TRANSITION PERIOD MARKED BY DISCORD, DISARRAY, AND DISAPPOINTMENT

Thousands will watch as Jean-Bertrand Aristide passes the presidential sash to his successor and his former prime minister Rene Garcia Preval on Feb. 7. But the gloomy and desperate popular mood surrounding this presidential inauguration is a sharp contrast to the joy and delirium which characterized the last one, five years ago.

Demonstrations have multiplied in recent days as Haitians around the country try to collect on the promises generously distributed during the 15 months since Aristide’s return on October 15, 1994. For example, flaming barricades went up in the northern community of Moren on Feb. 5. Residents demanded to know what had become of the water collection facility Aristide had promised them during a visit in July 1995 when he had declared that 26 million gourdes were immediately available for starting the project.

The same day in Port-au-Prince, victims of a fire 10 days earlier also barricaded streets and demonstrated to have Aristide, or one of his ministers, come to see and respond to their plight.

But Aristide and his officials have been too busy in other realms, most visibly the launching of his re-election campaign for the year 2000. During the ceremony to dedicate yet another expensive statue, this one in front of the Palace on Feb. 5, dozens of school children sang, danced, and paraded in white tee- shirts emblazoned with Aristide’s image and the slogan “Aristide – Rendezvous 2001.” There is similar wall graffiti around the capital and reports that Aristide will establish a new party– and a new foundation – shortly after stepping down.

Such reports fuel talk of a major split between Aristide and the Lavalas Political Organization (OPL), which stands behind Preval. OPL partisans, in private and increasingly in public, have criticized the Aristide administration as having accomplished little. Ironically, these same Lavalas politicians were fierce defenders of Aristide’s regime only weeks ago.

However, Aristide’s failures are glaring. Even mere gestures toward justice, which was the main plank of Aristide’s electoral platform, have been botched. The statue dedication on Feb. 5 doubled as ceremony for the presentation of the long-awaited Truth Commission report, which was delivered months late and on the penultimate day of Aristide’s term. Francoise Boucard, the Truth Commission’s head, proudly reports that the document is a whopping 1200-pages, but they all remain a state secret. Rumors and lateness suggest that the document may not adequately report the “truth” of the 3-year terror which gripped Haiti after the Sept. 30, 1991 coup d’etat.

Of course, the task has not been facilitated by the on-going military occupation of Haiti. The complexity and depth of this control was demonstrated this week when a report by Allan Nairn to be published in the Feb. 26th edition of “The Nation” revealed that “the C.I.A. has placed agents inside the rebuilt Haitian National Police, where, according to the transition chief for president-elect Rene Preval, they operate outside the control of the legal Haitian government.” That transition chief, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, hastily disavowed the report in which he is quoted as saying “the C.I.A. is present within the police. It is present in all parts.” Chavannes claimed he had not been that “categoric” in his remarks and was really only speculating. The back- pedalling, however, only helps to highlight the complete respect and subservience of the Lavalas leadership towards the U.S.’s “invisible” government which rules occupied Haiti.

Meanwhile, to Aristide’s credit, his government has refused to accept the partial return of the 160,000 documents stolen from Haiti by U.S. occupation forces in 1994. The Clinton administration will only give back all the documents with dumb- founding conditions. “The State Department… has been pressing Haiti to sign an eight-point ‘Memorandum of Understanding,” which would place detailed restrictions on [the Haitian government’s] right to use the documents,” Nairn reports. In a statement before a Congressional panel headed by Rep. John Conyers on Feb. 6, Nairn presented his findings and recommended that “Congress should press for the release of not just the documents seized from FADH [the Haitian Army] and FRAPH [the leading death squad] but also all internal >US< documents relating to these groups. The Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, State Department, and White House should be called upon to systematically divulge all the papers, tapes, and photos they have.”

While holding back key materials like the seized documents, the U.S. is trying other public relations efforts. Last week, the UN military occupiers (MINUHA) donated 3 fire-trucks to Haiti. Such gestures, the UN apparently hopes, will smooth the road ahead if the Security Council renews the mandate of the MINUHA occupation forces for another 6 months, as asked for by Preval and his team. Interestingly, however, there are reports that China might veto the continuation of the MINUHA mission, largely because the Lavalas government has been one of the warmest allies of the Chinese de factos based in Taiwan. The vice-president of Taiwan arrived with a 40-person retinue for Feb. 7, and has been speeding in a long motorcade around Port-au-Prince and the countryside. Meanwhile, U.S. vice-president Al Gore bowed out of his original commitment to attend the ceremonies, passing the ball to lowly UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright.

