In Haiti, as in many deeply troubled places, it was comforting to identify
the national demons with one man, and to assume that his destruction would
bring theirs. But three months have passed since the former President, Jean-Claude
Duvalier, boarded a waiting United States Air Force jet and flew off to
an opulent exile in France, and it has become sadly clear that building
the ''new Haiti'' will be a slow and painful process - and one that the
United States can do little to influence.
Mr. Duvalier bequeathed his country a weak interim Government
- it is headed by the former Army chief of staff, Gen. Henri Namphy -
that has spent the past three months struggling to wrest the political
initiative from a newly vocalopposition. Some 60 people are already noisily
campaigning to be President, but the Government has not yet set a date
for elections. Seven people died during a demonstration April 26 in only
the latest bloody confrontation between nervous soldiers and impatient
civilians.
Mr. Duvalier has been brought down, but the forces
that produced him remain strong in Haiti, for what has come to be called,
mistakenly, ''the revolution'' has as yet done little to alter them. Mr.
Duvalier and his father, Francois''Papa Doc'' Duvalier, were only the latest
and worst of a lineage of rapacious men. For a century and a half, Government
in Haiti meant little more than a mechanism to channel the country's wealth
and resources from the masses in the countryside to a tiny group of privileged
in the cities, and politics was confined to struggles among them.
Mr. Duvalier's departure did nothing to change the
grim statistics that drag behind the country's name like a ball and chain.
Well over half of Haiti's workers are unemployed. Eight of 10 Haitians are
illiterate. Almost a third of Haitian children die before their fifth birthdays.
Life expectancy is 53 years, per capita income $300. Once the richest colony
in the world, Haiti is far the poorest country in the hemisphere and one
of the poorest on earth.
The events that brought
Mr. Duvalier down may properly be called a revolution only in the sense
that they somehow gave birth to a mass of Haitians suddenly conscious of
their power to influence rulers who had always been confident about ignoring
them. Drawn from the ranks of the urban poor and recently organized into
neighborhood committees often tied to the Roman Catholic Church, this new-found
force marching in the streets frightened the established order and brought
on a coup d'etat.
The regime seemed quite unable to deal with it in
other than violent ways, and in a compromise mediated by the United States,
Mr. Duvalier agreed to leave quietly on condition that his interests and
those of his followers be protected. The Government that succeeded him was
thus dominated by his supporters, and it managed in its first six weeks
of power to spirit many of the old regime's most hated criminals out of
the country.
General Namphy has since been forced to sack the hard-line
Duvalierists, but most Haitians still regard the Government with grave suspicion,
and stand ready to take to the streets at the least provocation. The elite,
meanwhile, deeply worried by the violent marches and recurrent strikes,
demand that the Government maintain order. Its seeming inability to act
has given currency to rumors of an imminent coup by hard-line Duvalierists
in the army. The inexperienced soldiers running the Government are faced
with the task of satisfying popular demands by means of a corrupt, inept
system designed to do nothing of the kind.
Truly meaningful reform - elimination of trade monopolies,
restructuring the tariff system, reform of the land-tenure system and enforcing
the income tax laws - would entail cutting through deep encrustations of
political privilege and challenging some very powerful people. It would
also demand an administrative capacity the present Government clearly lacks:
indeed, the entrenched bureaucrats themselves constitute the first line
of resistance.
It is not for the United
States to build a new Haiti, but we can help the interim Government by making
it absolutely clear that we would oppose any Duvalierist effort to regain
power. The United States justified its long support for Mr. Duvalier on
the grounds that he provided ''stability,'' but if the events that brought
him down prove anything, it is that stability through repression is no longer
possible in Haiti. A right-wing coup would probably bring on the very bloodbath
that his departure was meant to avert.
The United States can also help by creating new productive,
private-sector jobs - Haiti's most desperately needed commodity - by raising
its textile quota. It should strongly support the Haitian Government's own
public-works program, and, where possible, work with the private sector
to create jobs. This help, together with continued emergency food shipments
and short-term credit, should be tied to specific, highly visible political
reform.
The Namphy Government should be urged to promote what
it calls ''transparency'' in public administration by making public the
salaries of ministers and other officials. General Namphy and his ministers
should make more and better use of the media - especially radio - in explaining
their policies. Finally, Washington should continue to urge Port-au-Prince
to announce at least a tentative date for national elections.
In Haiti, as elsewhere in Latin America, the United States'
concern for stability has often led to short-sighted policies. It is clear
that stability in Haiti will come only when the legitimate aspirations
of its people -for work, for a gradually improving standard of living
and for some voice in how their country is run - are satisfied. The process
has begun -haltingly, but unmistakably. It is in the United States' interests
to do what we can to see that this continues.
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