Waiting for Aristide
AFTER the coup d'etat of 30 September 1991, the deposed President,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, chose, by and large, to place his hope in international diplomacy. This strategy, which left the Haitian people on the sidelines, led to the signing of the "Governor's Island Accord". This agreement was a trap, as recent events have shown.
International Viewpoint #251 December 1993 d'etat. During the day, the USA denounced the coup; by nightfall, they were sending planes filled with arms.
There then followed an attempt to set up the semblance of a civilian government. But the government of Marc Bazin was never anything more
ARTHUR MAHON - 22 November 1993
VER the last few weeks, we have seen some strange events in the United States of America (USA). While President Bill Clinton was saying that he did not exclude recourse to the use of force in order to secure Aristide's return, a number of politicians levelled a series of accusations against the deposed Haitian president.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) brought out the old files it had assembled several years ago in collaboration with the Vatican. Henry Kissinger, said to be a representative of important American interests in Haiti's island neighbour, the Dominican Republic, described Aristide as a "psychopath and a murderer."
But the reply was swift. After an inquiry, the CNN television network, which had initially broadcast the CIA allegations, denied the existence of a psychiatrist who was said to have treated Aristide. Moreover, the press received an array of confidential information which questioned the credibility of the CIA (which former President, George Bush, once headed) and the previous Republican administration.
As a result, we learned that "many key figures in the current situation in Haiti" had worked for the CIA, and that, at the time of the 1991 coup, the American ambassador in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, had arranged for the American federal anti-narcotics agency to turn a blind eye to Haiti. Consequently, Haitian military officials who had been paid for anti-narcotics work were the first to enrich themselves by traffic of cocaine.
Clinton was clearly tempted by the idea of a limited military operation. It would have been welcomed by a large part of the Haitian population; it would have been an inexpensive prestige4 building affair that would also have had the effect of somewhat intimidating the Cuban government. But there were too many vested interests oppo sed to such a course, both in Haiti and in the USA.
Through National Security Adviser, Anthony Lake, the Clinton administration issued a reminder that a distinction is to be made between what is "immediate and important" (the Haitian question) and "the most fundamental questions", for example, "the situation of regions with great strategic interest for us, such as Russia."
On 4 November, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Warren Christopher, went one step further. He explained that "restoring democracy in Haiti, ending the war in Bosnia and making peace between the warring parties in Somalia are not on our list of priorities."
A United Nations (UN) official expressed the following view to a journalist from the French daily Libération: "Without a doubt, we are going to behave like Pontius Pilate: we will do nothing more or less than letting the sanctions run their course, and wait and see. It would be difficult for us to lift the embargo because that would mean capitulating to the Haitian army, but we can't intervene any more
Ever since Aristide's candidacy in the Presidential elections, the USA has wavered between two different policies: getting rid of him or trying to use him. These two policies have a lot in common: the desire to exclude the people from political life and, in the absence of anything better, keep the repressive apparatus largely intact.
The first of the two approaches led to the attack on an election meeting in 1990, Roger Lafontant's January 1991 coup and the September 1991 coup than a cover for the military dictatorship, and it collapsed in the spring of 1992 — bringing the PANPRA social democrats down with it.
After the coup d'etat, the tactic of bogging Aristide down in endless negotiations was put into play. No doubt, Washington was worried that Aristide would denounce the American role in the coup d'etat and do everything in his power to help the Haitian people to organise and mobilise. Thus the need to give Aristide some false hope, so that he would remain a President attentive to the needs of diplomacy.
### Limited democracy
Clinton had a different idea. He wanted to use Aristide to establish a limited democracy in a Haiti under American control. This policy reached its climax with the signing of the Governor's Island Accord of 3 July 1993. Robert Malval, the Prime Minister whom Aristide went on to select, even declared to Newsweek magazine, "I can assure you that we will not have the same kind of chaos that we had in 1991 [during the Aristide presidency] for a simple reason: President Aristide was under nobody's surveillance then. Now, every morning he will wake up asking himself, What will my friend Bill Clinton think if I do this or that?'."
