Aristide

[bcholmes]

I just watched an interesting documentary: Aristide and the Endless Revolution, mostly about the 2004 Haitian coup, but more generally about both of Aristide's times in power (and the two coups).

I feel like I don't understand, well enough, the role of my government in the political situation in Haiti.

Comments

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

It's hard to blame outsiders. Aristide opposed Duvalier, so the people supported him when Haiti had an election. Then some of Aristide's followers began using nasty tactics, and some of the people opposed them. The opposition had a successful coup. Then the new regime started using nasty tactics, and the opposition to the new regime forced an election that brought in Preval.

It's a common dynamic in poor countries; fascist thugs take power to gain some kind of privileges for their friends, then socialist idealists revolt against oppression, then the socialists screw up the economy, there isn't enough to go around, the socialists use thugs to take wealth from those who gained it from fascist privileges (not all of whom were fascists, some of whom were merely competent and trying to get by), sometimes the fascists gain enough support to overthrow the socialists, yadda yadda.

You can offer people friendship, financial assistance, technical assistance, and some security, but ultimately, as the US isn't but should be learning in Iraq, you can't impose democracy on a place that doesn't accept it, and trying to do so just creates another oppressive center of colonial power that all the factions end up opposing. As the Poles, Ukrainians, Philipinos, and, once upon a time, the Americans figured out, once the people want democracy, domestic and foreign oppressors can't stop it.

I think the Haitians have made progress and I think the Canadian government has helped. The Haitians were right to support Aristide in the first place, they were right to object when his party started started terrorizing opponents, they were right to resist the coup regime when it started killing Aristide supporters.

It's hard to figure out what's going on there because the politics are very atomized; they haven't built stable political structures large enough to govern the country, and the different factions don't all trust each other enough to work together democratically (among other things, they fear for their lives if they're not in power). But they are working on it.