Posted on 18. Mar, 2011 by Ezili Dantò in Blog, News, Essays and Reflections
Aristide Returns to Haiti, March 18, 2011 | Photo credit:Alexandre Meneghini / AP
Aristide returned to Haiti today. I’ve not seen such genuine happiness on the faces of Haiti’s poor in over seven years.
Welcome President Jean Bertrand Aristide and family. Today is a good day for the poorest of the poor in the Western Hemisphere. Their struggle and unimaginable sacrifices and sufferings bore fruit and it makes them smile. We thank the universal good for this moment. Blessed be the endless Haiti revolution against the organized tyranny of the “civilized” and “schooled” peoples.
Today, HLLN re-members the blessed Haiti revolution, Janjak Desalin and the indigenous Haiti army of today and yesterday.
On this day of the return, HLLN re-members the sacrifice of the warriors of Site Soley, Bel Air, Solino, Martissant who took up arms in self-defense against the occupation and coup d’etat. We re-MEMBER the most hunted Black man in the Western Hemisphere, who, alone, fought the most powerful armies on earth for two long years before he was assassinated by UN bullets, we remember the lynching and crucifixion of Dred Wilmè.
“On July 6, 2005, Dred Wilmè in his family where assassinated in cold blood by 1,440 heavily armed UN/US troops. With their tanks, helicopters and advanced weapons, 440 UN/US soldiers entered Site Soley in the dead of night (3am) while the community was asleep. One thousand (1000) other UN/US soldiers surrounded Site Soley to make sure no one could leave. Bombs where reported unleashed and dropped on the unarmed civilian community.
According to The Site Soley Massacre Declassification Project the UN fired over 22,000 rounds of ammunition into this thin-shacked, cardboard-house, poverty-stricken Black community of about 450,000 Haitians, most having been forced off their safer rural lands by US/USAID/WB/IMF policies in the 80s and 90s.”
All human beings have the right to life and to self-defense, including the poor in Haiti.
At the Aristides’ home, thousands of Haitians, who had waited seven long tortured years for the return of their beloved president and his family, waited a little longer to welcome them. – Photo: Jean Ristil Jean BaptisteToday, we remember and say honor and respect to our fallen and faceless warriors- the beleaguered poor in Site Soley, Solino, Martissant, Bel-Air, Gran Ravine, et al… – ravaged by exclusion and color-coded NGO charitable distribution and allotments that slews human dignity, brings perpetual dependency. We recall the 20,000 slaughtered by the imposed Bush Boca Raton regime from 2004 to 2006, slaughtered with the complicity of UN/US firepower.
We pay tribute to Father Gerard Jean Juste, Lovinsky Pierre Antoine and all those who gave their life for this day of return of the people’s voice. We pay tribute to the ten thousands unknown Haitians, in Haiti and in the Diaspora, who never wavered.
We lift up Hazel and Randall Robinson for staying true throughout this long road and always, always supporting justice for the people of Haiti against all the odds. We lift up Minister Louis Farrakhan and Danny Glover who stood with the poor majority in Haiti and advocated for the return of Aristide in Haiti when most of the U.S. Black intelligentsia turned away.
Joyfully, people surround Aristide’s car as he leaves the airport. They ran beside him all the way to his house. — Photo: Jean Ristil Jean Baptiste*
We thank all those folks, from all the races and religions, who signed letters and advocated for this return. We pay tribute to all the small Haiti radio programs abroad and in Haiti who stood for justice, Mary at SF Bayview for standing firm and resolute. We remember the unknown fanm vanyans, Haitian women like Alina Sixto who sacrificed so much, for so long without accolades and recognition and who never wavered.
We share this day by lifting up the work and life of our beloved John Maxwell. We pay tribute to the Africans, in Jamaica, in South Africa who stood in solidarity with the people of Haiti despite threats of repercussions from powerful international forces, those who even this week ignored the frantic calls from Barack Obama and the UN’s Ban-Ki Moon to again delay and destroy the will of the people of Haiti. Thank you.
