Haiti
Editorial
Stabroek News
April 18, 2004
Haiti is not, and in the last fifty years has probably never been a state in the modern sense of that term. There are no functioning civil institutions which would allow for bureaucratic government in the traditional sense, let alone any which have ever demonstrated the kind of autonomy necessary to sustain a viable democracy. The situation at the moment is made worse by the fact that there is also no single authority whose reach extends into every community in the land; authority, such as it is, derives from the barrel of a gun, and the authority conferred by one weapon can only be superseded by the authority of a bigger one.
Currently, the country is a patchwork of armed gangs, who protect their own piece of real estate against penetration by outsiders, dispensing 'justice' within their borders with varying degrees of brutality. Superimposed on this, of course, are the 'peacekeepers' with the biggest guns of all, who as yet have not elected to enforce the authority which those weapons confer.
When the Americans zoomed into Haiti for the second time in a decade with the French and others in tow, the argument in favour of their intervention was that they could prevent the descent of the country into anarchy; they could disarm the gunmen; and they could give support to an interim administration which would bring together the polarized political factions in order to create the conditions for another attempt at some institution-building, and for the holding of a free and fair election.
Leaving aside the issue of the circumstances under which former President Aristide departed, it has to be said that preventing large-scale bloodshed in the first instance was contingent on him leaving office. Apart from anything else, the Americans were not about to place their soldiers' lives at risk in Haiti when they were already mired in Iraq, more especially since this was an election year. Had they gone in to secure Mr Aristide in office, and the rebels had still decided to move into Port-au-Prince, they would either have had to confront them, thereby placing their troops in the firing line, or else stand back and watch Philippe's gunmen fight it out with Arisitide's Chimeres - which would have defeated the whole purpose of the exercise.
As an aside it might be noted that while a great deal has been written about the removal of a democratically elected leader, Mr Aristide's credentials in this department are flawed, in addition to which, his human rights record is poor. If all of this sounds very familiar in a Haiti context, it must be said that the abuses of Mr Aristide's government certainly did not reach the levels of the Duvaliers, whose Ton-Ton Macoutes became an international byword for savagery, or even those of his predecessor, Raoul Cedras, whose FRAPH thugs terrorized ordinary Haitians with impunity. But there is something else distinguishing Mr Aristide which has been pointed out by Tristram Korten in the Miami New Times. "In the past," he wrote, "guns had been the dividing line between the haves and have-nots; the victims of the Macoutes and FRAPH were mostly the unarmed poor. Aristide armed them, and guns became their empowerment."
So now Haiti is bristling with firearms, many of them, as stated above, having been distributed by Mr Aristide's own administration. On the other side, of course, are the assorted rebels carrying a variety of sophisticated weapons, many of whose leaders, like Chamblain, have the most appalling human rights records dating from the pre-Aristide days. These are the men in charge of the north and central provinces, and these are the men whom the Americans should have disarmed quickly after they arrived, before the rebels entrenched themselves. But the Americans didn't do so, and as long as they remain armed, Aristide's men in the slums will not relinquish their guns either - understandably so, given their vulnerability.
Since nothing can happen in Haiti unless the country is disarmed and some measure of security is restored, why have the Americans not acted? One can only assume that the answer lies in the fact that the US is pulling out its forces in two months, and has decided to pass the problem on to its successors; that way its soldiers will be kept relatively safe in the interim.
It seems likely that the Brazilians may be the ones to assume the leadership of the UN multilateral peacekeeping forces for six months after the US forces depart, and if so, the problem will land in their lap. In a recent interview with the Miami Herald, Mr Roger Noriega said that disarmament would be a gradual effort, and that the peacekeepers may pay for guns and information on hidden weapons. This is an approach which has probably been borrowed from Liberia, although whether it would work well in Haiti remains to be seen.
But there are other more disturbing signals coming out of Haiti. The main one relates to Prime Minister Latortue, who has identified himself with the rebels, who has excluded Mr Aristide's party from his government, and who is pursuing a blatantly partisan approach when going after those accused of human rights abuses - ie, only Aristide supporters and former members of his government are being sought. In the meantime, Mr Chamblain roams around unfettered.
It is true that suggestions from the interim government that some of the rebels could be inducted into the new police force was promptly quashed by US Secretary of State Colin Powell when he breezed into Haiti last week, but that fact notwithstanding, one does not get the impression that the White House is shouting as loudly as it should into Mr Latortue's ear.
On the matter of why the notorious Mr Chamblain had not been arrested, Mr Noriega told the Herald that some rebels, including Chamblain, should be detained and in due course brought to trial. "There had to be some accountability for political violence," he said, "but the truth is that right now there is no judicial system that can impose its will." What is true for Chamblain, of course, should also be true for Aristide's people, but in this case, the system - such as it is - is functioning only in relation to one side. It would have been more accurate if Mr Noriega had admitted that Chamblain cannot be arrested until he and his comrades have first been disarmed.
While everyone waits to see what success the UN peacekeepers will have disarming Haitians after the American troops have left, one hopes that Caricom in the meantime will concern itself less about the mode of Mr Aristide's departure, and more about what is going on now in Haiti.
One would wish that the organization would join with the OAS in lobbying the Americans, in particular, to ensure that Mr Latortue is not allowed to drag that nation into another cycle of partisan government, with all that that implies. And the Americans, who in the final analysis will hold the purse strings, should be persuaded to tell Mr Latortue this in as strident a tone as is necessary.