of them united in
the high-sounding Friends of Haiti group, which also
includes Chile and the CARICOM states – had already
landed, prepared to post their soldiers there for a
three-month period. A sufficient amount of time for
restoring calm, they say.
The
Haitian civil opposition, which was unwilling to
enter into talks with the president and insisted on
calling for his immediate resignation, accepted the
arrival of the multinational force – to be replaced
by a UN peace-keeping force, according to an
agreement contracted with that organization last
Monday – whilst violence was still reigning the
capital city, Port-au-Prince.
Guy
Phillipe, leader of the military bands and the
former police chief who led the frustrated coup
d’état in December 2001, announced an end to the
“war” and welcomed the arrival of the U.S. Marines.
“We need them,” affirmed Phillipe, who stated that
he was prepared to lay down arms and support interim
President Boniface Alexandre, leader of the Supreme
Court of Justice.
Various media channels are anticipating a
humanitarian catastrophe with unforeseeable
consequences. The paramilitary groups accompanied
their actions with looting and setting fire to
installations, thus food supplies are virtually
exhausted and the mass exodus of those trying to
abandon the island in search of refuge are
continuing. The governments of Jamaica, Venezuela
and South Africa have expressed their disapproval of
the overthrow of the president.
WHAT’S IN STORE FOR HAITI?
On
the two occasions on which he was elected president,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide represented a possibility for
economic and social change for the Haitian people,
according to his party’s political project.
Immersed in tremendous poverty as a result of
political corruption and international economic
sanctions, Haiti’s history is plagued with
continuous political, social and economic crises.
There have been 32 coup d’états since the nation
became a republic.
There is nothing to suppose that such a panorama
could change. Doubtless the parties involved in the
military intervention in Haiti will advocate a
transitional government and announce general
elections, in which some of those involved in the
president’s overthrow will appear as candidates.
Any
prediction for this small and impoverished nation
involves the military, whose thirst for personal
gain is infinite. It will bear no relation with
searching for a solution to poverty, debt, lack of
education and healthcare, low incomes or the unrest
that has rocked Haiti throughout its history.
Those who believe that a foreign military presence
will constitute a guarantee for pacifying the
country are making a great error. When those
soldiers return to their bases, life will be the
same in this little nation, the first free republic
in the Caribbean and a country that today, in the
21st century, possesses levels of poverty that are
medieval. We have seen the film already.
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