This historic returns belongs to the poor suffering warriors of Haiti and to bless the spirits of those who perished too soon. Indeed it belongs to Haitian men like father Gerard Jean Juste, to all the women community leaders who where singled out and massacred at the USAID/IOM “Summer for Peace” soccer gathering on August 20 and Aug. 21st where Haitian youths were lured to their slaughter while attending a soccer game sponsored by USAID. Haiti’s young were brutally chopped up by UN/US-sanctioned coup detat police squads, working with their Lame Ti Manchet thugs and mercenaries.
This return belongs to Esterne Bruner, assassinated, Sept. 21, 2006 by members of the coup d’etat enforcers, Lame Timanchèt.
Before his death, the courageous Esterne Bruner provide Ezili’s HLLN with the names of the members who committed the Gran Ravine/USAID-soccer -for-peace massacres, the names of the death squad of Lame Ti Manchet. None of these pro-coup detat enforcers have been brought to justice in UN occupied Haiti because they helped demobilize the pro-democracy Lavalas movement.
This return that eases the insult of the bicentennial coup d’etat belongs to the hundreds of Haitians, sealed in containers and dumped off the Coast of Cap Haitian to drown, as US-supported thugs, still roaming Haiti free behind UN protection today, took over the North. It belongs to those forced onto mysterious U.S. ships, off the shores of Haiti, held and tortured in secrecy, some for two years, because they voted Lavalas or held positions in the popular government of President Aristide.
It belongs to Haitian men like Emmanuel Dred Wilmè who never left his people, never even left his neighborhood, he never attacked anyone, he simply defended his community from attack from the coup detat overseers, from UN and US guns and sycophants who hired thugs, like Labanye, to kill innocent civilians simply because they voted for Jean Bertrand Aristide and advocated for their country’s own domestic interests as opposed to the interests of the internationals, their Haiti billionaire oligarchy and poverty pimping USAID-NGO subcontractors.
Most of all today, we say honor and respect to the Ezili HLLNetwork members, of all the races and nationalities, a 10 thousand strong network against the profit-over-people folks, reaching three million per post, and on our blogs, who stood with the voiceless and disenfranchised in Haiti for these last seven years against all the odds, against all the naysayers.
This historic moment belongs to all of you who stood with the indigenous Haitians at HLLN who work to make a space for Haiti’s authentic voices without Officialdom’s approval. It’s a harsh journey.
It could have been a six-hour trip to Brazil and then just a few hours to Haiti. But it took 18 hours because the “benevolent internationals” interested in our “democracy and stability” wouldn’t allow former president Aristide, the symbol of the poor’s empowerment in Black Haiti, to travel through their territories.
Etched on the older people’s faces is the truth of this woman’s sign, “We suffered greatly, but we had faith you would return home.” Thousands of Haitians died during the past seven years at the hands of the U.S. and U.N. forces occupying Haiti, compounded by the over 300,000 who were killed in the earthquake and over 4,600 killed so far in the cholera epidemic. – Photo: Etant Dupain, brikourinouvelgaye.comIt took 18 hours for Aristide to reach Haiti. Going from South Africa to Northern Africa in Senegal took 10 hours, while from Senegal to Haiti took another eight hours. I hear England wouldn’t allow a landing either.
That long, long road is symbolic of the Haitian struggle. That long road Ezili’s HLLN has shared with you and with your support and forbearance. Unlike colonial celebritism with Sean Penn, no one will give us accolades for a mere six months journey in Haiti. Ours is a centuries-long journey. We overstand. The struggle continues.