The ten-point agreement set Aristide's return for 30 October 1993, before which time an amnesty decree was to be made, a new Prime Minister was to be nominated, General Cedras was to leave and be replaced by a new commander-in-chief, and the police was to be separated from the army (and come under the control of the Ministry of Justice). The new government was to coexist with the authors of the coup d'etat, at least until Aristide's return. And almost all those respon-
1. Libération, 10 November 1993.
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HAITI
International Viewpoint #251 December 1993 sible for the coup d'etat were to remain members of the army. It required a lot of pressure, from both Clinton and
Boutros Ghali, for Aristide to accept such conditions.
The Governor's Island Accord was joined two weeks later by the "New
York Pact", signed on 16 July by most of Haiti's political forces. As with the
Governor's Island Accord, it was imposed on supporters of President
Aristide by a large measure of blackmail. It called for a six-month "political ceasefire" and for Aristide to designate a "Prime Minister of national unity"
Among the points worth mentioning, there is the one that calls for an amnesty law, the exact contours of which have not been spelled out. This law could become part of the decree signed by the President of the
Haitian
Republic.
According to the constitution, the President can only grant amnesty to those jailed for political reasons, and not for murderers, torturers and rapists.
According to the New
York Pact, a "reparations fund" was to be established for victims of the coup d'etat;
these victims would then have to abandon recent joint mission under the auspices of the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP) and "professiorepressive forces. These forces would include a legal system, army and police force able to prevent the building of a popular movement through modern repressive methods, not through human rights violations which displease international public opinion.
For several months, the American government had been calling for the deployment of an international military force. In private, American leaders were saying that this could control the popular movement at the time of Aristide's return. In July, Aristide was told that one of the conditions for his return
DUVALİER
(WOLA)?, assembled on the basis of interviews and official documents, shows that it was something else altogether. Four programmes were planned: two concerning the army and two concerning the police, all ostensibly carried out under the auspices of the
UN and its special envoy, Dante Caputo.
The first two programmes, concerning the army, did indeed constitute a mission of "technical co-operation"
The first programme was to be headed up by 500 foreign military technicians
(350 from the USA) and consisted of building new barracks, renovating medical facilities, repairing roads and teaching these techniques to Haitian soldiers.
The second programme dealt with military training. The
60 instructors would all be Americans. 2,200
Haitian soldiers would receive "non-lethal"
training in the fields set out for them in the Haitian Constitution: disaster relief, search and rescue, and border surveillance. Moreover,
American officials planned for 30 Haitian military personnel to receive special training in the USA.
The programmes dealing with the police were of a different type.
their calls for justice.
Aother important, but very unclear, point in the Governor's Who will return first? Aristide or Duvalier? Island Accord deals with what is called international cooperation". This concerns development assistance for legal and administrative reform, and for the "modernisation of the army and the creation of a new police force with the participation of UN personnel."
The USA, Canada, France and Venezuela were to be the guarantors for the application of the agreement. Behind all the seemingly innocuous proposals lurk the projects of placing Haiti under American tutelage and proceeding with a liberal "modernisation" of the Haitian economy - projects which were drawn up some ten years ago.
This time the USA was hoping to proceed with all the right ingredients: substantial financial and technical aid for government initiatives (such as the was that he accept the deployment of such a force. At the end of July, in a letter to the UN Secretary General, Aristide called for the sending of a 1000-strong force to Haiti. This force would serve under the UN flag, wear the uniforms of their country, be armed with simple side-arms for self-defence, and "would not be allowed to use force
On 23 September, the UN Security Council decided on the immediate dispatch for six months of a maximum of 567 UN police observers and a maximum of one engineering unit of about 700 men, including 60 military
Many diplomats insisted this was a simple "mission of technical co-operation". But a document from the Washington Office on Latin America
The plan called for 567 "UN police monitors" all from Francophone France, Belgium, Switzerland and African countries). According to the WOLA study, they were to work with the Haitian police "to provide guidance and advice, monitor the conduct of police operations and ensure that legal requirements are met and police actions correctly executed." They were not to have the power "to give orders, carry out arrests, conduct investigations or intervene in the actions of the Haitian police." They were meant "to report any human rights abuses to the UN/Organisation of American States (OAS) mission." But according to WOLA's information, their real task was "to discourage civil unrest" during the transition period.
2. 'Political Violence Threatens Transition', Washington Office on Latin America, 110 Maryland Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20002-5696.
