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By Gönenç Ünaldı

Haiti is a small island state in the Caribbean Sea, close to Cuba and the United States. The republic of Haiti was established on the Western part of Hispaniola Island and shares this land with the Dominican Republic. Haiti is known as the poorest country in the western hemisphere and has been in political and social chaos for many years.

Haiti became a part of the international political agenda in the beginning of the 1990s, thanks to the efforts of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and has been a major source of problems especially for the United States of America.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide and 1991 The Military Coup

Haiti had been ruled by a dictatorship until the presidential election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990. Aristide was widely popular among Haitians and was known for his opposition to the oligarchy of rich elites in the country and for his belief in the establishment of a state focused on the welfare of the poor. This political position attracted the anger of the military and a coup d’état took place in 1991. Aristide was overthrown and forced into exile. The Haitian army ruled the country until 1993. During this period, many people who opposed the coup were killed by the military dictatorship.

Victims of the Hatian Military 1991 Photo: Kevin Pina via Hatian Colors

Victims of the Haitian Military 1991 Photo: Kevin Pina via Haitian Colors

In July 1994, the UN Security Council passed a resolution and decided on an intervention to restore democracy. It was stated that the current regime in Haiti was illegal, civil liberties were under great threat, the humanitarian situation was awful and a multinational force had to be prepared under UN mandate to protect the rights of the Haitian people.

USA was very active during these incidents and was willing to intervene in Haiti. President Clinton stated in a September 1994 address:

“Now the United States must protect its interests, to stop the brutal atrocities that threaten tens of thousands of Haitians; to secure our borders and to preserve stability and promote democracy in our hemisphere; and to uphold the reliability of the commitments we make and the commitments others make to us.”

Later that same month, US troops prepared to enter the country. At this point, US President Clinton sent a negotiation team to meet with the military leaders of Haiti and in a short period of time persuaded them to leave the government. After the negotiations, US forces landed on the island and in 1995 Aristide returned back to government.

UN Intervention and Agreement with Haitian Army

The intervention was officially a UN led intervention, but USA took the lead as the main figure during the crisis. USA had a controversial position in this case because of its contradicting actions. For example after the military coup, the Bush administration had condemned the action officially but according to Aristide, the coup was carried out with the support of the US Administration. It was well known that leaders of the coup were trained and funded by the CIA. The actions of the Haitian army were not far removed from the control of USA.

Furthermore, the connection of Haitian army officials and US Administration is visible when the case is searched in detail. In 1993, US officials signed an agreement with the Haitian army officials called the “Governors Island Agreement” which granted amnesty to the military, paramilitary groups and the police units that were responsible for the mass murders that took place between 1991 and 1993. The UN intervention was carried out in a peaceful environment where the Haitian military officials stepped down, most probably, with the confidence of amnesty.

How Haiti had Become a Problem for the USA?

The question you might ask, “Why did the USA decide to intervene if they supported the military coup in the first place?” The answer lies in the refugee crisis that hit United States after the military coup. After the coup and with the start of military repression in Haiti, tens of thousands of people fled the violence seeking safety in USA. This created an internal political crisis. The US Administration did not want to accept the refugees but the Congress kept pressure on the Clinton Administration regarding the worsening situation of Haitians fleeing to US coasts. Now it was an immigration problem. While some Americans were worried regarding the lives of Haitians, others were in the fear of Haitians “invading” their country. Even though Clinton declared that they intervened in Haiti with humanitarian concerns, their main concern was USA and not Haiti. In Dissimulating Intervention: A reading of the US-Led Intervention in Haiti, Cynthia Weber agrees with this idea and asserts that:

“It seems… the focus on the protection of Haitian human rights served as a false cover for an issue closer to home – immigration. Viewing human rights through immigration concerns suggests that the population at risk in US-Haitian relations was not so much the Haitian population but the US citizenry… Focusing on one issue like human rights in order to cover a concern with another issue like immigration is not a particularly new move. One finds this frequently in intervention discourses. I want to suggest that the US discourse on Haiti… was… an example of dissimulation understood as the escalation of the fake. US intervention justifications amounted to projecting the US population’s own fears (real or imagined) onto Haitians (a false) location.”

Thomas Carothers also asserts a similar notion in Democracy Promotion Under Clinton. He says that Clinton’s decision to intervene was affected mostly

“by naked political fear-the fear of domestic fallout over continued flow of Haitian refugees and the righteous wrath of the US community that supported President Aristide.” Moral principles had secondary importance at this point. In 1994, the Administration had a belief that it was vital to “put an end to the refugee flow and get Haiti off Washington’s political agenda.”

