The Boston Connection Magazine/ April 1999

The Boston Connection Magazine/ April - May, 1999

DEMOCRACY PURISTS RUIN HAITI

By: Georgie Anne Geyer

Washington- People are saying that the newest breakdown of law and order in Haiti last week is a victory for no one. Analysts are arguing as though these newest threats to “Haitian democracy” were threats to a system that actually existed.
   Even Haitian President Rene Preval, whose own sister was the target of one of the most bitter recent attacks by unknown roving forces, addressed whether Haiti is really breaking down this time, by explaining: “We are trying to build something called democracy.”
   I see it all a little differently. I think that what is happening in Haiti today could have been, if not avoided, at least ameliorated. I also think Haiti IS a victory for someone; for the purists, who want total democracy everywhere and will not rest until they’ve destroyed still another country to save it.
   Although I have been visiting Haiti since 1961, always fascinated by its beautiful gingerbread houses, its vivid reefs and its rich artistic culture, it was on a visit in 1982 that the first tragedy closing in upon Haiti became clear to me.   By then, on flying into Port-au-Prince, instead of the gorgeous green mountains of Haiti, one saw only gray, dead, ravaged mountainsides. The peasants in their “slash and burn” agriculture were dislodging the topsoil.
   Then, 17 years ago when something might still have been done, 6,800 square miles of the nation’s 10,800 square miles were already no longer arable. Today, there is virtually no topsoil left.
   Things continued to decline in Haiti, irrevocably but slowly, until 1991, when the process of disintegration suddenly speeded up. The most popular politician on the island, the volatile and charismatic priest President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who could at least have bought time for the island because he was so much the hero of the poor, was exiled by the military. To the consequent reign of terror, the great powers of Europe and America reacted with . . . a trade embargo.
A trade embargo: Think of it.
   Haiti is a country of approximately 6 million living on a barren island in unspeakable poverty.   But it was a country that did have roughly 80,000 jobs in little industries making baseballs (Haiti made most of the world’s baseballs) and clothing. Those were lifeline jobs that supported probably a fourth of the population. By making it impossible for the plants to import the necessary goods, the self-righteous embargo (by American policymakers who did not want to dirty their hands using real power) deftly destroyed every one of those industries.
   In 1993, I remember talking in Port-au-Prince to a rough, rich and powerful Lebanese-Haitian millionaire trader, Elias Cassis. Standing downtown in the old market outside his rundown but busy shop, he said to me: “You don’t have an economic situation today because everything has broken down. We used to receive money in the customs. Twenty years ago, Haiti received customs of $90 million. Today, not half that! Today, this country does not have one penny. The Haitian ‘gourde’ is worth nothing.”
   Finally, he looked me squarely in the eye, and said, “Madame, this country does not exist!”
   Having thus destroyed the economy of the poorest country in the hemisphere, the Clinton administration, along with the United Nations, then carried out, on the other crucial levels of politics and security, policies destined to complete the nation’s moral and physical destruction.
   Instead of using the minimal political and military force that would have been necessary
to get the brutal Haitian military out, the United States sent a soon-to-become-notorious ship, the “Harlan County,” carrying Seabees and others to build schools and hospitals for Haiti. When the military goons demonstrated violently on the wharf, the ship turned back (direct orders of President Bill Clinton).
    Soon after, President Aristide was brought back, the Haitian military leaders were paid well to go into exile, and the United States and the United Nations sent more peaceable troops to perform crucial jobs such as training a new police force. The problem was that sufficient forces were never sent with a strong enough mandate to do anything. On top of that, Aristide was prevented from running again (not “democratic” to have him succeed himself), leaving the political field to men without his charismatic capacity to bridge this period of desperation.
   In effect, everybody was just supposed to “be nice” and forget what had happened: the killings, the annihilation of the economy, the need for justice. Is it really any wonder, then, that the hapless successor government to Aristide began to fall apart?
   There are many devils and few angels here, but it must be remembered that the Clinton administration constantly names Haiti as one of its biggest foreign policy successes.   And there is finally one devil above all: the purists, mostly Americans, who dreamed of some perfect “democracy” in Haiti that was always a mythological creature and who have so self-righteously refused to use their power to give Haiti a real chance. The purists made the other devils look good.