Making War to Keep Peace (17 page)

All aspects of the Somalia experience had violated both the traditional Hammarskjöld rules of peacekeeping and the lessons of Vietnam. Soon American troops would depart for Bosnia, where UN forces were applying some—but not all—of the lessons learned in Somalia.

The U.S. military intervention in Haiti resembled that in Somalia. Both were multilateral military interventions undertaken for humanitarian purposes in failed states. In both countries, the Clinton administration started with the George H. W. Bush administration's narrow objective of providing food to alleviate starvation, then expanded it to the broader goals of fostering peace and democracy.

The concept of the failed state came into prominence at about the same time as the crises in Somalia and Haiti and the arrival of the Clinton administration. In an influential article in
Foreign Policy
, Gerald B. Helman and Steven R. Ratner described the failed nation-state as a disturbing new phenomenon: an underdeveloped state characterized by “civil strife, government breakdown, and economic privation” and “utterly incapable of sustaining itself as a member of the international community.”
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Refugee flows, political instability, and random warfare spread within these countries and across borders. The Clinton administration agreed that something should be done to help states that had fallen into violence and anarchy.

In the case of Haiti, the U.S. government adopted the notion that democracy is a human right, and that the United States is responsible for protecting or restoring it around the world, regardless of the costs or whether American interests are at stake. This experience showed the
danger of assuming—naively, with insufficient planning and resources—that democracy can be imposed on a historically lawless and chaotic nation.

In a later
Foreign Affairs
article, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright identified four categories of countries: those that were “full members of the international system; those in transition, seeking to participate more fully; those too weak, poor, or mired in conflict to participate in a meaningful way; and those that rejected the very rules and precepts upon which the system is based.”
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Haiti fell into the third category. Its poverty, internal divisions, and chronic violence disrupted civil order so severely that it could barely survive, much less play a role in the international system. “We are trying to help Haiti overcome divisions and build its young democracy,” Albright wrote.
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Whether Haiti actually was, or could even become, a “young democracy,” was by no means clear.

A series of developments at the end of the cold war had encouraged many to expect the rapid spread of democracy. In 1991, the Organization of American States (OAS) approved the Santiago Commitment to Democracy, which called for an automatic meeting of the OAS Permanent Council “in the event of…the sudden or irregular interruption of the…legitimate exercise of power by the democratically elected government in any of the Organization's member states.”
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This was the latest in a series of declarations by the OAS stating that representative government was the only legitimate government in the Americas. But neither Cuba nor Haiti was a democracy. Cuba was a one-party dictatorship, and Haiti had virtually no experience with democracy, or even with the rule of law. Severely underdeveloped, it more closely resembled a West African francophone country than its Latin and British Caribbean neighbors. It had won independence in 1804 through a revolt of its original inhabitants, most of whom were slaves.
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In the decades since, it had suffered harsh dictators and chronic disorder, instability, and violence. In the words of a 1998 World Bank report, “Historically, Haiti's state has been essentially a personalized system of authoritarian rule based on vertical power relations centered on the chief executive. There has been only limited institutional development and few functions beyond the maintenance of power, patronage, and the extraction of wealth.”
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From 1957 through 1971, the country was ruled by the infamous
François “Papa Doc” Duvalier. He was succeeded by his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who was president until he was ousted in 1986 after an uprising against his dictatorship. A series of strongmen served as president for brief periods until 1990, when Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a radical Roman Catholic priest, was elected in a landslide.
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With Aristide's election, many observers concluded that the global trend to democracy sweeping Eastern Europe and South America had reached the Caribbean.
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But events quickly demonstrated that Haiti's transition to democracy would not be so smooth. Democracy requires free speech and freedom of assembly. It requires periodic elections in a context of personal security, competition, toleration of opposition, and orderly, transparent procedures. Democracy requires the rule of law, including politically neutral police and honest courts. Haiti did not have the political culture, traditions, or institutions associated with democracy. Papa Doc and Baby Doc had thoroughly politicized the judicial system and the police; they did not respect citizens or protect personal security.

In addition, democracy thrives where there is a reasonably good living standard and a substantial middle class, and Haiti had neither. It was the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. The same World Bank report noted that “the overwhelming majority of the Haitian population are living in deplorable conditions of extreme poverty.”
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The country's per capita income of $250 was less than one-tenth the Latin American average.
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Haitian unemployment was as high as 80 percent; in rural areas, where two-thirds of the population lived, more than 80 percent of Haitians lived below the poverty line.
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An International Monetary Fund (IMF) report pointed out that Haiti's “social indicators are…comparable to those of sub-Saharan Africa.”
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Life expectancy was only fifty-four years, and adult literacy just 43 percent.
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Haiti's extremely weak economy, widespread poverty, extreme disparities in wealth, political polarization, and habits of violence bred chronic disorder, the effects of which could be observed in the governments of the Duvaliers and then Aristide. U.S. trade accounted for 61 percent of Haitian imports and 87 percent of its exports;
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by 1994, these figures had dropped by nearly half.
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Between 1990 and 1995, the country's GDP contracted by about 6.5 percent annually.
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The GDP of
Haiti's neighbor, the Dominican Republic, grew by approximately 3.9 percent annually during the same period.
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To this day, Haiti possesses few of the political requisites of democratic government. Mobs have threatened and attacked members of the opposition. Political murder remains shockingly common and is rarely prosecuted. Corruption is widespread.
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Turnout for elections is usually very low. In the elections of November 2000, boycotted by the opposition, it was less than 10 percent in many areas.
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Between 1987 and 2002, Haiti had thirteen governments—nearly one each year.
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This chronic instability has persisted since the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, and it was rampant in the early 1990s, when an aborted election brought it to worldwide attention.