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International Viewpoint #251 December 1993
This is the force destined to prevent the people from getting out of control. It was clearly easier to give this dissuasive task to foreign police armed with nothing more than side-arms meant for self-defence, than to Haitian assassins in uniform. It should be noted that, according to Robert Malval, it was the army itself that requested 1,300 men and not the 1,000 initially planned. According to the WOLA study, the foreign police were to be progressively withdrawn and give way to a Haitian police force once it had been separated from the army and become a civilian force.
However, the plan was that later the foreign police would have their role redefined and would participate in the training of the Haitian police force, particularly in the setting up of a police academy. The WOLA study shows that, as opposed to what is generally said, the USA was meant to train the Haitian police force - and place it under its control.
Indeed, the second programme dealing with the police was a bilateral US-Haiti programme that was much more ambitious than the previous one. This training programme for 5,500 Haitians was to be led by 30 police instructors from the International Criminal Investigation Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) of the Department of Justice an arm of the American Ministry of Justice. Classes would first be held in Portau-Prince and then fan out into the country's ten main urban centres. The ICITAP planned to spend $15 million over five years for this project, which included training bodyguards for Aristide and the creation of an
"Urban Disorder Unit"
- otherwise known as a riot squad.
Criminals
Who was to be part of the new police force? This was never officially stated. But it is clear that it was to be composed primarily, perhaps exclusively, of current members of the army.
There was a worry about having criminals and drug traffickers in the new force, but how could this be avoided without cleaning out the army - a measure which is nowhere to be found in the Governor's Island Accord? On the contrary, as WOLA writes, structure established by the Governor's
Island Accord leaves the current high command in place through most of the transition period allowing them a role as international security assistance programs start up. There is grave concern that they will try to influence the recruitment and training of the new police force and maintain control of the security forces in the future."
At a press conference in Miami on
22-23 July — at which President Aristide met some 100 mostly Haitian businesspeople - there was an illustration of how the USA interprets the Governor's Island Accord. The American chargé d'affaires in Haiti and the representatives of the
UNDP, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), the
World Bank and USAID had all come to voice their neo-liberal creed and spell out the need for "drastic measures"
and "sacrifices". One of the participants set the tone by expressing the desire that the Haitian islands of Tortué and Gonâve be transformed into "Disneylands".
President Aristide had arrived late for the press conference — Clinton met him beforehand, i according to a member of the US administration,
"to pressure him to implement the Governor's Island
Accord." The worst representatives of the same Haitian oligarchy that had financed the coup d'etat were present at the Miami press conference.
Aristide told them,
"I love you (..)
Alone we are weak, together we are strong, and all together we are like an avalanche
(lavalas)", as he usually ends his speeches to the people. The central organiser of the Miami press conference was Robert Malval, the owner of a major printing house. Soon thereafter, Aristide named him Prime Minister.
Conspicuous by their absence from the political scene these last few months have been the Haitian people themselves. Malval hoped to be the symbol of the policy of "national reconciliation" imposed by the big powers and accepted by Aristide, to the detriment of the popular movement which was told to be patient and wait for Aristide's return.
On several occasions, Malval has explained what he meant by "national reconciliation". In an interview with Libération several months ago, he said, "There are only two real political forces in Haiti: Lavalas and Duvalierism." Having asked all the "external exiles" to return to the country (which certain Duvalierist dignitaries quickly did, he told Newsweek that Jean-Claude Duvalier himself "had not yet replied to the signal." He added, "if the Duvalierists wished to return and build a political party in a legal framework, I would encourage it."
At the beginning of November, he clearly spelt out his political project. The French daily Le Monde quotes him as saying, "Two different galaxies are face to face; that of the Lavalas and that of the Duvalierists. Either they confront one another, which would be a disaster, or we find space for agreement on their peripheries, within the moderate fringes of these two
Given this project of "historic compromise", which could already be detected in August, the composition of the Malval government, as it was initially announced, came as a pleasant surprise. The forces that had supported the putschists were hardly represented. But before presenting the make-up of his government, Malval told journalists, "In 1991, we had a government made up of friends of the President. Now, we will have political allies of the President, what can be called a government of narrow national unity. The President has said that when he really returns to Haiti there will be a government of broad national unity." With such statements, Malval has created confusion, weakened the position of Aristide supporters and encouraged Duvalierists to return in force to the
3. Le Monde, 3 November 1993
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International Viewpoint #251 December 1993
Haitian political scene.
