The context
in which this has taken place—the U.N. mission known as
MINUSTAH based on a multinational, 9,000-strong stabilization
force—has something to do with what has happened. That mission
has failed to accomplish its purpose and has become a lightning
rod for a grassroots revival of Aristide’s followers and
for the horrific violence of many of his followers, including
the notorious “chimères.” The fact that Aristide’s
opponents, known as the bourgeois entrepreneurs, are anything
but bourgeois and entrepreneurial—and certainly not democratic
or peaceful--has also given Aristide a major boost in the lawless
slums of Cité Soleil and Bel-Air.
According
to a recent study by Amnesty International, a hospital recorded
1,400 Haitians with bullet wounds in 10 months. 1,500 people have
been killed in the last two years. An estimated 10 kidnappings
take place every day. Street gangs roam the streets, especially
in places like Cité Soleil, terrorizing the population,
and each faction seems to have its own radio station. Due to the
reigning chaos, the elections had to be postponed four times.
The U.N. soldiers and the interim government of President Boniface
Alexandre and Primer Minister Gerard Latortue have been unable
to disarm Haitians. It doesn’t surprise me that general
Urano Bacellar, the former military chief of the U.N. forces,
committed suicide a few weeks ago. What is surprising is that
he didn’t lose hope a lot earlier.
If Aristide—the
former President who left the country in 2004 just as his palace
was about to be assaulted by opposing thugs—had planned
it all, he couldn’t have been better. The international
mission has failed and his own man, René Préval,
who governed the country in between two Aristide administrations,
is now the legitimate winner (even if he has to fight a runoff
election that will be a mere formality.) He has repeatedly said
Aristide is free to go back—which, of course, is constitutionally
and legally true. However, in order to calm the elites overlooking
this chaos from their residences in Piétonville, Preval
has also said he will not protect Aristide from criminal investigations
if he comes back. But, given the real situation in the streets,
what guarantee is this pledge of anything?
The backdrop
to this political nightmare is dirt-poor misery and the absence
of any law. Haiti was once the wealthiest colony of the New World.
So much so that Napoleon entertained wild dreams of using it as
the bedrock of a worldwide empire (the black rebel Toussaint Louverture
managed to inflict a military defeat on Napoleon a good while
before Wellington did him in at Waterloo). Today it is a country
with a per capita income of $390 and a population that is 50 percent
illiterate. Any attempt at resolving these social tragedies needs
to start with the establishment of some very basic institutions
in a climate of reasonably peaceful coexistence. And that, precisely,
is what the eleven governments that Haiti has had in the last
20 years—that is, since the collapse of Baby Doc’s
tyranny—failed to do.
The only
president who managed to finish his term is the same guy who came
first in Tuesday’s elections. Except that he governed under
the shadow of Aristide and was succeeded by him. Of course, Aristide,
who had the best shot at founding a new republic—overwhelming
popular legitimacy, international support, and an education that
should have given him a sense of where to go and where not to
go--opted instead for a hallucinatory form of despotism unique
even in a hemisphere that is an encyclopedia of despots, behaving
like a character in Alejo Carpentier’s famous novel on Haiti,
The Kingdom of this World.
Is there
a solution? The most important objective—replacing the republic
of guns with a republic of laws--is simply not realistic in the
near future. The best hope—still a long shot—lies
in René Préval obtaining enough personal legitimacy
that he may abandon Aristide’s shadow without succumbing
to Aristide’s thugs while at the same time keeping the heirs
of the Duvalier era at bay. That would allow him to start disarming
the various militias and provoke an erosion of their social base.
Is all of
this, which ultimately depends on Préval becoming his own
man both vis-à-vis Aristide, the elites and the U.N. mission
itself, remotely possible? Yes, remotely.