The truth is USA never liked Aristide and did many things to overthrow him. But when the consequences of the military coup backfired and hit USA, they decided to intervene. The reason of intervention was not a humanitarian, noble cause, but was completely based on pragmatic reasons; stopping the refugee flow into USA.

Re-election of Aristide

USA’s policy concerning Aristide remains unchanged. In 2000, after the presidency of another elected politician, Aristide returned back to politics and was re-elected as president with great support of the Haitian people. As expected, USA couldn’t accept a politician who was working to create a state focused on the needs of the poor and who was against the Western interests in the region. After Aristide’s second office in 2000s, an anti-Aristide rebellion started in Haiti with the support of the US and her allies. The rebels’ aim was to overthrow Aristide and form a new government, despite the fact that Aristide had the support of most of the Haitian people at that time. The rebellion grew bigger and Aristide fled from the country. Later, Aristide called this rebellion a “military coup” and blamed USA and other Western powers for the illegal action.

After his departure, the UN Security Council passed a resolution and decided to intervene on the island militarily. Soon US, Canadian and French forces occupied Haiti. By 2004, Haiti was under the control of UN forces. Aristide supporters resisted the intervention and staged street demonstrations. The response of UN troops was fierce. A hunt for Aristide supporters was initiated by UN soldiers. Elected politicians and members of Lavalas (Aristide’s political party) were arrested and put into jail as political prisoners; unknown number of people were killed or disappeared. UN soldiers either committed mass murders directly or helped paramilitary groups.

US Marines Point Guns at Un-armed Haitian demonstrators in 2004 Photo: hcvanalysis

US Marines Point Guns at unarmed Haitian demonstrators in 2004 Photo: hcvanalysis

During that time, Aristide lived in South Africa in exile. USA showed a lot of effort to stop Aristide returning back to Haiti. Democracy Now reported in 2011 that according to Wikileaks documents:

“high-level U.S. and U.N. officials coordinated a politically motivated prosecution of Aristide to prevent him from ‘gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti.’ The United States and its allies allegedly poured tens of millions of dollars into unsuccessful efforts to slander Aristide as a drug trafficker, human rights violator, and heretical practitioner of voodoo.”

In 2010, new elections were organized and Michel Martelly was elected as the President. Aristide returned back to Haiti in 2011, after 7 years in exile but he still couldn’t enjoy living freely in his own country. On 11 September 2014, he was put under house arrest. Authorities are now accusing Aristide of corruption, money laundering and drug smuggling.

Supporters of Aristide say the allegations are politically motivated. Ansyto Felix, from Aristide’s Lavalas Party claims,

“Efforts to prosecute the former leader were part of a plan by the Michel Martelly administration to persecute political opponents on the eve of crucial elections and in the face of popular discontent.”

Approximately 200 supporters of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide protested outside his home as police officers stood guard on the outskirts of the compound on September 27. Impressive street demonstrations were held on September 30, 2014 and supporters of Aristide clashed with riot police as they marched through the capital on the anniversary of a 1991 military coup that ousted the country’s first democratically elected leader.

Reporters Without Borders reported at least five journalists have been victims of physical and verbal abuse in the last month in Petit-Goave, a coastal town south of Port-au-Prince. Reports of harassment of journalists, street demonstrations and ongoing pressures to prosecute Aristide, all seem like obvious red flags that the situation in Haiti is escalating once again, in line with the constant state of instability that has marked the island nation’s history.

VIDEO: Lavalas Demonstration On Anniversary of Coup D’etat Against Aristide in Haiti

Sources:
New York Times
UNHCR
LA Times
Armed Humanitarians: U.S. Interventions from Northern Iraq to Kosovo by Robert C. DiPrizi
An Interview with Jean-Bertrand Aristide by Peter Hallward
Dissimulating Intervention: A reading of the US-Led Intervention in Haiti by Cynthia Weber
Democracy Promotion Under Clinton by Thomas Carothers
Democracy Now
Jamaica Observer
Caribbean 360
Al Jazeera
Redemocratization: The Clinton Administration and Haiti, Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1997, 383.
Herb Boyd, “Kidnapped,” New York Amsterdam News 4-10 March 2004: 1.

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