We now know that the army never had any intention of letting Aristide return. The idea was perhaps to let him return all the better to repress him. By agreeing to sign the Governor's Island Accord, Cedras secured agreement on the lifting of the embargo following the new Prime Minister's taking office. He gave nothing in exchange for this.
The army began by repressing any demonstration in favour of Aristide, any attempt to stick up posters with his photo on them or carry pro-Aristide banners. And then the repression systematically became even more severe. New "attachés" — civilian police auxiliaries — were recruited. Machetes and firearms were handed out in open daylight.
A new stage was reached at the beginning of September, when the Malval government was set up. Gangs of attachés paralysed it, storming the ministries, and preventing any reform to the national radio and television system. When the elected mayor of Portau-Prince tried to retake office, armed • men attacked the people participating in the ceremony. At the same time, death squads claimed new victims every day. Aristide spoke of a "second coup d'etat". And that is exactly what it was.
### Political void
In October, repression evolved into outright terror. In certain regions of the country, it is worse than it has ever been. Small Duvalierist political parties have come out into the open, filling the political void and behaving as candidates for power. On several occasions in Port-au-Prince they imposed by force so-called "general strikes", to demand their inclusion in the government. They were clearly the political smokescreen for the army, through whose good offices they were able to obtain radio time throughout the country. In their demonstrations they carried the American flag as well as that of the Duvalier regime, and called for the replacement of UN representative Caputo with a mediator from the USA.
On 11 October, the American ship "Harlan County" entered Port-au-Prince harbour, with the first UN military contingent on board. It lifted anchor the following day. With the army's complicity, several dozen Duvalierists dissuaded the USA from having 250 American and 50 Canadian soldiers on board come on shore.
On 14 October, the Minister of Justice, Guy Malary, was assassinated. The following day, in violation of the Governor's Island Accord, Cedras refused to step down. President Clinton replied to these provocations with a naval blockade with the aim of preventing arms and petrol being sent to Haiti.
Within twenty-four hours, the UN Security Council supported this decision. Six US warships and several ships from Canada, France, Holland, Argentina and Brit-ain joined them in Hait-ian waters. A ship with 700 marines, helicopters and tanks arrived to strengthen the force — a force which gives a taste of what could be mobilised during a time of crisis in neighbouring Cuba. With the support of the US administration, which describes it as an "admirable initia-tive" , the UN is trying to restart negotiations with Cedras with the idea of finding a "solution" - which may very well leave Aristide on the sidelines.
Immediately after the 1991 coup d'etat, Aristide chose to rely on the so-called "international community" to return to power. This was despite the considerable reserve of combativeness in the Haitian people; a combativeness which has since largely disappeared under the blows of repression and the lack of even a minimally structured opposition. Another way was possible — one which gave absolute priority to organising the population, which supported activists who tried in such difficult conditions to sustain forms of resistance and put forward perspectives for the struggle.
Today the conditions are even more unfavourable, but this remains the only orientation which could positively change the situation. But Aristide has chosen to follow the same path as before. He is calling for a "total blockade" of Haiti. But to what end? Some military leaders might agree to step down in favour of some of their friends. The newspaper Haïti en Marche has said that the Clinton government proposed that Cedras himself name his successor.
Other officers might agree to sign their name to a new series of commitments, such as those made in July. But the events of the last few weeks have shown that the army intends to hold on to real power and so will keep these only if convenient, knowing that breach will be ignored.
There is a very basic question. Is Aristide certain that the Haitian people - a people who have learnt many lessons from history - are ready, as they were two years ago, to pay the price of a "total blockade""?
Some reports have, dishonestly, tried to pin the blame for the post-1991 social and economic disaster on the embargo, even though the coup d'etat itself was to blame, with the incalculable cost of repression, the disorganisation of the economy, the collapse of the health care system, and the flight of international capital. But it would be absurd to deny that the embargo has brought additional suffering to the population (price rises, job losses, and so on), while certain sections of the bourgeoisie have profited handsomely.
Perhaps it is because Aristide knows all this that he has recently begun to refer to the possibility of a military intervention. If Aristide were to champion such an idea, George Bush and Clinton would no doubt both celebrate what they would see as a great victory. Through their combined actions, they would have succeeded in making the man on whom rested the hopes of Haiti's poor renounce his commitments and lose the confidence which the majority of the Haitian people had in him. *
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