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Aristide
and the Haitian Debacle
By Tony Iyare
Beyond his straight
face and unruffled mien that Monday, as he and his amiable spouse
alighted majestically from the Boeing 757 aircraft that brought
them to Bangui, Central Africa Republic (CAR), Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
former Haitian president betrayed some inkling that he was weary,
browbeaten and harassed. His later revelation that he and his wife,
Mildred Trouillot were abducted from the presidential palace, "treated
like animals" and forced into the plane by the American captors,
merely reinforced my earlier suspicion. A democracy in the words
of Peter Hallward, has been cut short prematurely and subverted
in the name of democracy. Although the Americans have shrugged off
the grave charges of contriving a coup in Haiti, America's poorest
country, the statement by Secretary of State, Colin Powell that
scaling through a democratic election like Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas
(FL) did in 2000 election, was not sufficient guarantee to the survival
of any regime worries me. As the sixth leader to be removed in that
fashion before completion of their term, this sudden end of Aristide's
reign raises questions about America's democratic engineering in
the Americas. We can all see what unbridled Americanism has done
to the world.
Even if America
were a country inhabited by angels, it would still require some
check. Those who popped wine at the demise of the Eastern bloc can
now see the monster in a uni-polar arrangement in which America's
voice is law. My ultimate fear is for Cuba's President, Fidel Castro.
After reading the lines from the diatribe of US President George
Bush at the recent Organisation of American States (OAS) conference
in Monterrey, Mexico, it was short of giving signals that a second
invasion of the island in 42 years, may be in the offing. Not taken
aback by this ranting, Castro himself has given word that he's prepared
for a battle of his life, saying he does not care how he dies. Not
done with the "sexing up" of intelligence to provide a façade for
the invasion of Iraq and the removal of its leader, Saddam Hussein,
the American government led by President George Bush appear to have
given a tacit support for the ousting of the Haitian leader, perceived
as recalcitrant to the implementation of IMF/World Bank prescriptions,
whose main kernel is the indiscriminate privatisation of state resources,
cutting of the huge spending on education, healthcare and workers
welfare. America which prefers to play ostrich while the month-old
rebel incursion led by Guy Phillipe, a former police chief ravaged
one city after another, resulting to the death of about 100 Haitians,
has now assumed the role of emergency peace enforcers with the concert
of French troops.
America had
the might to put at bay the abrasive affront of the ragtag army
of the rebel leaders, many of who loathe Aristide's courageous dissolution
of the army in 1995, but opted to look the other way as Haiti, the
first black nation to achieve independence in 1804 was torn to shreds.
It contradicts sharply with the bold move to restore Aristide to
power in 1994 by 20, 000 American marines after he was sacked by
a coup in 1991 The explanation that US diplomatic manoeuvring was
informed by the urge to save Aristide and his family from imminent
cataclysm is suspect. Resolving the enigma of why America had to
wait for too long before mediating in an unfolding crisis in its
backyard is difficult. The charge that Aristide who was pilloried
for "rigging" the 2000 election was inept, dictatorial and could
hardly deliver on democracy dividends to the Haitian people is a
very simplistic way of extricating the complicity of America and
other western nations from the Haitian debacle.
The US which
has blocked $500 million international aid from the Inter American
Development Bank to the country since the President Bill Clinton
administration, cannot be exculpated from the scourge of poverty,
squalor, disease and underdevelopment that has condemned Haiti to
a banana island. Since Toussaint L'Ouverture and his lieutenant,
Jean-Jacques Dessalines galvanised an army kitted with rudimentary
armaments to defeat Napoleon's well fortified army more than 200
years ago, paving way for the independence of Haiti, the West had
conspired to undermine any movement towards development. For the
effrontery to torpedo and disgrace Napoleon's army and win independence,
France imposed reparation of 150 million Francs which is now estimated
at about 300 million pounds. Haiti has had the misfortune of reeling
under the throes of 32 military coup d'etat. It has also been subjected
to doses of IMF/World Bank economic policies that consummated the
virtual ruination of the country and its people. To achieve the
sinister motive of keeping Haiti prostrate and rudderless, the West
also foisted, nurtured and tolerated the grinding dictatorship of
the Duvalier dynasty.