None of this parade of dignitaries has sparked any enthusiasm among the Haitian people, however. Some popular involvement has been stirred by haggling over the 500,000 gourdes that were supposed to be distributed among 200 popular organizations to “prepare” for the Feb. 7 activities. In 1991, the spirit was different, as thousands spontaneously and voluntarily poured into the streets to sweep gutters, repair walls, and paint lampposts. Crowds chanted: “Se pa lajan non, se volonte wi” (It’s not for money, it’s of our own free will).

But Lavalas leaders present a different model today. Its ministers and officials roll sumptuously in giant luxury jeeps, doing nothing to address the people’s demands while they collect fat checks. Is the people’s skepticism and lack of enthusiasm for “continuity” of this status quo surprising?

“AID” & ITS EFFECTS: THE JOBS PROGRAMS

(HIB) PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan. 10 – Through-out the country, agronomists, peasant organizers and others working with the peasant movement are complaining about one of the feathers that the Haitian government and the U.S. Agency for International development have been displaying in their hats.

While politicians and technicians brag that 50,000 “jobs” have been created during their past few year’s collaboration, they neglect to mention that: the jobs are minimum wage (about US$2.30 per day), they last usually only about three months and, worse, are having a detrimental if not outright destructive effect on the already battered Haitian peasant economy.

Contracted through the Pan-American Development Foundation (PADF), funded here entirely by U.S. AID, the “jobs” are everything from picking up garbage to digging ditches to planting trees. PADF has been carrying out the program since August, 1993, just after the Governor’s Island Accord was signed.

According to many, fields are being abandoned, peasants are fighting one another to get spots [see Haiti Info v.4 #2], the “jobs” are used by politicians to gain influence, and peasants who remain on the land and used to get an extra hand for their own “high intensity labor” work, like plowing, by paying a meager wage or through one of the Haitian cooperative work agreements like the konbit, now cannot find enough workers, or cannot afford to pay what PADF does.

Criticism From All Sides

In the October, 1995, Liaison, published by an association of non-governmental organizations, agronomist Harry Noel said that in Vallieres in the north, “a large number of peasants have abandoned their land to devote themselves to PADF jobs.” Volny Paultre, an agronomist working for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) here, said in the same article that the jobs programs have not been coordinated with government structures, and also that in the case of the Artibonite Valley, the major rice-producing area, one of the effects is that the “participative management of the rice irrigation systems” has been upset and is now “doomed to fail.”

In some parts of the country, criticism goes much further. In more than one locality, in addition to having adverse effects on the rural economy, PADF projects have been used for political patronage jobs. In Limbe, for example, a road-building contract with PADF money appeared to be under the control of people associated with the PANPRA party. Only “supporters” got jobs.

In the Montrouis region, where a priest has worked with peasants in Tet Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen and other peasant associations since 1988, peasants fight one another to get the 36-gourde jobs, leaving their small fields behind. The priest pointed out that the peasants are hungry, so it is understandable, but although he said the PADF work in his area is helpful (soil conservation), he also believes there are very nefarious objectives behind the massive jobs program.

“You know yourself what the goal is,” he told Haiti Info in an interview last month. “They killed the Creole pigs. [A reference to a U.S. AID-run project that eliminated millions of Creole pigs because some were infected with African Swine fever. The versatile and hardy pig was the backbone of the peasant economy at that time.] There is something systematic going on here that has been going on for years, where the Haitian stomach is becoming more and more dependent on foreigners. Local production, under a ‘structural adjustment program’… is not important. Only exports count.”

The Tet Kole peasants are angry, and even if most did not take PADF jobs, they are effected. “Right now it’s bean-planting season. You need people to clean the irrigation ditches, but you can’t find anybody!” the priest said.

The priest said Tet Kole and others continue working against the neoliberal model (being pushed by both U.S. AID and other agencies, as well as Haitian government departments), pushing for higher national production and land reform. But he is not naive.

“This has been going on for a long time now,” he said, and remembered projects where technicians tried to convince peasants to grow mangoes, for example. “Where are those mangoes going? All for export.”

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