This year marks the bicentennial of Haiti's existence as an independentstate, but there is little cause for celebration in the troubledCaribbean nation. The past two hundred years have not been kind toHaiti.They have been marred by persistent civil strife, foreignoccupation and brutal dictatorship, leaving the country's polity andeconomy in tatters. Haiti is now the poorest nation in the WesternHemisphere. Nearly half the wealth is in the hands of 1% of thepopulation.The civil tension caused by this wealth gap is exacerbatedby the fact that it is drawn along racial lines, with the minoritymulatto population far more prosperous than the black majority.Successive corrupt regimes have left a legacy of human rights abusesand collapsed infrastructure.

Free elections held in 1990 promised an escape from this vicious cycle.The grassroots left-wing Lavalas movement won in a landslide, and itsleader Jean-Bertrand Aristide became Haiti 's first democraticallyelected president. Since then, Haitian democracy has weathered one coupattempt, and now it has succumbed to another. Clashes betweenopposition militia and government supporters, ongoing since 2000,exploded into a full-fledged insurrection in February 2004. Armed rebelgroups seized control of a number of towns and cities amid escalatingviolence. The political opposition, while wary of being associated withthe violence, also called for Aristide's resignation. The UN suggesteda power-sharing agreement, but it was rejected by the opposition as therebels gained power. Haiti 's former colonial master, France, joinedthe voices demanding Aristide's removal. The Bush administrationinitially paid lip service to democracy, but eventually abandonedsupport for Aristide.

On February 29, Aristide resigned and, escorted by US Marines, heboarded a plane headed for the Central African Republic. Rebel troops,led by Guy Philippe, paraded in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.AUN-backed international force has been dispatched to deal with thechaos caused by the power vacuum, but it seems as if law and order hascollapsed altogether in the capital. There is widespread looting, andAristide supporters have been found short to death with their handstied behind their backs.

Aristide has gone on record saying he was kidnapped" and forced intoexile by the United States . While the charges have been denied by theAmerican administration, it seems likely that some degree of coercionwas involved. Just hours before his resignation, Aristide had appearedon local television saying resignation was out of the question." Hethen entered negotiation with senior US officials which culminated inhis exile. There are other indications, as well. His security force wasunder American government control, and while they had no problemsecuring the airport and American diplomatic personnel, Colin Powellinformed Aristide that they would be unable to protect him in the eventof a rebel attack. Also, according to the Miami Herald, a last-minuteattempt by Aristide to boost his personal bodyguard was blocked by theBush administration. Rep. Maxine Waters spoke with President Aristidein Africa and said he is being held under tight guard by African andFrench soldiers. It's not as if this is without precedent. In April2002, the administration tried to mask its support for the Venezuelancoup by claiming Hugo Chavez had resigned", and only backtracked whenfaced with condemnation by most of Latin America .

The mainstream news media has been surprisingly upbeat about thedestruction of a fledgling democracy. Aristide has been almostuniversally portrayed as a failed president, often as a betrayer ofHaitian democracy, and occasionally as a tyrant. It is also frequentlyalleged that the rebellion began because Aristide rigged the 2000presidential elections. But the facts are far more subtle, andexamining them makes this insurrection look less like the popularoverthrow of an undemocratic leader, and more like another in the longline of shameful military coups that have devastated this impoverishedcountry. And the American role in these events appears far fromglorious.

The US government has always been wary of Aristide. In the 1990elections, the American candidate, a former World Bank employee namedMark Bazin, was widely expected to win. He had been finance ministerunder the destructive rule of Baby Doc" Duvalier. Aristide blindsidedthe power players, winning with 67% of the vote. Bazin, with 14%, was adistant second. In the months following his election, Aristide reducedforeign debt, raised foreign exchange reserves, halted inflation,launched an anti-corruption campaign, reversed refugee flow, and wonsubstantial praise from international lending institutions. ButWashington was not happy with his populist and progressive brand ofpolitics, regarding him as a radical extremist. The press concentratedon transgressions perpetrated by his supporters, without mentioning the75% reduction in human rights abuses since his election. USAIDdenounced his attempt to raise the minimum wage to 37 cents an hour,and they also terminated investment programs in the assembly sectorwhich they had supported during the brutal pre-Aristide dictatorship.