A new era begins for us here at HLLN. We ask you help us define it. For we know the empire will strike back. We expect it and thus avoid the surprise blow. As usual, we shall take the road less traveled towards healing Haiti’s poor majority with dignity, human rights, self-sufficiency, justice and inclusion. We won’t sell out. Haiti and indigenous Haitians want justice not charity, not Clinton/Farmer UN/US paternalism. It’s a desperately humiliating, bumpy, wholly disemboweling, wholly healing and fulfilling ride. Against all odds, Ginen poze. Kenbe la – hold on. (See, Don’t be distracted by Aristide in Haiti by Ezili Dantò and Avatar Haiti.)
Pierre Labossierre, Alina Sixto, Lavarice Gaudin, Jafrikayiti, Guy Antoine, Harry Fouche, Fritz Pean, Yves Point Du Jour, Jean Ristil Jean Baptise and too many others to name, congratulations on this day. Only we know what we’ve withstood in helping to overcome not one but two Bush coup d’etats on the poor majority in Haiti.
Sometimes the fierce guilt of surviving, the endless stretch ahead, the soul and psychic wounds wrought on by the shame and humiliation of powerlessness and lack of material resources to do more, are too heavy a load. It’s too ugly and desperate to articulate the bullying and blows metered out by the most educated, most wealthy and most powerful on the most defenseless and non-violent people on earth.
Their collective suffering and deaths shall not be in vain. Justice will prevail, beauty will win, eventually. If not in our lifetime, then in the next. We are the Haitians, the indigenous Haitians. From generation to generation, from the womb to the tomb, our lives are about struggle. Today, for a moment, we’ll smile through the sorrow because in this shining and eternal moment that must see us through what will come at us next, we anti-Duvalierist-Haitians managed to survive whole with dignity and to witness that against all odds, we beat back the elite’s rabid rage.
Ayibobo!
The Haitian resistance against the Western bicentennial re-colonization of Haiti lives on.
Ezili Dantò
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN)
March 18, 2011******************************************************
Forwarded by Ezili’s Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN)
******************************************************Don’t be distracted by Aristide in Haiti: Demand Justice not Gestures
Video: Aristide Returning Speech In Haiti
3/18/2011
Aljazeera Video: Aristide returns to Haiti
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Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return: homecoming or comeback?
Haiti's ousted former president still enjoys popular support, but there are many obstacles to a resumption of his political career
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- guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 March 2011 16.30 GMT
- Article history
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's portrait outside the palace in Port-au-Prince. The ousted former president arrived in the Haitian capital on Friday after seven years in exile. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Much has been made in the Haitian and international media about the prospect of the return of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who has been in exile in South Africa since 2004, but has, this Friday, arrived in Port-au-Prince. Aristide is the only Haitian president to be overthrown twice. The first time was in a September 1991 coup d'état, seven months after he was elected to office. Thanks to the intervention of the French and American ambassadors with the coup leaders, he was able to leaveHaiti and spend the next three years in exile, most of it in the United States.
He returned to Haiti in October 1994, protected by 20,000 US troops to serve the remaining 18 months of his first term. He disbanded the Haitian army before he left office. Re-elected and taking office in February 2001 for a second and final five-year term, he was toppled again in February 2004. Aristide had asked the US to beef up his foreign private security; instead, the US ambassador gave him a choice to leave Haiti or face the rebel forces made up of former members of the Haitian army and paramilitaries. Aristide chose the first option, but later called it a kidnapping.
Aristide's supporters were exuberant when they thought his return was imminent after the Haitian government issued him a new passport on 7 February. A month passed, and the United States, as late as this week, was pressuring the governments of South Africa and Haiti to delay his return until after 20 March, when the compromised "electoral process" that began on 28 November was due to conclude. Aristide's supporters were guaranteed to give him a more jubilant and noisier welcome than former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier received when he returned to Haiti unexpectedly in January, after 25 years in exile; Duvalier now faces the possibility of indictments for his alleged past crimes.
