After the massacres: 'Work with us or we overthrow you' - the new democracy in Haiti
Guyana and the Wider World
by Dr Clive Thomas
Stabroek News
March 28, 2004
Readers would recall that the discussion on Haiti in these columns during the past few weeks, had started before the ouster of Aristide. More specifically, the topic was introduced in the context of the proposition that three problems, which are at present on the front-burner of the regional agenda, had the potential between them to profoundly alter, if not undermine, current efforts at CARICOM integration. The three mentioned were Haiti; the border disputes involving Barbados, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago; and, the long drawn-out process of establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). The amount of time I have spent on Haiti has been much longer than was originally intended, but this simply reflects the momentous developments in that country in the aftermath of Aristide's ouster, which I could not ignore. This week's contribution continues to address the Haiti issue in response to continuing developments, but I do intend to return to my original intention, hopefully next week.
In last week's article I had described the treatment meted out to Aristide and his wife in the Central African Republic as befitting a prisoner, not a former head of state. Thus I drew attention to the fact that Aristide had restricted access to a telephone (only 15 minutes a day), to electricity (lights were turned of at 9.30pm) and exercise outside the apartment. A kind reader has since advised that the apartment he was placed in had no running water! And, as if to indicate who was in overall charge of his circumstances, the reader adds it has been reported that the Central African Republic had sought the "permission" of the USA, France and Togo before approval was given for Aristide to leave and travel to Jamaica.
Political suicide
Bad as these things are, to my mind nothing could compare with the other outrageous developments that have occurred within Haiti itself over the past week. This column has consistently argued that, whatever legitimate political opposition existed in Haiti before Aristide's ouster, it has effectively committed political suicide (and possibly physical suicide also), when it rejected the CARICOM proposal for a political solution in the form of an immediate transitional national government, and insisted instead on Aristide's ouster as a pre-condition for their acceptance of that proposal.
My reason for expressing this judgement so strongly is that I feared (what has come to pass) a situation where the criminal-led rebel forces constituted the only effective Haitian controlled power base. This means that the 'peace mission' when it leaves Haiti, as it soon will, will have to hand over power to this group or its 'created' successor. This will come about because a major, but not openly stated objective of the 'peace mission' is to root out the influence in Haitian politics of the only other remaining power base, the Aristide Lavalas Family party.
The present interim head of the Haitian government, Latortue, is a selected, and not elected leader. He has no local power base yet one of his first public political acts has turned out to be, to say the least, the most despicable imaginable. He visited his hometown Gonaives, which is the fourth-largest city in Haiti, 15 days after being placed in power to share a platform with the criminal leadership of the rebel forces. On that platform, he not only praised this leadership but also paid direct tribute to an assassinated gangster, Amiot Metayer. This gangster was the head of the notorious Cannibal Army street gang. Latortue even called for a minute's silence in respect of his memory, in the presence of such other notorious criminals as Winter Etienne, the 'self-declared' Mayor of the city. This same Etienne has already brazenly let it be known that the city is, and will continue to be, run by the rebels who 'liberated' it from Aristide.
Work with us or we overthrow you
Meanwhile, as the rebel forces keep tight control over their weapons, the 'peace mission' is more and more being diverted to focus on Aristide supporters and loyalist gunmen, while keeping its distance from the rebel forces. It is instructive that the US government's original expressed intention to confiscate illegal weapons in the hands of Haitians seems no longer to apply. Originally, the general who oversees the Haitian operation declared, "guns must be taken off the streets." But now Ronald Coleman who heads the multinational force is being reported by Reuters as retreating from this commitment, making it clear that this is a task for Haitian security forces!
As reported in the Jamaica Observer (March 21), rebel leaders have openly admitted to the foreign press that they "have weapons spread throughout the country." Butteur Metayer (brother of the assassinated Cannibal Army gang leader, Amiot) declared that their plan is "to keep working with the Latortue government." He also made it pointedly clear that "if the government cannot work with us, we will overthrow it."
Such statements show how thin and brittle is the layer of respectability that some try to give to these murderous thugs, who are in the main previously convicted of massacres in Haiti and narco-traffickers, who now pose as liberators of the Haitian masses. As their statements show, success against Aristide has encouraged them to view that violence and actions outside the law and Constitution of Haiti are the accepted norms for resolving political differences. If such views and behaviour continue to grow within a CARICOM member state, their unwelcome influence will surely spread beyond the confines of that country into the rest of the region.
All of us, not only Haitians, therefore face a grave danger in this situation. We also face the danger that CARICOM governments could seek to manipulate the legitimate democratic and constitutional concerns felt by the broad mass of West Indian peoples, in a manner designed to insulate them from their own domestic opposition. It could also embolden some of them to abuse these concerns, by using them as a weapon to pre-empt public dissent. After all, several CARICOM governments not only face strong domestic opposition, but have in the past shown a strong penchant for acting outside democratic norms, and at times even acting extra-judicially and extra-constitutionally to maintain themselves in political office.