Moving the country toward democracy was the main challenge. Haiti had virtually no experience with democracy; its traditionally personalist political system has made it difficult for Haitians to lay down arms against one another. Haiti was not a Latin regime with a strong army and a tradition of military rule, like the Dominican Republic. It had no inherited democratic tradition, like the British Caribbean states. Haiti’s politics had been dominated by a series of strongmen who ruled as long-term dictators. Some were generals; others, like Papa Doc, were chosen in elections that lacked most of the characteristics of democratic elections. Papa Doc’s was no military government. As soon as he was elected, he disarmed the army and kept its weapons locked in an armory to which he alone had the key. He relied on the violence of the Tonton Macoutes, which ran the country like a protection racket, bullying, beating, and collecting “taxes” at will. And Aristide continued the tradition of corrupt rule. Though he was originally elected in a reasonably fair and free election, no sooner did he take office than he began to bypass parliament and the army and start using his network of private gangs to terrorize citizens.
Haiti’s political culture emphasized violence, voodoo, and vengeance, and many Haitians saw politics as a winner-take-all zero-sum game. This did not breed trust, confidence, or consensus. The only hope for a viable government was to break the cycle of vengeance and rule by force. The Carter-Jonassaint Accord sought to end the cycle by permitting Cédras and his associates to step down with dignity, letting Aristide assume the presidency peaceably, and protecting the population against uncontrolled violence. It was a prudent course that increased the chance that democracy might take root, but the prospects were still not good. Democracy makes complex demands on people. It requires both participation and restraint, active citizenship, inclusive policies, and a modicum of good faith. These complex demands have proved hard for Haiti to meet, and the country has failed to make much progress toward a functioning democracy in the years since 1994.
The immediate outcomes of the Carter-Jonassaint Accord and Operation Uphold Democracy were not very impressive. The world’s only superpower had managed to land forces in one of the world’s smallest, poorest, and least developed countries. Those forces succeeded in destroying some arms caches and arresting some attachés who had formerly terrorized the population. The military leaders left Haiti, with Cédras going into exile in Panama. The U.S. government arranged for Aristide’s return and the repeal of the economic embargo, and made commitments of economic aid.
It was announced that all judges would be fired and that most police and a large part of the armed forces were unfit to serve in the new regime. The situation was less dangerous than that in Somalia—Haiti was so small and unarmed that hostile persons were less able to cause problems for U.S. and UN troops. But the country lacked virtually all the requirements for a democratic government: rule of law, an elite with a shared commitment to democratic procedures, an educated populace, a sense of citizenship, a decent standard of living, and habits of trust and cooperation. Although no one could explain how this venture contributed to the U.S. national interest, the Clinton administration and various journalists termed it a success.81
On March 31, 1995, the multinational force was officially disbanded, and control passed to the UN Mission in Haiti (UNMIH), which was about six thousand strong and included more than twenty-three hundred American troops.82 UNMIH undertook the training of the Haitian police. Training the new recruits to respect citizens and protect personal security proved to be exceedingly difficult, as old patterns of corruption and violence remained.
The Clinton administration had much riding on the success and integrity of Operation Uphold Democracy. The plan had faced opposition in the Security Council and the OAS, but the administration had pushed forward. To avoid a failure of this operation comparable to the failure in Somalia, Clinton urgently pursued the campaign for democracy in Haiti.
THE RESTORATION OF ARISTIDE AND THE 1995 ELECTIONS
Parliamentary, municipal, and local elections were to be held within a few months of Aristide’s return to power, but once again he flouted the law. Instead of holding elections by December 1994, he postponed them until February 4, 1995, when the terms of incumbent parliamentarians and local officials expired; this included the entire 83-seat Chamber of Deputies, two thirds of the 27-member Senate, 137 mayors, and 565 town council members. Aristide then ruled by decree.