Whatever the hopes of Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas base, though, I don't see any real prospect of a political comeback for the former president. After the 20,000 US troops escorted Aristide back to Haiti in 1994, he abandoned the progressive agenda he was elected to implement in 1991. Although he continued to portray himself as the champion of the poor, he largely accepted the neoliberal policies known as the "Washington consensus" as a quid pro quo for his return. And when re-elected in 2001, Aristide's chief objective was to monopolise political power, and through his Lavalas Family party, ensure that he would govern without the divided parliament and opposition he had faced in 1991.
In a vain attempt to obtain financial assistance from international financial institutions, Aristide implemented their neoliberal policies. This involved evicting farmers from a fertile area in the north of Haiti near the Dominican Republic to make way for poverty-wage garment industries geared for export to the US. Aristide's second administration was also marred by grave misgovernance. Officials in Aristide's government used their public office as personal fiefdoms, engaged in rampant corruption and drug-trafficking; they even used gangs, some of whom were armed, against their opponents. Funds allocated for public works projects were not used for those purposes or were unaccounted for. Elected officials were implicated in a scandal involving the redistribution and sale of rice imported duty-free and exempt from consumer taxes; and high-level government officials were implicated in a cooperative scheme that went bankrupt in 2002, having defrauded numerous poor and middle-class Haitians of their savings.
Blaming the opposition, Aristide's supporters attacked and burned the homes and headquarters of some of their leaders after a group of former members of the Haitian army attacked the presidential palace in 2001. Aristide loyalists also attacked members of the press critical of the government, sending many into hiding and forcing others to seek refuge in foreign embassies or flee the country; members of a pro-Lavalas organisation were subsequently indicted for the murder of Brignol Lindor, a reporter, in December 2001. And in December 2003, Aristide supporters attacked university students protesting against his government, leading tens of thousands, including members of his own Lavalas party, to take to the streets to demand his resignation.
Aristide's government's record on human rights violations is in no way comparable to that of Jean-Claude Duvalier (1971-86), or of his father, François (1957-71), when tens of thousands of Haitians were killed, disappeared, imprisoned without trial and tortured. But justice does not have a threshold below which people are not liable for human rights violations, embezzlement, corruption or drug-trafficking. Aristide himself has never been indicted for any crime, but many former Lavalas and government officials, some close to him, have been indicted, arrested, prosecuted and convicted.
Aristide still commands support among the poor, in the slums of Port-au-Prince especially, though many have now rallied behind Michel Martelly – one of the two centre-right candidates due to contest the 20 March runoff. But the November 2010 elections – riddled with fraud and with a very low turnout – should have been annulled already. With Aristide's return, an electoral process already suffering a crisis of legitimacy would seem difficult to conclude satisfactorily.
Aristide has said he wants to return mainly to resume his work in the field of education – but he is above all a homo politicus, as witnessed by the timing of this return. It would be impossible for him not to want to play a prominent role in politics. But Aristide may, in fact, prove a spent force – for all the the noise and exuberance of his supporters in Haiti, and the consternation of his opponents, including the "troika" of the United States, Canada and France.
Haiti's constitution bars him from running for a third presidential term. To change that, Aristide, who is deeply averse to structured political organisations, would have to work hard to unify his splintered and feuding Lavalas party – which was excluded from fielding candidates in the November elections – and make it once again the dominant political force in Haiti. That is a tall order. The political climate has changed considerably since 2004, and the situation will change again if, after 20 March, either Manigat or Martelly is "elected" president.
Aristide also has many enemies among the Haitian middle class, intelligentsia and political class, to say nothing of the dominant business class and the troika. Even assuming there is no attempt to indict him for human rights abuses or corruption allegedly committed by his 2001-2004 government, Aristide would still have to tread carefully to avoid being made to regret his decision to return. Despite his supporters' hopes, Aristide's homecoming may yet prove more of a retirement than a relaunch.