To therefore
turn round and play God in the Haitian mess is inconceivable. America's
role is particularly reprehensible. In the wake of the coup led
by Raul Cedras that overthrew Aristide in 1991, America which had
previously invaded the country in 1915 and left 19 years after in
1934, turned its guns against Haitians desperately looking for succour
in God's own country. While it turned away the Haitians massed in
their boats, any Cuban inching for exile status in the US was welcomed
with open arms. So from reparation, invasion, foisting of a bestial
dictatorship, incessant coups and the crippling economic policies
of IMF/World Bank, a country that showed promise of being the pride
of the black man at independence 200 years ago was wracked to its
knees. The conspiracy against the giant strides of the black man
could also be gleaned from the endemic crisis in Ethiopia, a country
torn apart by protracted wars. Its people also seem to be suffering
for their bold affront by defeating Mussolini's army in the historic
battle of Adua in 1896. In spite of this victory, the Italians still
exploited the free rein of World War 11 to annex the country. For
those who do not subscribe to the idea of racial conspiracy, this
attempt to make mincemeat of the epic victory of the black man in
1804 and 1896 cannot be mere coincidence.
I must confess
that few leaders in the world have actually caught my fancy in the
way they rode to power. Aristide, a Reverend Father obviously was
one of them. His popular gospel has made an imprint in the sands
of time. His epic struggles in galvanising the Haitian people against
the excesses of the Ton ton Marcoutes, a dreaded hit squad of the
Duvalier era in the eighties, gravitated my stridently following
his political career. Flashback to St John Bosco's Catholic Church,
Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital: the Ton ton Marcoutes in a brazen
display of malicious hooliganism, invaded here while mass was on.
Just mid way into the usually acidic homily of Aristide, a convert
of liberation theology authored by Camilo Torres, the group likened
to the goons of late Nigerian dictator, General Sani Abacha, struck
leaving sorrow, tears and blood in the Church. Aristide was undaunted.
He could not be broken as the rallying point of the opposition against
the iniquity of the Duvalier dynasty which began with Francois Duvalier
(Papa Doc) and consolidated by his son, Baby Doc.
That dictatorship
was finally terminated and made to devour the humble pie in 1986.
Aristide reminds me of Reverend Fathers Jeff Murumba Oghoghor, John
Uba Ofei, Babatunde Erumevba and several other Nigerian adherents
of radical Christology and liberation theology which centres on
the elevation of the living condition of the poor and oppressed.
The only difference was that Aristide made it to the state house.
His soul mates here are yet to realise their idea. Erumevba, a former
philosophy teacher at Ife Varsity and close friend to Dr Oladipo
Fashina, president of Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities
(ASUU) died in an accident on the ever busy Ife-Ibadan road in the
80s. Oghoghor, a former lecturer at the SS Peter and Paul Seminary
in Bodija, Ibadan suffered persecution from the Catholic hierarchy
for his radical views which resulted to his being tossed around
from St Peter's Church, Apataganga to a parish in Yemetu and another
parish in Idi Ayunre.
An apostle of
guerrilla struggle who shared similar traits with renowned revolutionary,
Che Guevara, Oghoghor also lost his life in an accident just 15
kilometers to Ibadan on his way from Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State
in 2001. After his long battle with brain tumour and confined for
months to his sick bed at St Agnes, Maryland, Lagos, Father Ofei
surprisingly showed up at the Socialist Conference held in February
2003 at the University of Benin. Showing little signs of emaciation,
Ofei was virtually asking after many of his radical comrades and
wanted to know how they were doing. Few months after, this writer
was jolted by the news of the death of this former general secretary,
Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria as he sat before the television.
Unknown to many,
Aristide has suffered from the similar fate of Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah,
Chile's Sylvanus Allende, Congo's Patrice Lumumba and other third
world leaders, whose term were made spineless by the suffocating
pressures of the CIA.
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