Originally: Aristide/Lavalas, la stratégie de la terre brûlée?
June 3-6, 2005
(Edited by James Morrell)
Conceived in ignorance, blighted in outlook, and disastrous in execution, Aristide?s Lavalas movement went spectacularly aground on February 29, 2004. The corruption it fostered weakened its own defenses. The violence it so cynically used was turned against it. It was a far cry from the idealistic origins of this movement in the revolutionary euphoria of the 1980s social movement. The consequences have been nothing short of horrendous.
For all of the popular support he received, Aristide never delivered any of the basics to the population. He “compensated,” as it were, by spreading the opportunity for corruption to a select few among the very poor. For these lucky ones there were employment opportunities in the rising field of neighborhood thuggery, with an emphasis on the poorest districts. There they could also conveniently serve to protect him against his political enemies.
He provided himself with the illusion of security by eliminating the army, by taking over the police, by corrupting them with criminal organizations, and by hiring his own private militia called “OPs.” He bought loyalties, created forces, and consolidated turf all to make sure of his control. Such was the syndrome that the population finally rejected and disposed of, bringing on the confused denouement of February 29, 2004.
What of the Lavalas movement today? Since 1997, when I began to write about how Aristide was undermining the presidency of his stand-in, Préval, in order to show that no one could govern Haiti except him, I have been distinguishing between the movement of Lavalas and the person of Aristide. Because of the tension between the two, a series of splits have occurred within Lavalas since 1991, notably those of OPL in 1999 and MODEREH after 2004, MODEREH being the party of Dany Toussaint, Prince Sonçon Pierre, and others. It?s hard to tell whether people like Leslie Voltaire and former prime minister Jean-Marie Chérestal are merely Aristide surrogates or aspirants in their own right. Add to these former Lavalas senators Gérard Gilles and Yvon Feuillé, both still players, with Feuillé joining a committee for the preparation of a national dialogue. According to Gérard Gilles, the presence of his colleague on that committee is justified by “the need for him to speak out for the prisoners in prolonged pretrial detention and advocate the return of Haitians living in exile.” (Radio Kiskeya, May 31.) Nothing more. Not a word to condemn the destructive violence and cruelty of Aristide?s supporters in the poor neighborhoods. Incidentally, that committee for national dialogue must start with a solemn and forceful condemnation of violence. That would be the minimum for it to be taken seriously.
One thing is certain, however. All these people are pieces in a chess game played in the dark. In any case, they are far from representing the official Fanmi Lavalas, in which Aristide is not only the titular president, but the one and only. Here we pass from the Lavalas movement to the Aristide personality. Jean Bertrand speaks only to Aristide, who speaks only to God. This former chief of state, who has been thrown out twice from the presidential chair, trusts no one. He proved this clearly on two occasions. First, during his exile of 1991?94, in undermining his prime minister, Robert Malval, in 1993. The second time, while waiting to regain the presidency, during the five-year term of René Préval, whom he systematically sabotaged, undermined, and disrupted until he turned his presidency into an exercise in futility.
Aristide had to face an intransigent opposition, and spent his two terms either trying to regain the presidency (1991?94) or trying to prove his legitimacy (2001?2004). Unable to overcome the forces that had come together against him, he still managed, before he was forced from power in February 2004, to position his time bombs carefully, and their destructive power is being felt today. That is what I called, in 2003, the unknown potential of the forces behind him. Who else really speaks for him besides these secret groups which have morphed into urban guerrillas bolstering his claim to be a player?
However unrealistically, Aristide has not given up the idea of returning to the national scene and playing a major role. His strategy? Make political normality impossible without him, ruin the elections and render the country ungovernable.
The means to the end? There are four main ones:
1) Aristide’s lobbyists in the United States (members of Congress and various other personalities, in addition to professional lobbyists)
2) One extreme strain of the Latin American left, recycled anti-globalization activists who participated in demonstrations during the Porto Allegre summit in February 2005.
3) The action of some governments in the southern hemisphere (some CARICOM members, and the governments of South Africa and Venezuela)
4) Terrorist harassment of all types, ever since the launching of Operation Baghdad in September 2004, currently manifesting itself with unprecedented brutality and a bid by his supporters to regain the control of the streets. There were several thousand marching recently in Port-au-Prince on May 18 to demand the return of their leader to the country.
In the short term, Aristide’s goal is to prevent elections. If he succeeds, the deck will have to be reshuffled and he will have to be reckoned with and readmitted as a major player. In such a scenario, the national-reconciliation talks would assume a larger dimension. Under those circumstances, his forces could use the leverage of the moment to press for a national-sovereignty conference.
If he fails to stop the elections, Plan B is to put at the opportune time his trusted candidates in the race for office under the banner of the duly recognized Fanmi Lavalas party. In the meantime, his armed groups would do all they could to terrorize the population and drive as many voters as possible from the polls. Obviously, that would increase his chances. It is futile to believe, as Jean Michel Caroit wrote in Le Monde (June 1 issue), that “the controversy around the jailing of Aristide’s former Prime Minister, Yvon Neptune, is one of the major obstacles to the participation of the Lavalas Family?in the upcoming elections.”
Aristide’s strategy is aimed at regaining power over a ruined state and society. It is the scorched-earth strategy. It is “Pere Lebrun,” the burning tire around the neck, writ large, as was recently done with the burning of the Tete Boeuf market. It has nothing to do with elections.
Shouldn?t that be enough motivation for the political forces, and all those claiming to want democratic normality, to rethink their own strategy as long as it is inspired by patriotism?