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Aristide's Return a Resurrection for Poor Haitians Like Gaston
His father gave him books: geography, ethics and civics, the history of Haiti. Eventually he received a copy of the catechism, guidance for how to live a Christian life.It read like an interview with the Almighty. It answered the questions he hadn't thought to ask.Why did Christ rise from the dead? Christ rose from the dead to show that He is true God and to teach us that we, too, shall rise from the dead.Will all men rise from the dead? All men will rise from the dead, but only those who have been faithful to Christ will share in His glory."When I was young, I never went this way or that way," he said while zigging and zagging his hands. "I was straight."Gaston's father never married Gaston's mother. He had another family, and other children.For Gaston, the vast vocabulary of faith gave voice to both his loss and his good fortune. He learned to pray, fiercely, at a young age.His parents died in 1992 and 1993, one after the other. He struggled to remember the exact years."During Aristide's first exile," he finally recalled. Finding His Own WayGaston lived with his parents until they died; he was 43 years old. They were his best friends and confidants. As life in Haiti became more difficult, spirituality cleared Gaston's path.He wanted more -- a real job, an identity, to share the gifts his parents gave him with the rest of the world. But times were tough.After Aristide was ousted by Haiti's military in 1991, the United Nations and the Organization of American States instituted strict sanctions to punish the new regime. It killed the small manufacturing economy in Haiti.
Aristide himself had been a vex on Haiti's business class. When he came back to power in 1994, U.S. President Clinton forced Haiti to lower its trade barriers. Haiti now had cheap, imported food. Much of the agricultural industry died, too.For Gaston, neither was urgent since he had no real skills. He wasn't a farmer or a manufacturer. But it hurt the economy. Unemployment rates coasted around 50 percent.With the downturn, Gaston reached toward music with more vigor. He decided he was an "artist."By 1997, he was "Papa Defo," a musical sideshow adored by many. Like studying the catechism in his childhood, being an artist allowed Gaston to understand his own injustices, especially poverty.His father's other family -- three sisters -- rejected him and refused to give him money.On Friday, Gaston stood outside his tent on the concrete where his parents' home once was. It collapsed in the quake."My family doesn't understand me."He never married. No kids. He loved two women in his life. He left them both because he could not bear to offer them his poverty.Maybe Gaston was never good at relationships and spirituality was his only comfort. Or maybe the rules within the catechism -- honor, marriage, sin -- gave him ways to avoid what escaped him.As Papa Defo, he was suddenly "Papa.""I don't have personal kids, but I have kids in the street," he said. "I am their papa because I show them the way through love."On Friday, he walked the streets of Port-au-Prince toward Aristide's house, in slow reverence. He greeted children; he held his own small procession. Haiti's Most Famous "Papa"Jean-Bertrand Aristide is Haiti's most famous "Papa." Part politician, part priest, part icon. Even after his second presidency, in 2001, and second ouster, in 2004, much of the public still clamored for him.From the beginning, he made great promises to the poor, and though he didn't have the chance to see them realized, many Haitians believed.After the earthquake, current President Rene Preval became unwilling to speak to the people. For days they waited. For inspiration, for a patriotic spiritual message.
