Americans are so devoted to democracy and
so respectful of its central ritual that we tend to confuse the one with
the other. Call it the Election Day Myth. On that charmed day, every citizen,
no matter how poor or obscure, is endowed with exactly the same quantum
of power as every other citizen, no matter how wealthy or well connected.
The myth is beautiful and affecting, and not without truth. But in the
absence of institutions through which the elected can govern and the governed
can seek justice even the freest election is not enough to make a democracy.
Almost three years ago, on a day of great jubilation, the citizens of
the wretched island nation of Haiti lived their own Election Day Myth.
Courtesy of hundreds of observers from the United Nations and the Organization
of American States, Haitians took part in a free and fair election, in
which, as it happened, two Haitians in three cast their ballots for a
rousing orator and inspiring leader of the poor named Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Since Aristide had won two-thirds of the vote, his mandate to govern might
seem to have been overwhelming-were it not that virtually all the Haitians
with money and power numbered themselves among the other third. Many of
these people, whose families had brutally ruled the country for almost
two hundred years, nourished an intense hatred for Aristide, a Catholic
priest who made no secret of his determination to rectify the grotesquely
skewed distribution of money and power that characterized Haitian society.
They feared his wildly enthusiastic supporters in the slums, and they
were determined to keep him-by any means necessary-from assuming real
authority over the Army.
As Father Aristide took office, there existed a clear potential for disaster-a
potential that had been underlined, a month before his inauguration, by
an attempted coup d'?tat and, in response, violent rioting by his supporters.
Faced with this uncertain situation-and with the strong disinclination
of Haitians, who are fiercely nationalistic, to see the international
presence extended-the representatives of the international institutions
that had made Aristide's election possible left the country. Thirty-one
tumultuous weeks later, after a second, and very bloody, coup d'?tat succeeded,
Aristide followed them. That was two years ago. Last week, when the United
States troop ship Harlan County, carrying two hundred American "combat
engineers and military trainers," beat an ignominious retreat from the
waters off Port-au-Prince, it was only the latest and most embarrassing
of a series of failed attempts to restore President Aristide to office.
What was most striking about this sad incident was not the glee of the
unruly Haitian gunmen celebrating their triumph onshore (a triumph sweetened
by Haitian memories of 1915, when American Marines last disembarked at
Port-au-Prince for a stay of almost two decades) but, rather, the yawning
gap between the stated goal of the mission-"the restoration of democracy
in Haiti"-and the means chosen to achieve it: a few engineers and trainers,
many of whom did not even carry sidearms, and who were under standing
orders, should they encounter trouble in the Haitian capital, to "run
the other way."
Ever since President Aristide's overthrow,
and increasingly since early July, when the so-called Governor's Island
accord was signed (and under which the President was to return to office
on October 30th), violence has overwhelmed life in Port-au-Prince: disappearances,
kidnappings, mysterious fires, assassinations in broad daylight in full
view of the police and the military-all the familiar techniques of street
terror that have traditionally been used to impress on Haitians that,
no matter what the foreigners say, those who have always held power in
their country still hold it. Though the refusal of the Haitian armed forces
to protect citizens clearly violated the spirit of the accord, the United
States and the United Nations did nothing, preferring to wait hopefully
for the arrival of the foreign troops, who, one diplomat said, could be
expected to turn the tide because of Haitians' "awe of foreigners." And,
if that awe proved insufficient, how were these lightly armed foreigners
expected to deal with street terror? An unnamed but obviously less hopeful
official told the Times that they would "have a narrow mandate to be there
and rub off on the police and the army, who magically by osmosis are supposed
to behave themselves; to conduct themselves more professionally."
"To conduct themselves more professionally": how American, to take a political
problem and disguise it as a technical one-as if the difficulty were that
the benighted Haitian troops had simply never been informed that their
job description did not include the murder of unarmed civilians. Training
might well benefit the Haitian soldiers-although it is worth recalling
that their predecessors got plenty of training under the Marines, who
founded the current Army during the American occupation. But training
cannot clear the political impasse, which is that a large number of Haiti's
rich and powerful, fearing (with some reason) the diminution of their
privileges and wealth, not only detest but distrust President Aristide
and his supporters, and lack the means, the traditions, and the inclination
to respond in any way save violently. Even had they been inclined to offer
legal opposition, the mediating institutions through which they might
have done so-established political parties, a vigorous legislature, a
judiciary insulated from the executive power-do not exist. Until they
do, talk of "restoring democracy in Haiti" will be little more than a
sad farce.
For all President Clinton's talk of "growing democracies," no one really
knows how such institutions could be developed in Haiti. What is clear
is that the Clinton Administration, while setting the lofty goal of democracy
in Haiti, has never been willing to make the investment, financial and
political, needed to achieve it. One result is that the Governor's Island
accord mandated not only Aristide's return but also an amnesty for those
who overthrew him and then murdered thousands of his supporters. After
all, to force a wholesale "housecleaning" in the Haitian military would
have required something more than a few hundred lightly armed engineers
and trainers.
Even if Father Aristide does one day manage
to return to Haiti, the political paradox that led to his downfall will
remain. He stands for "the people" in a country in which the people have
always had nothing. He is, in essence, a revolutionary, come to office
not in the manner of revolutionaries-by sweeping away the old order-but
thanks to a foreign-sponsored election that left the system he would overturn
firmly in place.
It is not at all clear how, or whether, democracy can be implanted in
a place like Haiti. At the weekend, American destroyers were steaming
toward Haitian waters-sent by President Clinton to bolster the international
sanctions that are supposed, again, to force Haiti's rulers to adhere
to that flawed accord. Perhaps the warships will force concessions; perhaps
they will bring more violence. But it is unlikely that they will bring
democracy: in Haiti, as elsewhere, that would require of the American
people a greater commitment than they, or their leaders, appear ready
to make.
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