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Unrest in Haiti
by Corinne Knutson

In the aftermath of former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s exile to Africa, the question remains is the United States helping to promote peace in foreign countries or just pro-U.S. leaders?

Recently troops from the United States, Chile and France were sent to Haiti under a United Nations mandate to provide security. The U.S. will send up to 2,000 troops to Haiti in an attempt to bring peace and democracy to this region, according to a report in The Economist.

In a recent interview with the former president, Amy Goodman of the “Democracy Now!” radio show asked Aristide why he left his country.

“I didn’t leave Haiti because I wanted to leave Haiti,” he said. “They (the U.S.) forced me to leave. It was a kidnapping, which they call coup d’etat….a forced resignation for me.”

In his radio interview, Aristide claimed he is still the president of Haiti. The Haitian people are a non-violent people, he maintained, saying they voted for democracy and will continue to fight peacefully for democracy.

However, the current situation in Haiti seems far from peaceful. Prior to Aristide’s departure, Haiti was embroiled in a month-long armed revolt. As a result, more than 200 people have been killed.

Currently, Aristide has been granted temporary asylum in Nigeria, according to Remi Oyo, a Nigerian presidential spokeswoman.

Aristide commended Africa’s hospitality in his interview with Goodman, while condemning the United States.
On March 11, 2004, the Associated Press said that Aristide told his lawyer in Paris that he was considering bringing charges against ambassadors of both France and the United States.

U.S. ambassador James Foley in a British Broadcast Corporation interview said Aristide “never once said he didn’t want to go. It was all about his departure.”
Secretary of State Colin Powell called Aristide’s accusations “ridiculous,” according to Goodman, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the allegations are “nonsense.”

WCC history professor Phil Hagstrom explained the U.S. likes to take a moralistic approach when dealing with foreign leaders, removing them from power in the name of “enlightenment.”

The story in Haiti is about a struggle to establish a stable democratic government. After the fall of the Duvalier regime in 1986, Aristide rose to power, only to leave in 1991. With U.S. support, he was elected president in 1994 — all with the intention of building a new and improved democratic country.

“We are supporters of exodus; we are not fond of political assassinations or civil wars,” said Hagstrom.
In the blame game between the U.S. administration and the former Haitian president, the real roots of the problem are planted deep in the soil of poverty. According to Hagstrom, “Poverty is the underlying cause of the current tragedy.”

During the French Revolution in 1701, there was a huge rebellion led by sugar plantation workers against French occupation and slavery. As a result, forced labor on the plantations ended.

This left Haiti with a void. The vast dichotomy in plantation society between the rich and the poor became extremely evident, Hagstrom said.

Everything was labor-based, creating a society where few were educated. He explained it’s hard to close the gap between wealth and poverty when education is such an issue.

Aristide himself echoed Hagstrom’s view in his interview with Goodman. “In 200 years of independence, making Haiti the first black independent country in the world, we still have 1.5 Haitian doctors for each 11,000 Haitians. We had a university of medicine with 237 students, but this was closed. If you have a government or a president willing to invest in health care and education, apparently they [the U.S.] don’t want that,” said Aristide.

For decades, Haitians had to choose between two evils. “Would they like to be free and starve to death or be a slave and be forced to work on a plantation for French profit?” Hagstrom said. “Haitians are always wishing for democracy, for the next election, new and better leadership.”

Yet the relevant question remains: Can you have a truly democratic society without an education base and a healthy standard of living? Hagstrom said, “This could be why Americans are much better at being democratic in our own society than in everyone else’s.”