Less than a year into his term, Aristide was overthrown in a violentmilitary coup. The military junta that took over the nation launched ona campaign of extermination of the democratic resistance, aided byparamilitary death squads. One of these outfits was FRAPH (Front forthe Advancement and Progress of Haiti), responsible for a massacre ofcivilians at Raboteau. Its founder, Emmanuel Constant, currently livesas a free man in Queens , New York , despite having been convicted in absentia of multiple counts of murder by a Haitian court. In 1995, Constantrevealed that FRAPH had been sponsored by the CIA as a counterweight toAristide. The CIA also backed General Raoul Cedras, leader of the coup.The prime minister of Haiti during the military dictatorship was MarkBazin, the former US candidate.

When Clinton became president he affirmed his support for Aristide andvowed to return him to power. And in 1994, the military regimerelinquished control under the imminent threat of American invasion. Ina promising move, Aristide was returned to power, although he had toaccept a neo-liberal structural adjustment program, which alienated themore radical elements in his party. Meanwhile many of the leaders ofthe military junta and the death squads fled to America , where theyhave been lobbying Washington against Aristide.

In the next two years, Aristide was not as effective as he had been atthe beginning of his term, and there was some violence againstsupporters of the junta, but the humanitarian situation was muchimproved from the post-coup days. There were some progressive steps,such as the disbanding of the Haitian army, which was rife withDuvalierists and supporters of the coup, but his assurance haddisappeared during the three-year exile. American hostility towards himcontinued, especially over his reluctance to privatize certainenterprises. Also, despite accepting some IMF austerity measures, heremained an outspoken critic of international economic institutions.Despite weakening resources and diminishing aid, he took tentativesteps to invest in education and health.

In 1996, his party didn't allow him to run for a second term. InsteadRene Preval, a neo-liberal darling, became the next President. Aristideformed a new party, the Fanmi Lavalas, that swept the 2000parliamentary elections, and Aristide was elected President with anastonishing 90% of the vote. This figure is often cited skeptically byjournalists when repeating allegations of vote-rigging, but the fact isthat this isn't the statistic that is in question. The problem was thatthe method by which Senatorial candidates are decided was misapplied in8 districts, so some Lavalas senators came to power illegitimately. Butthe election of Aristide and the victory of Lavalas are beyond doubt.In their exhaustive assessment of the elections, the InternationalCoalition of Independent Observers pointed out these discrepancies, butstated that overall fair and peaceful elections were held." It was alot less suspect than a certain other election held in 2000.

Aristide called for the resignation of the incorrectly elected senatorsand supported a re-election for those seats. An eminently reasonableposition, but the opposition flatly refused, demanding Aristide'sresignation. This technicality in the 2000 elections is cited by therebel groups as their main reason for launching a violent revolution.American news media continues to portray it as widespread vote-rigging.

The election issue gave the American government a justification fortaking action against a political figure whose popularity they wereunwilling to accept. Clinton imposed an embargo on Haiti thateffectively blocked about $500 million in international aid, drivingthe Haitian economy further towards collapse. International financialinstitutions followed suit. The large cuts in aid crippled Aristide'sability to undo the economic damage wrought by the 1991 coup, andrendered his health and education measures toothless. Haiti remainedmired in poverty, and opposition militia took advantage of this toincite violence which led to the insurrection.

So now that Aristide has been forced from office, what is thealternative? The armed rebels and the political opposition are a motleycrowd, united by their rejection of Aristide's progressive politics. Adisturbing feature of the opposition is that many of the leaders areassociated with human rights abuses and past dictatorships. Many ofthem held political office during the murderous Duvalier dictatorship,and a number were involved in the 1991 coup and the ensuing brutality.Disparate opposition groups have joined to form the Convergence forDemocracy, led by Duvalierists and sweatshop owners. This group hasclose ties with the US Republican Party, which funds them through theNational Endowment for Democracy. The leaders of the armed rebellion,Louis Chamblain and Guy Philippe, were associated with the extremeright wing FRAPH death squad, responsible for the death of over 3000Aristide supporters during the military regime. These are the people onwhom Haiti's democratic hopes now rest. The outlook is definitely bleak.

The picture that emerges is one of powerful players manipulating the political and economic future of an impoverished nation to further their own interests. Perhaps Aristide's regime was far from perfect, but it was the best hope this nation has seen in over a century. Unfortunately, the American administration decided Haiti didn't deserve democracy if it was unwilling to kowtow to corporate interests. What follows is a story of collusion with some of the most disreputable elements among the Haitian elite to ensure regime change through structural collapse. As President Bush mouths platitudes about bringing democracy to the Middle East, he has effectively destroyed it much closer to home.

March 6, 2004.