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[Odler]

http://www.jeanlouie.com/

Feb 29, 2004

The current Haitian imbroglio bears stunning similarity with the recent

political crisis in Ivory Coast. In September 2002, Ivorian soldiers

revolted against their government and occupied the North and West of the

country. The situation ended in a stalemate.

After more than a year of deepening crisis, the diverging forces met in

Marcoussis, France, in January 2003, under the auspices of the Elysee.

After ten days of discussions, they elaborated a nine-point program that

would ensure the resolution of the situation.

Since then, Ivorians have been working at it. The path has not been

smooth since it involves not only political elements, put also complex

issues of ethnicity, of nationality, of economic disparity, of religions,

and so on.

More than a year after this agreement, the United Nations are sending,

this week, a force of 6,000 peacekeepers to avoid a sideslip.

The streets of Abidjan are calm, the people has been back to its routine,

and President Laurent Gbagbo, who bears some responsibilities for the

crisis, is still at the helm, of a coalition government that is.

????

Over the last 24 hours, Paris and Washington have sent a clear message:

the elected president of Haiti, partly responsible of the Haitian crisis

(by the very virtue of being in office), is to relinquish power. He has

to go.

The dilemma is that Aristide, like Duvalier, Cedras, and the previous 32

Haitian head states who saw their term truncated, or had to leave the

palace against their will, is not the root of the Haitian problem.

In a week or two, Jean-Bertrand Aristide will be an ex-Haitian President.

Another one.

It is just a matter of time. And, this will be justice; Aristide should

have never become President. The slum priest turned millionaire has

disappointed every hope placed in him, less by his incompetence than by

his loss of ideological direction. Haitians elected an above-the-fray

Mandela, they got a Pincochet.

Upon Arisitide?s repatriation in 1994, the U.S ambassador in

Port-au-Prince saw the future of Haiti as a ?miracle in the waiting?. The

reasons why this miracle never happened are too numerous and too complex

to be the responsibilities of a single man.

Here are few factors to look at:

Haiti has been the pawn and the bete noire of all imperialist powers.

Haiti?s elites, instead of being a nationalist establishment, have been

apolitical, or worse self-serving anti-nationalist.

Haitian leaders have been invariably incompetent or megalomaniac, and too

often both.

The Haitian identity (African, poor, uneducated, voodoo practionner)

cannot be assumed by Haitian intellectuals raised as Eurocentric, rich,

and Christian.

Haiti is too poor and too illiterate to abide to the precepts of a

capitalist Jeffersonian democracy. Socialism, a la Scandinavia, should be

looked at.

Aristide will leave. Haitians will not change. The next President will be

worse. The guns will remain. They will come out at the next crisis.

What Haiti needs is a Marcoussis, a national consensus, involving all

sectors. Or maybe an enlightened dictator. Was Louis XIV so bad for

France?

(OdlerRobert Jeanlouie, Sunday, February 29, 2004)