A FALSE START FOR DEMOCRACY

In December 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president of Haiti; he was inaugurated on February 7, 1991. He promptly named René Préval as prime minister and General Raoul Cédras as commander in chief of Haiti's armed forces. Both men would play critical roles in the evolution of Haiti's new government, although not in the roles to which they were appointed. Less than eight months after his inauguration, Aristide was deposed by a military coup that left General Cédras in charge and sent Aristide into exile in Washington. The country was once again ruled as a military dictatorship, as it had always been except when it was governed by civilian dictators, notably the Duvaliers.

It was clear from the beginning that “Father Aristide” lacked the experience and temperament to be a constitutional ruler. Among those who observed him firsthand, many judged him to be seriously unstable, and there was speculation that he suffered from bipolar disorder.
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He displayed a marked attraction to violence, and his behavior suggested that he brought to the presidency a fanatical disposition, intolerance for opposition, and a habitual disregard for law. His political style was not conducive to debate, compromise, or peaceful settlement of disputes. As journalist Mark Danner wrote, “even in Haiti's long and colorful history of delirious emperors, mad kings, and paranoid dictators, [Aristide] stands out as an extraordinary political phenomenon.”
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Before his inauguration, Aristide had been expelled from the Roman Catholic Salesian Order for preaching liberation theology and advocating violent class war. During his first seven months as president, he repeatedly incited crowds to violence and threatened his opponents. He showed no interest in discouraging violence when his supporters attacked his opponents.

On September 27, 1991, Aristide delivered his infamous “Père Lebrun” speech from the steps of the presidential palace, inciting a crowd to burn his opponents alive. Père Lebrun is the Haitian term for “necklacing,” a brutal form of murder in which the arms of a victim are hacked off and a gasoline-filled burning tire is put over his head. (The name comes from a well-known importer of tires in Haiti.) Aristide told his supporters, many of whom were carrying tires, that if they saw “a faker who pretends to be one of our supporters…just grab him. Make sure he gets what he deserves…with the tool you have now in your hands…. You have the right tool…the right instrument…. It smells good and wherever you go, you want to smell it.”
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[Translation from Creole; Aristide's words were recorded on videotape.] Two days later, Silvio Claude, a leading democrat, human rights activist, and political opponent of Aristide, was burned to death by a mob in front of the parliament building. Several other Aristide opponents had been killed by necklacing during his first months in power, and he had incited action against the papal nuncio, who was forced to flee for his life. The nuncio's assistant barely escaped; both of his legs and his jaw were broken by a mob of Aristide's followers.
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Aristide's increasingly strident speeches and threats contributed to the fear and hostility that led to the coup. Charles Lane observed in
Newsweek
that “Aristide's pro–Père Lebrun speech was the last straw for a military already furious over the president's creation of a French-trained, fifty-man presidential security detail answerable only to him.”
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Aristide's efforts to intimidate political opponents and encourage vigilante tactics were chronicled regularly by correspondents in the country.

Aristide also violated Haiti's laws and constitution. In the months before the coup, he appointed judges without parliamentary consent, failed to provide public accounting for funds, signed blank warrants for arrests, replaced newly elected mayors with committees of Lavalas supporters, and sought to establish one-party rule.
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(Aristide had built the loosely
organized Lavalas—“the flood”—movement during his campaign; he was nominated for the presidency by the National Front for Change and Democracy but separated from the party before taking office.
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)

Over two days, September 29–30, General Cédras led a coup that forced Aristide and his government into exile in the United States. Georges Fauriol, one of the best-informed observers of Haitian affairs in Washington, wrote the following:

Fauriol is more skeptical that Cédras directed the coup. He cites evidence suggesting that NCOs and mid-level officers (majors and some lieutenant colonels) were involved in the initial phases of the coup at Aristide's personal residence and later at army headquarters, where he was almost killed. He was saved by the intervention of the French and U.S. ambassadors (by some accounts, also by Cédras) and ultimately escorted out of the country on a Venezuelan air force plane dispatched by President Carlos Andrés Pérez.
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Aristide was accompanied by an entourage of associates, who undertook an intensive lobbying effort to support his return to the presidency.

Outrage in America and the International Community

The Bush administration and the international community were outraged that an elected government had been deposed and replaced by a military dictatorship. On September 30, 1991, the OAS Permanent Council met in emergency session and condemned the coup. The same day, the UN Security Council assembled informally at the request of Haiti's ambassador, who was representing the overthrown government,
but took no action; most delegations viewed the coup as an internal matter that did not constitute a threat to international security.
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The UN secretary-general, Pérez de Cuéllar, stated that he was “disturbed at the grave threats posed to democracy” and hoped that “the democratic process will resume in accordance with the constitution.”
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David Malone, in
Decision-Making in the UN Security Council: The Case of Haiti, 1990–1997
, notes that the Security Council president, French ambassador Jean-Bernard Mérimée, took the “unusual move” of expressing his personal support for the secretary-general's statement. This “was seen by some at the UN as a precedent in placing on the record Security Council concern over the preservation of democracy.”
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President Bush declared himself in favor of collective action in response to the Haitian coup. “[T]his hemisphere is united to defend democracy,” Secretary of State James Baker told the OAS ministers on October 2. Refusing to recognize the “outlaw regime” that had seized power, Baker said it was “imperative” that the OAS “act collectively to defend the legitimate government of President Aristide…. Until President Aristide's government is restored, this junta will be treated as a pariah throughout this hemisphere, without assistance, without friends, and without any future…. [T]his coup must not and will not stand.”
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