Situation 'impossible' as Haiti's woes deepen: printer friendly version

Situation 'impossible' as Haiti's woes deepen

Lydia Polgreen NYT
Wednesday, May 05, 2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti The pile of garbage behind the spot where Marie Joseph sells tins of tomato paste started out small, the usual primordial goo that coats this grimy capital's streets, binding a putrid mélange. But in the two months since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected leader, was forced from power by an armed rebellion, the pile has swelled like a rapacious tumor in the heart of the city center.

"I have never seen anything like this," Joseph said last week, squatting near the pile, more than three meters, or 10 feet, high, wrinkling her nose at the stench. "How can we live like this?"

Difficult as it may be to believe, people here say, life has become worse in the past two months.

Mounds of garbage choke the streets. Electricity in the capital has been scarce for weeks. The police force has fallen deeper into disarray and crime has spiked, with a rash of kidnappings aimed at wealthy businesspeople. The price of rice, the Haitian staple, has crept up by a third here in Port-au-Prince and doubled in some other parts of the country.

A senior Western diplomat said the biggest concern now was that the interim government, led by Prime Minister Gérard Latortue, will face mass unrest over the deteriorating conditions - unrest that Aristide's supporters could use to reignite violent clashes with rebels, who still occupy large swaths of the country despite the presence of 3,600 foreign troops.

Apart from small, symbolic turnovers, supporters of the former president and of the rebels have clung steadfastly to their weapons. If violence flares, the diplomat said, the government might not survive the next two or three months.

"The international community needs to help this government, we need to get monetary support to them yesterday," the diplomat said. "If this government does not survive, it is not clear what comes after them."

But international help has been slow to arrive. American troops are scheduled to hand over the job of stabilizing Haiti in June to a United Nations force of about 8,000 troops led by Brazil. The brevity of the U.S. commitment and the molasses-slow trickle of aid have led many people here to conclude that this decade's effort to rebuild Haiti will be even less successful than the U.S.-led effort in the 1990s.

"No one has ever done anything for us," said Pierre Charlestin, 24, who lives in a grim shantytown that sprang up a decade ago on the grounds of Fort Dimanche, the Duvalier regime's notorious political prison. "Why should we expect anything different now?"

Officials and supporters of the former president's party, Family Lavalas, say the new government is persecuting them. The party has delayed appointing a representative to the council that will organize elections next year, a delay that could block a crucial step to restoring democracy in Haiti.

Playing on his name, which means "turtle" in French, Latortue acknowledged late last month at a conference of international donors that his government's pace had been slow.

"Some say the turtle goes slowly," Latortue said. "I need you to help us go surely."

Today he faces an exhausted treasury, a corrupt and demoralized state work force, wary international donors and lingering doubts about the manner in which Aristide left the country.

American officials, who provided the plane that took him into him into exile, say Aristide left willingly to avoid bloodshed. Aristide has said his departure was a "modern-day kidnapping."

To many people here, Aristide, a former slum priest who championed the impoverished masses, remains the only legitimate leader they have.

"We believe in democracy, and we have a democratically elected leader," said Alix Jean, a Lavalas partisan, at a recent rally at the church in La Saline, the slum where Aristide once preached his fiery sermons of liberation. "His name is Jean-Bertrand Aristide."

Flawed legislative elections in 2000 led to the political deadlock that culminated in Aristide's ouster and the suspension of $500 million in foreign aid. But the flow of cash that was expected once Aristide left has yet to begin in earnest.

Officials here say they desperately need money. The United Nations issued an emergency appeal in March for $35 million, but has collected just $9 million, according to UN officials in Haiti.

The finance minister, Henri Bazin, said he had discovered when he took the job last month that the government had less than one month of foreign reserves in the bank and that a $100 million deficit loomed.

"We are faced with an impossible situation," Bazin said in an interview at his office near the National Palace. "We need $100 million immediately, absolutely right away, to do the bare minimum of what the government should be doing. But we don't know where that money will come from."

Latortue left on Tuesday for Washington, where he was to meet with Bush administration and UN officials and seek aid commitments. Another international donor conference in June will start the flow of aid, but diplomats worry that the government cannot wait that long for a cash infusion.

Officials here have accused Aristide of looting the public treasury. A Western diplomat who is investigating charges of corruption said the government's finances were in deep disarray.

"The previous government took money from official accounts and used it for whatever purpose suited them," this diplomat said. "They simply wrote checks, and the central bank covered them by expanding the money supply."

Aristide's Miami-based lawyer, Ira Kurzban, said the former president had never stolen money from the state. "There may have been corruption at some level," he said. "But the people at the top making decisions and using money, all of these people were honest."

"Our biggest problem right now is security," the national police chief, Leon Charles, said in an interview. "But we have no resources."

The national police force was decimated by the armed rebellion. Rebels set fire to police stations, killed several dozen officers, and looted their cars and equipment.

Of a 6,000-member force, only half of its officers can be counted on to show up, police officials said. A recent recruiting drive brought thousands of candidates, who rioted as they waited to fill out applications; a student was killed in the stampede.

Privately, ministers of the new government marvel at how Aristide was able to keep Haiti's government going. Leslie Voltaire, who was Aristide's minister for Haitians living abroad, said Aristide made the country work through sheer force of will. He likened the country now to a heart-transplant patient.

"They have removed the heart, Aristide," Voltaire said in an interview. "We are now waiting on the operating table for a transplant, and the operation is being done without anesthesia."

Haitians who have suffered through decades of misrule say their patience with the interim government is wearing thin. Derilus Joseph Erine, 42, a mason who lives in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti's second largest city, warned darkly that dissatisfaction could turn violent quickly.

"The political leaders are trying to get their piece of the cake," Erine said. "If we don't get a piece of the cake, too, we are going to do whatever we can to make the cake fall so at least we can pick up the crumbs."

The New York Times