Updates and sad judgments

A few brief updates on recent events in Haiti. Previous posts were on February 9 and February 12.

On February 10, the BBC reported that

Haitian authorities have retaken a key northern city from rebels opposed to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Police, backed by helicopters, entered the port of Saint-Marc, about 65 miles (105km) north of the capital Port-au-Prince, city residents said.

Earlier, [Prime Minister Yvon] Neptune accused the civil opposition of trying to mount a coup as unrest continued to spread in Haiti. ...

Further north, police have withdrawn from the rebel-held city of Gonaives.

Most of the city's 200,000 inhabitants are also believed to have fled.

On February 12, says the New York Times, a planned march in the capital city of Port-au-Prince by opponents of Aristide was forcibly blocked by supporters,

erecting barricades of flaming tires and throwing rocks at anyone who tried to breach their blockade. ...

Mr. Aristide has said that those who oppose his government are free to demonstrate, but the police and pro-Aristide gangs have often blocked marches, firing tear gas and sometimes bullets into the crowds. The protest would have been the first since uprisings began sweeping the country a week ago, killing dozens of people and bringing Haiti to the brink of chaos. ...

Opposition leaders said the march was a chance to demonstrate their groups' strength and emphasize their nonviolent approach in the capital. They have struggled to distance themselves from the violent uprisings sweeping through cities and towns along the northern coast.

Mr. Aristide has labeled opposition groups "terrorists," and he has said that civic groups that espouse nonviolence are secretly supporting the armed militants.

As the Christian Science Monitor pointed out on February 13,

this is not yet an organized national insurrection. Rather, this island nation is seared by pockets of spontaneous violence fueled by anger and revenge - carried out by both anti- and pro-government militia. ...

Aristide critics here say the unrest is fueled by the government's tolerance of pro-government gangs, drug-running, and police repression and extortion. ...

Aristide continues to call for elections to resolve the crisis, but the opposition - citing security and corruption concerns - claims elections are impossible under his watch. ...

While the armed Gonaives rebels are calling for Aristide's resignation, they are not connected to the political opposition, its leaders contend.

But that hasn't stopped Aristide's traditional enemies - old-time supporters of the 29-year Duvalier dictatorship and members of the brutal Haitian Army he disbanded in 1995 - from taking advantage of the population's dashed hopes.

"This government specializes in lying," says Evans Paul, mayor of Port-au-Prince during Aristide's first term (1991-1995) and frequent victim of Army repression during the 1990s when he and Aristide were allies. ...

"A lot of people say we should take up arms, but we don't think violence can solve Haiti's crisis. If there are others opposed to Aristide who chose the same methods as his government - guns - we can't do anything about that," Paul says.

In Haiti's second-largest city, Cap-Haitien, the unrest is mostly initiated by pro-government toughs who have built barricades, torched houses of suspected government critics, and chased journalists, say residents reached by phone.

The immediate result has been what almost anyone could have predicted.

Aid agencies have warned of an imminent humanitarian crisis in the rebel-held area of northern Haiti as unrest continues to spread across the nation.

They appealed for swift access to the city of Gonaives and other towns cut off from food convoys and medical care. ...

The United Nations World Food Programme said it was unable to deliver supplies to about 268,000 people dependent on food aid in northern Haiti. ...

"What humanitarian workers need now is access to the north," Elisabeth Byrs, UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Geneva, said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said medical facilities in Gonaives were grinding to a halt as staff feared for their safety and victims of violence were simply scared to seek medical assistance.

That from the BBC for February 14.

One additional development is that the US has backed off on implying support for Aristide's ouster. From the above article:

On Friday, the US said the removal of Haiti President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was not the way to end the crisis.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Mr Aristide's time in power had been disappointing, but "regime change" was not the way forward.

It's hard to know where to begin to disentangle the matted mass of pain, suffering, frustration, doubletalk, ego, and fear that is Haiti today. (The absence of any hopeful references in that list is deliberate.) Aristide is accused of corruption by some of the biggest robber barons in the nation, his supporters of brutality by gun-toting thugs and supporters of the old Army whose 1991 coup was a monument to bloodshed. Yet there is a saying "If it's the truth, what does it matter who said it?" and the charges ring true as Aristide does little if anything to curb the violence of his backers in the streets. In the 2000 elections he rammed through victories by his party in defiance of the law - even though he didn't have to and very likely would have won overwhelmingly anyway. Yet the opposition blames him for the failure to hold new elections even though it is they who are preventing them by refusing to take part in organizing them. Aristide invites retribution against the opposition by calling them "terrorists." That opposition claims it has no connection to the violence while sending signals of support, such as Evans Paul's remark that "we can't do anything about" Aristide opponents taking up arms. And as far as I can see, the pain can only and will only increase.

I was overjoyed when Aristide won the presidency in 1990. But now I frankly have to wonder if he is remaining in office out of principle or out of ego. The question I think he needs to ask himself is if he was not president, what would happen? Would his party continue to be dominant in the parliament? Could it still dominate free elections? If yes, does he serve those goals by being a lightning rod for chaos? If no, does clinging to power until 2006 change that calculation?

It genuinely pains me to say this, but I have come to believe that once an orderly succession is arranged and in exchange for helping end the violence and giving guarantees of cooperation on early elections, Jean-Bertrand Aristide should step down as president of Haiti.