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The exiled Haitian leader asserts that he was forced out by American military forces against his will. The U.S. has denied this. The Prime Minister of Jamaica and Chairman of CARICOM, P.J. Patterson, has quite rightly reserved judgment until he has further and better particulars. But Mr. Patterson did question whether the reported resignation of Mr. Aristide 'was truly voluntary.' He went on to put in stark terms the implications of the removal of Mr. Aristide from office.
The senior CARICOM Prime Minister said the circumstances set "a dangerous precedent for democratically-elected governments anywhere and everywhere." We agree with him.
Mr. Aristide was the democratically-elected President of Haiti. Despite persistent claims by his opponents that the 2000 elections, which saw him return to power, were flawed, none were able to argue convincingly that his was not the will of the Haitian people. However, there is enough to indict Mr. Aristide as an incompetent President whose absolutist style did nothing to build badly needed social capital in his impoverished country. He failed to use the fund of goodwill he had built up as a caring and passionate priest to build alliances across the social, economic and political divides in Haiti. His arming of thugs to intimidate his political opponents was no different from the Duvaliers' Ton Ton Macoutes whom he railed against. But that thuggery and use of violence as the primary tool of political organisation has been the tragic trajectory of Haitian politics. Aristide was supposed to have been the symbolic break. Haiti needed to have made a peaceful and democratic transition from the failed Aristide era so as to begin the slow and painful establishment of democratic roots. Sadly, the United States, France and Canada have sent the wrong signals to the rebels, who are no less guilty of thuggery, that once again the gun dictates who sits in Haiti's Presidential Palace. For the rest of CARICOM, fears that this Bush administration is a bully that has demonstrated a frightening level of ruthlessness to wage war to impose its narrow ideological will are not entirely without foundation. The deception that weapons of mass destruction were in the wrong hands in Iraq as the basis for going to war last year and the declaration that if you are not with us, then you are against us, trigger real fears about the current occupants of the White House. We must remind President Bush that the USA is the greatest nation on earth today because of the ideals that embody the American spirit democracy, the rule of law, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Not its superior military machine. (Reprinted from the Jamaica Gleaner edition of Wednesday March 3, 2004)