Gaston's faith became stronger. "God made the earthquake and he made the tent, too." But he longed for Aristide. For Gaston, Aristide is a catechism unto himself.Who is Jesus?"Jesus is King of Kings because he sent Aristide back to us."Who is Aristide?"Aristide is a mighty person. Mighty people are mighty within themselves. ... They have the power to feed people or to let them starve."Will Aristide deliver us, like Jesus?"Jesus is Jesus. Aristide is a human being. He is a loving person."As Aristide stepped off the private jet from South Africa on Friday, he seemed to speak directly to Gaston. After seven years in exile, the former president greeted the Haitian people."Sisters. Brothers. Honor! Respect! Sisters. Brothers. Honor! Respect!" His voice found a cadence."My sisters and brothers, if you could lay your hands on my heart, you would be able to feel how it beats more quickly."No Haitian government officials came to greet him, nor candidates for Sunday's elections. His wife and young kids, American actor Danny Glover, and his lawyer accompanied him.Aristide noted the promise of billions of dollars of natural resources in Haiti, "Oil reserves are probably larger than we think." Calling to mind the vast majority of children who cannot attend school, he said the gap was a problem of "exclusion."Haiti is sick, he said. "If the outbreak of the crocus depends on the rays of the sun, the outbreak in Haiti depends on the sun of our love." Determining His VoteLast week, Gaston planned to vote for friend and fellow artist Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly instead of the professorial Mirlande Manigat. Now, for Sunday's vote, he will wait for Aristide to tell him what to do.Martelly is loved, Gaston told me. Aristide is loved more."I make my own decisions," Gaston said. "But I also like it when people give me advice."The catechism asks: How should we pray?"To really pray," Gaston told me, "you have to put loving trust in his goodness. You have to be helpless. You have to get down on your knees. You have to beg."As small bands and thousands of onlookers followed Aristide to his house, Gaston came behind, smitten.At the gates, neighbors smiled at Gaston, and he smiled back. He turned, turned, turned, with the image of Jesus in his hands.
Aristide’s Return and Wikileaks:
Disclaimer: I write bland headlines. But hopefully you’ll find the post itself worth your while. I’ll add links tomorrow. It’s late and I need to get home!
“President Rene Preval made reference to these rumors, telling the Ambassador that he did not want Aristide ‘anywhere in the hemisphere.’” That was in 2008, according to a secret American cable from the Wikileaks cache released today, when rumors swirled about Preval’s predecessor, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his possible passage to Venezuela.
The rumors, which began circulating again with ever-stronger intensity in the past month, finally were put to rest today.
Aristide ended a seven-year-long exile. He arrived in Haiti by private plane, gave a heartwarming speech about love and exclusion in four languages including Zulu, and headed to his mansion with his family amidst a jostling crowd of overjoyed supporters that stretched down the road surrounding his convoy.
A single smoke bomb to disperse the crowd? Nothing doing. People promptly gave each other lifts over the Aristide compounds’s newly-cleaned 13-foot-high walls. A middle-aged guy boosted me up and I clambered over.
We waited for Aristide to emerge again, some eating mangos off trees and lounging about the pool to bide their time, but he stayed inside. He’ll probably have more to say soon. When he does, many will listen, much to chagrin of his detractors, who say he tolerated corruption and violent crimes as President.
One of them is a certain Michel Martelly, a leading presidential candidate in Sunday’s runoff election, who can be seen strutting about a nightclub in a video posted on YouTube recently, saying “I would kill Aristide to stick a dick up your ass” and calling Aristide supporters “faggots.”
Martelly has been drawing huge crowds and many presume he’s handily winning the race against a less aggressive right-wing rival. But today I heard a young man remark that he’s “falling in shit.” I stifled a laugh (and a cough, as we marched through the dusty, trash-strewn streets along Aristide’s convoy).
Longtime Haitian political observer Patrick Elie, who served in the governments of Aristide and Preval, was a bit more nuanced: “These elections are going to give a president who has no legitimacy and who will be the puppet of the international community, especially now with the reconstruction.”
“I believe that his return is going to expose politicians that are on the scene and show that, as far as the Haitian people care concerned, they don’t count for much,” he told me.
So to will Rene Preval, the outgoing president, who remains a question mark until he leaves office. He hardly talks to the citizenry, and seems to have lost all standing due to the halting recovery from last year’s earthquake. Why the 180-degree reversal from three years ago? Why did his government renew Aristide’s passport last month and allow him back to Haiti now, ignoring American pressure?
Is it his answer to the obvious question, as Haitian musician Wyclef Jean posed it to me, “[Jean-Claude] Duvalier came back to the country. Why can’t Aristide, you know?” Or is it a final middle finger to the international community for proposing he flee into exile the day of the election, then successfully pressing for the ejection of his favored presidential candidate due to alleged fraud? (Martelly took his spot.)
