Powers of the Caribbean

>>British scholar Peter Hallward examines
foreign meddling in Haiti and its role in
destabilizing an already troubled country

HERE FOR WHO? UN peacekeeper in Haiti

by SAMER ELATRASH

The coup that ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, endorsed by the U.S., France and Canada, continues to bitterly divide its opponents and supporters. Aristide, Haiti’s first freely elected president in 1990, attracted the enmity of Haiti’s opposition shortly after winning, leading to a first coup and a military government that lasted until 1994, leaving thousands of Haitians dead in its wake. Brought back to power with the help of the U.S. in 1994, Aristide served the remainder of his term and then won an election again in 2000. His second term was marked by protests by Haitian opposition groups and increasing denunciation by the U.S., Canada and France, who said Aristide was involved in human rights abuses. Aristide’s supporters and opponents of the 2004 coup say it was reminiscent of a tradition of foreign intervention in Haiti and attempts by a minority wealthy Haitian elite to control the impoverished country.

Peter Hallward, a professor of philosophy at Middlesex University in England, is the author of a recently published book, Damming the Flood, a formidably researched account of the coup that is critical of foreign intervention in Haiti. He spoke to the Mirror ahead of a scheduled talk in Montreal.

Mirror: We often come back to Aristide’s person, for good or bad. You conclude the book with an interview with Aristide, whom opponents say was involved in human rights abuses. Aren’t opponents of the coup a bit too defensive of Aristide?

Peter Hallward: He has strengths and weaknesses, like any other leader. In my opinion, he has many remarkable strengths but that’s neither here nor there; obviously it’s up to the Haitian people to pick their own leader, and in 1990 and 2000 they picked Aristide by overwhelming margins. Whether Aristide was a good or bad president is Haiti’s problem, not ours.

M: What is our problem? Why should we support someone in Haiti with those practices?

PH: What do you mean? What practices?

M: The use of armed gangs, for example.

PH: You mean the so-called chimères—pro-government partisans, living in poor neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince like Cité Soleil. Even a middle-of-the-road reporter like the Reuters correspondent Guyler Delva confirms that there’s no evidence to back up anti-Aristide claims that his government set out to arm groups of its poorest supporters, or encouraged them violently to suppress the “democratic opposition” more politically engaged analysts and journalists treat such claims with derision.

Of course, once opposition protests started [in late 2003] to call for the overthrow of Aristide’s government, their demonstrations met with vigorous counter-demonstrations. What would you expect? The opposition protests were led by former soldiers and leaders of the right-wing business community, and these people aren’t very popular in the poorer communities of Port-au-Prince, with good reason. The Haitian army killed thousands of [Aristide’s party] Lavalas supporters back in the early 1990s, during the first coup, and Aristide’s decision to disband the army after he came back to power in 1994 was extremely popular. In 2001–2004, the opposition to Aristide worked hand in hand with prominent ex-army leaders, in both a political and a paramilitary capacity.

Anti-Aristide analysts in the mainstream French and North American press regularly compared these chimères with the former dictator François Duvalier’s Tontons Macoutes. This is completely absurd. The Macoutes and their military associates killed upwards of 50,000 people. As far as I know, a total of two or three people died in clashes between pro- and anti-government demonstrators in Port-au-Prince in the last months of Aristide’s second government, in the face of extraordinary forms of provocation. In the whole of Aristide’s second government, the best evidence I’m aware of suggests that between 10 and 30 individuals might be described, often very loosely, as the victims of Lavalas political violence. This is much less than the number of people who died during these same years at the hands of anti-government forces, let alone the thousands of people killed during both the 1991–’94 and 2004–’06 coups.

Privatize or else

M: Why then has Aristide attracted so much opposition in Haiti and countries such as France, Canada and the U.S.?

PH: The main reason is a consequence of class struggle, if you don’t mind such unfashionable language. Aristide was a spokesman and symbol for popular empowerment. Haiti is a very polarized country: you have a very small, very concentrated elite, whose power derives largely from its ability to exploit and dominate the rest of the population. The vast majority of Haitian people live on next to nothing, something like a dollar a day. Aristide represented the political empowerment of these people.

The elite dealt with this threat in predictable ways. They used political and economic pressure to force Aristide to accept some unpopular compromises, and when necessary, they resorted to more direct forms of coercion. In order to get him to accept a neo-liberal structural adjustment plan in the early 1990s, the army and the “international community” colluded in the massacre of thousands of his supporters. This plan called for the removal of protective tariffs, the privatization of Haiti’s remaining state-owned enterprises, a reduction in the civil service etc. But Aristide only agreed to go along with these things if certain conditions were met, for instance if profits from privatization were invested in social services. These conditions weren’t met. Aristide’s “intransigent” refusal to pursue untrammelled privatization is one of the reasons why the international community turned against him, and encouraged them to overthrow his second government with a second coup.

M: What were the consequences of the coup in 2004?

PH: First of all, the coup dealt another devastating blow to Lavalas activists. Nobody knows how many were killed in the first week or two of the coup, but it’s clear that hundreds of people died. Hundreds more were killed later in 2004, once it became clear that opposition to the coup remained very strong; violent assaults on pro-Aristide neighbourhoods continued from September 2004 for a full year. Several thousand people died, altogether, and in less spectacular form, the repression continues to this day.

Food and politics

M: But there does seem to be some accountability. [Current president René Préval, who served as prime minister under Aristide’s first administration] sacked his cabinet after [Haitians rioted over the soaring cost of food] last month. Hasn’t there been some success at least after the coup in restoring Haiti’s political process?

PH: Yes and no. Préval’s election in February 2006 was a remarkable achievement. In 2006, [Préval] was still widely perceived as Aristide’s “twin brother.” By electing Préval rather than one of the supporters of the 2004 coup, the people sent a very clear signal. But Préval’s hands were tied, in all kinds of ways, and his approach has been mainly placatory. He’s tried to avoid offending the Haitian business community and their international backers. He’s pursued the old privatization agenda. And despite some tentative efforts, he hasn’t done very much for the bulk of the people who elected him: the poor.

Peter Hallward will deliver two
talks in Montreal, both on
Saturday, May 31. The first will be
at the Centre culturel Simon Bolivar
(394 de Maisonneuve W., 3 p.m., free),
the second at Café Culturel Volver
(5604 Parc, 7:30 p.m., $3, or free
with purchase of a book)