03-02-2004, 01:11 PM
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#47 (permalink)
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Junkie
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Here's a portion from an article written by someone claiming to have met with Aristide: Jean Bertrand Aristide: Humanist or Despot?
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How then to reconcile Titid the humanist with what the media calls a despot of Haiti?
I don't know, and frankly, I've been struggling with that question. When I spoke with Haitians working for a few pennies an hour sewing clothes for American companies, I was frustrated that Aristide insisted on following a democratic process to raise the minimum wage knowing that the process would be slower and result in a lower minimum than if he just unilaterally raised it himself.
Aristide said, "Change takes time, Lyn. Some people have spent years paying Haitians very little. When I wanted to raise the minimum wage in 1991, they had a coup and you know what happened." He reminded me that he had gone to parliament to raise the minimum wage in 1994, though it was still very low. "Of course people should be paid more, but in a democracy we have to share power and this is what was [voted on.]" he said.
When a major American daily paper published an article that portrayed Aristide as a despot, I was aghast. "Don't you care that they're saying this about you?" I asked him. As much as I disagreed with some of his politics, I was hurt when I saw him so maligned.
Aristide always had an answer: "What is important is not journalists, it's to make democracy real. How can we say we love our brother but we let him starve? How can we say we want democracy but we do nothing when people have no home? How can people have peace in their hearts when they have no peace in their stomach?"
There are, he added, "Larger forces at work here than you or me, forces that have a big stake in our small country."
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Here are portions of an article I found interesting that give more historical context to the current situation: U.S.-Sponsored Regime Change in Haiti
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Cycles of Destabilization
This overthrow had been in the making since December 1990, when Haiti's first free election was held. The winning candidate, with two-thirds majority, was the populist priest Aristide, backed by a vigorous grassroots movement known as Lavalas. But seven months later, Aristide's government was overthrown in a military coup. No government on earth recognized the military junta, but as Noam Chomsky noted: "Washington maintained close intelligence and military ties with the new rulers while undermining the embargo called by the Organization of American States, even authorizing illegal shipments of oil to the regime and its wealthy supporters."
In July 1993, Aristide was made to sign the Governor's Island Accord, a US-backed "peace accord" with the illegal military junta that terrorized Haiti for three years. The Accord forbade Aristide from running for re-election once he was restored to power, and gave amnesty to the death-squad terrorists of the junta. The junta then refused to abide by the accord, prompting President Clinton to send in troops in September 1994.
Aristide finished his term, although conditions imposed on him as the cost of returning to power – such as an IMF-style "free market" reform of the economy – eroded his popularity. But Aristide continued to stand up to the IMF and international creditors, demanding a better deal that would not impose yet harsher austerity on Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
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France was the first to call for Aristide's resignation as the rebels seized the northern half of the country in late February. The French hold grudges against Aristide for his demand last April that France pay back the $22 billion (adjusted for inflation and interest) that Haiti had to pay in 1863 for French recognition of the republic, which became independent in 1804 – the second in the hemisphere after the US in 1776, and the first independent black republic in the world. Ironically, the new uprising came weeks after Haiti had celebrated the bicentennial of its independence.
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I hope people read through these articles and reexamine their beliefs about this subject instead of rejecting what might be new information that they didn't have when they formed their opinions. |
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