We don’t know yet. But thanks to a slew of new US cables, obtained by Wikileaks and posted today to coincide with Aristide’s return by a Norwegian newspaper at my suggestion, we do have an unprecedented inside look at the heavy, petulant hand of American policy that thrust Aristide into exile, then silenced and kept him there over seven years. US opposition to Aristde was so strong that it had small governments in its hemispheric backyard, including Haiti’s own under Preval, mostly cowering in its shadow.
Ministers and heads of State, from the Jamaica to the Bahamas, who failed to step in line and offer full support for the removal of Aristide from Haitian political life, are variously “reminded” of American policy on Haiti. The Dominican President Lionel Fernandez was “pulled aside at a social event” by the US Ambassador for a stern talking-to after Fernandez said Aristide enjoyed “great popular support” and called for his inclusion in Haiti’s democracy. Brazil and South Africa agreed, we know, to limit Aristide’s ability to speak out from abroad. That’s not all.
This makes Aristide’s return by plane today, which detoured through Senegal to re-fuel, all the more remarkable. Indeed, when I arrived at the airport ahead of his landing, the ecstatic crowd was nowhere to be found. Toussaint Jean was one of just a few guys leaning against the fence, who left his house in Carrefour Feuilles, one where passionate Martelly supporters predominate.
Photo by Haitian journalist Jean Restil Jean Baptiste
“The mass of people haven’t really mobilized because for three days they’ve been saying he’s coming, but the Americans are putting pressure, and [we think] he can’t return soon. Today you don’t see very many people. The people are doubting – is he coming, is he not coming?”
Not long after that, Jean and around ten thousand others wildly cheered their first glimpse of Aristide on Haitian soil, but the suspicion of behind-the-scenes meddling by the United States remains. The American ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, warned on Twitter today that Aristide may be a “distraction or a disruption,” ahead of Sunday’s ballot.
For his supporters, Aristide’s presence simply obliterates the election, as if it doesn’t exist. No one knows how many people will go to the polls, how much fraud will taint the vote, and who will be declared victor. Those who aren’t huge supporters of Aristide are excitedly discussing the dueling campaigns. But in the first round, at one of the largest camps for earthquake victims, a tiny ill-equipped voting center was torn down in a rage. Ominously, there has reportedly been no improvement or expansion of the center since then.
“With the warmth of [the international community's] embrace, we are almost suffocating. Do they even realize this?” asked Haitian agronomist Ericq Pierre on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake. Regardless of how the election plays out, maybe it’s finally time American policymakers chill out, back off, and for starters, quit trying to silence the voice of the nation’s most popular-ever President and the legions of poor Haitians who see in him now renewed inspiration and hope for the future.
Update: Just had a nice conversation with the motorcycle driver on the way home through quiet, deserted streets. Very happy that Aristide is back, but hopeful that his partisans won’t come into conflict with Martelly supporters because of Martelly’s historic antipathy towards the ex-President. Said it’s time to put all that behind us (hadn’t heard about the incendiary YouTube video, though).
He’ll vote for Martelly (like seemingly every single other moto driver) because he thinks Manigat is part of the discredited political class, though he’s not sure how smoothly the election will go off. Says he’s having trouble making enough money to keep his moto maintained and feed his four kids. Cautiously optimistic about Sunday and the future.
One Response to “Aristide’s Return and Wikileaks: When Will the US Finally Change Course?”
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Thanks for this anyalysis of Aristide’s return. Certainly, it would seem that Duvalier’s being in the country has paved the way for Aristide’s arrival.
Last week I interviewed Baby Doc and this week have a series of posts on my blog about that encounter, if you are interested: “What Does One Wear to Meet a Former Dictator?”
http://www.reinventingtheeventhorizon.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/what-does-one-wear-to-meet-a-former-dictator/
http://www.reinventingtheeventhorizon.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/what-does-one-wear-to-meet-a-former-dictator-part-2/
Kathryn McCullough