i haven't really posted about haiti here, largely because so far i have had little to say. haiti is one of those complex situations which is it difficult for even a monday morning quarterback like myself to comment on. i just haven't been able to think of any options that will lead to a good result. the likely result of virtually any decision is either the rise of a brutal oppressive regime or a period of sustained chaos on the island. i am disappointed with aristide, but not sure if any of the alternatives are anything but worse.
in the early 1990s i was an aristide supporter. he really did have a moving story, a poor priest, thrown out of his catholic order because he bucked the conservative ideology coming out of rome, and surprising everyone by being elected to the presidency in haiti’s first free and fair election. when he was overthrown 8 months later. the first bush administration tried to portray him as “mentally unbalanced” as the junta leaders (who for some reason bush the first saw as the paragon of sanity) embarked upon a brutal reign of terror on the island. the day aristide was forced out of power i was a college student. i remember seeing the newpaper headline on the kitchen table that morning while one of my housemates pointed at the headline and said "this should come as no surprise, the guys name is 'arresteed'" (sounds like "arrested"). but aristide was not arrested, he managed to get out of the country and spent 2 years in exile in the u.s.
during his exile, i saw him speak in chicago. he was a good speaker. he spoke compellingly about the need for democracy in haiti and how he had hoped to be one of the first (the first?) haitian leader to leave office peacefully. there was no question in my mind this man was not at all "mentally unbalanced."
nevertheless, i had serious misgivings about the u.s. invasion in 1994 to restore him to power. the previous time the u.s. invaded the island to restore order, we occupied the country for 40 years, and only then when the first of a series of pro-american dictators was firmly installed there. but i was pleasantly surprised. aristide even stepped down peacefully when his term ended in 1995. if he had stopped there, i probably would still be a fan of aristide today.
but in the late 1990s he decided to run for the presidency a second time. he won again. in 2000 however, aristide got into a standoff with his political opponents over the fraud-ridden parliamentary elections of 2000. both sides refused to compromise and haiti ended up without a functioning legislature and it has not had a parliament with any sense of legitimacy since then, leaving aristide to rule virtually by decree. aristide began to lose his support among the democrats and poor in haitian society. his support was further eroded as he replaced the u.s. trained national police force with his cronies and, when civil society started to break down on the island, supported (or at least did not try to stop) armed gangs who would attack his opponents.
given aristide’s recent turn, it is really no surprise that the situation on the island has crumbled so rapidly. on the other hand, it’s not like the u.s has not played its own part in encouraging the chaos there. see haiti: malign neglect. furthermore, while i am no longer a fan of aristide, he was the elected leader of the country. that at least gives him a step-up legitimacy wise over any of the alternatives. furthermore, as many others have noted, the people who are now assuming power in haiti are the same thugs who overthrew aristide the first time and brutally suppressed the population in his absence. aristide, for all his flaws, has nothing like the record of human rights violations of these guys.
so if you’re looking for the lessor of two evils, aristide is clearly it. but given the bush administration's almost knee-jerk distaste for aristide, american leaders’ tendency to see problems in haiti primarily as a refugee question and the undeniable fact that a hardline repressive government in haiti, at least in the short term, is the best bet to stem the tide of refugees (though the mid-1990s proved that in the long term it does just the opposite), i have no trouble believing that aristide did not voluntarily resign the other day. maybe he did. but in this context it’s easy to believe that the reason he was escorted off the island secretly with a bunch of heavily armed marines was not for his own protection.
