Gary Younge (Guardian Utd): Throttled by history

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited
Dated Monday February 23

Throttled by history
Haiti's political class has failed it, but the first black republic has also been squeezed dry by a vengeful west
By Gary Younge in Port-au-Prince

As civil war encroaches, civil society implodes and civil political discourse evaporates, one of the few things all Haitians can agree on is their pride in Toussaint L'Ouverture, who lead the slave rebellion in Haiti that established the world's first black republic. "The transformation of slaves, trembling in hundreds before a single white man, into a people able to organise themselves and defeat the most powerful European nations of their day is one of the great epics of revolutionary struggle and achievement," wrote the late Trinidadian intellectual CLR James in his book The Black Jacobins. The transformation of that achievement into a nation riven by political violence, ravaged by Aids and devastated by poverty is a tragedy of epic proportions.
The nation's 200th anniversary this year looks back on 13 coups and 19 years of American occupation, and now once again looks forward to more bloodshed and instability. The country's political class must bear their share of responsibility for where they go from here. Western powers, particularly France and the United States, must also take responsibility for how they got to this parlous place to begin with. If Haiti shows all the trappings of a failed state, then you do not have to look too hard or too far to see who has failed it.
The most urgent issue is to stem the descent into gang warfare and political anarchy. In this the Haitians have been let down by poor domestic political leadership on all sides. In the nine years since Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas party has been in power, economic improvements have been few and human rights abuses have been many. With no army and only a few thousand poorly trained police, Aristide has relied on armed gangs to sustain his authority. In 2000, he rigged parliamentary elections in favour of his own party, sparking outrage and laying the basis for a broad-based opposition, which has gathered pace and strength in recent months.
But while the political opposition, based in Port-au-Prince, has grown in size it remains diminished in direction and devoid of strategy. With no agenda beyond forcing Aristide to resign, it offers only the possibility of even more chaos. With no desire to negotiate a settlement, it offers the certainty of stalemate. Its ability to destabilise, and inability to lead effectively and constructively, has left a vacuum now filled by an armed opposition, comprising henchmen from previous dictatorships. Up to their necks in blood and armed to the teeth, these men have poured across the border from the neighbouring Dominican Republic in the past week and are taking over towns and ransacking police stations. Yesterday there were reports that they had seized the country's second city, Cap Haïtien.

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