http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=5043What is the role of the US in Haiti? The US was the main supporter of the Duvalier dictatorship. In 1986, when Haiti's pro-democracy movement finally succeeded in overthrowing the hated dictator, he was ferried to safety by the Reagan Administration.
Only with the rise of Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president, did US support shift from the Haitian leadership to those who orchestrated the 1991 coup d'etat.
In 1994, public pressure and fear of an influx of Haitian 'boat people' led the Clinton Administration to reverse the coup d'etat and restore Aristide to power.
The Republican leadership strongly opposed the intervention. In 1995, when Republicans took control of Congress, they pushed to cancel US aid to Haiti and to finance the opposition by reallocating federal funds to Haitian non-governmental organizations opposed to Aristide.
In 2000, the Republicans exploited Haiti's electoral controversy as an opportunity to discredit Aristide. The Bush Administration pressured the Inter-American Development Bank to cancel more than $650 million in development assistance and approved loans to Haiti -- money that was slated to pay for safe drinking water, literacy programs and health services.The seven contested senators are long gone, but the embargo remains in place, denying critical services to the poorest people in the hemisphere.
What is Aristide's record? The US allowed Aristide to be reinstated on the condition that he implement a neoliberal economic agenda.
Aristide complied with some US demands, including a reduction of tariffs on US-grown rice that bankrupted thousands of Haitian farmers and maintenance of a below- subsistence-level minimum wage.
But Aristide resisted privatizing state-owned resources, because of protests from his political base and because he was reluctant to relinquish control over these sources of wealth.
Aristide eventually doubled the minimum wage and -- despite the embargo -- prioritized education and healthcare: he built schools and renovated public hospitals; established new HIV-testing centers and doctor-training programs; and introduced a program to subsidize schoolbooks and uniforms and expand school lunch and bussing services.
Aristide has tried to walk a line between US demands for neoliberal reforms and his own commitment to a progressive economic agenda. As a result, he has lost favor with parts of his own political base and Haitian and US elites.
Aristide has also been criticized for turning a blind eye to human rights abuses committed by his supporters and by advocates of good governance for rewarding loyalists with government posts regardless of their qualifications. (a patronage system even more extensive than the one that has filled the Bush Administration with former CEOs and corporate lobbyists.)
So Should Progressives Support Aristide? The current crisis is not about supporting or opposing Aristide the man, but about defending constitutional democracy in Haiti. In a democracy, elections-and not vigilante violence-should be the measure of 'the will of the people.' Aristide has repeatedly invited the opposition to participate in elections and they have refused, knowing that they cannot win at the polls.
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