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NEWS & LETTERS, April-May 2006Our Life and Times by Kevin A. Barry and Mitch WeerthHaitian elections repudiate U.S. interferenceThe February elections in Haiti were a clear repudiation of the U.S.-orchestrated overthrow of leftist President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. Despite international pressure of various kinds, the Haitian people voted overwhelmingly for René Préval, a close colleague of Aristide, now living in exile in South Africa. Préval got over 50% of the vote in the first round, while his nearest opponent, the neo-liberal Max Manigat, received only 12%. Manigat protested the fact that a recount eliminating fraudulent ballots had put Préval over the top, but left-of-center candidates like Evans Paul conceded to Préval. Recent reports, especially Walt Bogdanovich and Jenny Nordberg’s “Mixed U.S. Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Toward Chaos” (NEW YORK TIMES 1/29/06), have proved the extent of U.S. meddling in the 2004 overthrow of Aristide. While official U.S. policy favored compromise between Aristide and his conservative opponents, the International Republican Institute (IRI), a wing of the Republican Party, operated on a parallel track, telling those same opponents (and their armed allies) to wait for Aristide’s overthrow. At the same time, the Aristide legacy is a mixed one. On the one hand, he championed the oppressed, in this the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. On the other hand, he resorted to warlordism, allowing criminal gangs to flourish, so long as they kept the small externally supported opposition in check. The more “moderate” Préval will surely try to placate mass hunger for change without offending the Bush administration, but the class contradictions in Haiti may be too deep for such a policy to succeed. |
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