Best-Laid Plans of Occupiers
In October of 1994, I flew down to Haiti as part of a press contingent with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his entourage, as well as Jesse Jackson, human rights advocate Randall Robinson, deputy national security advisor Sandy Berger, and Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Those were heady times. The United States was reinstating Aristide, the elected president who had been ousted three years earlier in a coup engineered by corrupt military and business interests. As we flew in over the broad shantytowns of Port-au-Prince, the people down in the alleys below began to dance in celebration. We took American military helicopters from the airport to the presidential palace for the ceremonies. Afterward, an ecstatic Aristide said that he and Bill Clinton were "twins." In Haiti, people referred to Aristide's reinstatement simply, and almost reverently, as "The Return."
Everything seemed possible that day. The U.S. had apparently committed itself to helping Haiti find a path that would lead it away from the brutality, corruption and poverty that had engulfed the small Caribbean nation during the 30-year era of the Duvalier family dictatorship -- and before. With economic aid, the reinstatement of the legitimate president and the right attitude, it seemed all the democratic elements were at hand.
Compared with our current involvement in Iraq, Haiti should have been easy. It was a fairly simple task to get our forces and materiel in place, since Haiti is a just hop across the water from Florida's coast. Once landed, the American troops experienced very little open resistance, although of course there was grumbling among Haitians, some of it loud. Also, the Americans were well informed, at least about some aspects of Haitian society. Our State Department had spent many long years getting inside certain sectors and was definitely well acquainted with what passes for Haiti's elite. Among U.S. officials, there were those who had some command of the local languages, Creole and French.
And most Haitians felt positive about Aristide's return and the future of democracy in Haiti; they'd voted massively for him in 1990. From top to bottom of the society, Haitians also thought -- or at least hoped -- that the Americans would help invigorate Haiti's economy, which had for decades if not centuries been notorious for its structural weaknesses and for corruption at almost every level. In addition, the U.S. was going to help train a new professional Haitian police force -- one that could not be bribed; one that would not beat people at the behest of wealthy bosses; one that would shoot straight, and shoot only when it was necessary and legal.