As for the judicial branch, Aristide attempted to pack the Haitian high court with members of his Lavalas movement, without Senate approval. He forced the minister of justice, Ernst Malebranche, to resign after he criticized Aristide for replacing appointed-for-life judges with political allies. As a Clinton aide wrote in March 1995, “The judicial system [in Haiti] is not only unjust; it barely exists.”83 And soon after returning to office, Aristide circulated to supporters a secret “watch list” of thirty persons charged with unspecified crimes against humanity. Some observers were concerned that the list heralded a campaign of repression against opposition candidates in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Instead of strengthening the rule of law, Aristide’s policies under the American occupation only further destabilized the country. He eliminated the existing structure of police and military forces in Haiti, and reduced the army to one-quarter of its previous size. In February 1995, he dismissed all officers above the rank of major.84 He also tried to put in place a civil security force (consisting of followers who had committed human rights abuses in his earlier tenure) but was pressed by the United States to revise this politicized recruitment plan. This move was part of Aristide’s general reliance on private militia—a practice with a long tradition in Haiti.
The U.S. government was relieved when the UNMIH took over at the end of March 1995. After several postponements, elections were finally held on June 25 under the protection of the UNMIH, which had approximately 6,000 members from twenty-one nations as well as 850 civilian police to reinforce the national police (roughly 3,500 in number).85 These forces should have been able to provide security for candidates and voters, but they were outmatched, and assassinations multiplied in advance of the elections.
Once again, Aristide’s best-known opponents were among the targets. Mireille Durocher-Bertin, an articulate woman and determined opponent of Aristide, was shot dead on March 28.86 Her killer was never identified. Matsen Cadet, a candidate for mayor and an Aristide critic, was shot twice at a campaign rally. A Senate candidate and critic of Aristide was wounded and his driver killed. On June 27, Jean-Charles Henoc, an opposition candidate for a deputy seat, was assassinated. Another opposition candidate for the legislature, Duly Brutus, was arrested, jailed, and severely beaten in Port-au-Prince; he was released after he managed to pass written appeals to UN special envoy Lakhdor Brahimi and others. In October, after Brutus testified in Washington, DC, his house was attacked by a mob some three hundred strong. Violence continued to spread, often carried by mobs shouting “Aristide or death.” On September 12, Ambassador Colin Granderson, chief of the UN/OAS Civilian Mission in Haiti, said there had been at least twenty commando-style killings of political figures in Haiti in 1995.87
Shortly before the June elections, the Haitian Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), which Aristide had staffed with loyalists, announced that a million voter registration cards had been stolen. As the Carter Center reported: “[I]nstead of building confidence in an electoral process, the government and the CEP—by their words, actions and inaction—eroded confidence. Instead of building bonds with the political parties by listening to their concerns and complaints and responding in an expeditious and helpful manner, the CEP stiff-armed the parties and never responded to their complaints.”88 Repeated delays in publishing voter and candidate lists meant that few voters knew much about the elections. All suggestions for reforming the CEP were stonewalled. The Carter Center’s Robert Pastor said that “Aristide rejected any change” in the system, and instead he “appointed figures that were vi
ewed as even more biased in favor of Lavalas,” effectively making the CEP an arm of the party.89 On June 24, the day before the elections, the International Republican Institute issued a report concluding that “the pre-electoral process and environment in Haiti has seriously challenged the most minimally accepted standards for the holding of a credible election.”90
About 30 percent of registered voters participated in the polling on June 25.91 As Pastor reported:
[T]he level of irregularities was so high, and the vote count so insecure that virtually all of the parties except Lavalas condemned the legislative elections, called for annulment, and threatened boycotts if their concerns were not addressed. President Aristide met with opposition leaders, but they could not agree on which parts of the election should be accepted and which parts should be rerun.92
Reruns were finally held on August 13, and runoffs followed on September 17. Lavalas won all the Senate races, giving the party seventeen of twenty-seven seats in the Senate, and sixty-six of eighty-three seats in the Chamber of Deputies.93 Voter turnout for the runoffs was 14 percent—indicating that electoral legitimacy had suffered.94
Nonetheless, the Clinton administration initially sought to cast the elections in a positive light. National Security Advisor Anthony Lake commented, “What an extraordinary act it is to have conducted elections in Haiti on time when a year ago if a Haitian expressed freely a political view, he or she risked having his or her face cut…And today, millions of Haitians expressed those political views in safety.”95 U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) director Brian Atwood, who headed the administration delegation observing the elections, called them “a major step forward for democracy in Haiti.” He added, “There are problems, but we are confident that they will be resolved.”96 In a State Department briefing on June 27, Atwood elaborated:
We believe that there was a very significant breakthrough for democracy in this election, that people were voting for the very first time without fear of intimidation by the military…. For the most part, there was very little violence…. the security situation was excellent. We didn’t see any systematic effort to commit fraud in this election…. [W]e do not believe that the electoral council tried…to influence the results of this election in a way that would favor a single party…. I am confident that this election is going to bring political stability to Haiti that has not existed heretofore.97
U.S. embassy spokesman Stan Schrager described the elections as “the most free, most complex, and least violent” in Haiti’s history.98 The secretary-general of the OAS issued a statement declaring that “from all indications, electors were able to exercise their franchise freely.”99 Officials from the OAS, the UN, the Clinton administration, and labor groups were unanimous in pronouncing the elections free and fair.100
Yet in the weeks that followed the OAS, the UN, and the Carter Center all issued reports detailing extensive election irregularities—from the CEP’s disqualification of candidates without explanation, to mistakes on the ballots (including candidates’ names or symbols being left off the ballot), fraud in counting the votes, and the burning of a polling office.101
In December 1995, a presidential election was held. The constitution of Haiti says that the president may not succeed himself, and this provision applied to Aristide, even though the coup had deprived him of three years of his term.102 His handpicked successor, René Préval, won the December presidential election. Aristide, out of office, continued to wield considerable power over Haitian government.
In his January 1996 State of the Union address, President Clinton declared that the dictators had fled and “democracy has a new day in Haiti.” But the administration’s effort to restore democracy was running into new trouble. Clinton invoked executive privilege to deny congressional access to forty-seven documents said to concern political assassins connected with the personal security force of the new Haitian president, René Préval. The chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Benjamin Gilman (R-NY), called Clinton’s refusal to cooperate in an investigation of the Haitian government’s connection to the murder of political opponents “a blatant abuse of power to cover up a massive foreign policy failure in Haiti.”103
Administration officials and the U.S. ambassador in Port-au-Prince knew that violent agents of the government had prevented the participation of opposition leaders in the 1995 elections, and that President Préval’s U.S.-trained security guards took part in political violence during 1996, but the desire to claim success in Haiti was apparently stronger than a commitment to open discussion of the problems.
During Préval’s 1996 term, the Haitian Senate passed privatization and administrative reforms. One result of these reforms was that $226 million was released through the IMF. On the other hand, Haiti’s failure to form a new government cost the country $162 million from the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). The reforms displeased Aristide, who reacted by forming a new party, the Lavalas Family (Fanmi Lavalas).
THE ELECTIONS OF 2000
International observers agreed on the importance of the elections of May 21, 2000, to Haiti’s future. Préval had dismissed parliament in January 1999 and governed by decree—that is, unconstitutionally. A dispute concerning the composition of parliament dragged on, intensifying after Préval signed a law annulling the 1997 elections. Hundreds of millions of dollars in economic assistance from international agencies and other governments were held up pending the legislative, municipal, and local elections of 2000. Aristide had given Clinton personal assurances that the elections would be free and fair and would meet international standards.
But they did not. Irregularities and danger signals accumulated in the weeks before the elections, which were postponed three times, confusing parties, candidates, and voters and almost surely lowering the turnout. The most serious “irregularities” were violence and murders. Haitians and international observers alike were shocked by the April 3 assassination in broad daylight of Jean Dominique, journalist and director of Radio Haiti Inter.104 That no progress was made in finding his killer dramatized the lack of personal security that existed. The OAS recorded seventy acts of violence, leading to the deaths of seven political party candidates and activists.105
As the OAS Electoral Observation Mission reported, procedures broke down shortly after the vote:
Armed groups of men broke into election offices…and burned ballot boxes. The receipt of the tally sheets and other electoral materials was extremely disorganized…Exhausted polling officials arrived in overcrowded electoral offices and threw their materials on the floor. The following day’s newspapers showed [pictures of] ballots and official tally sheets strewn on the street.106
The most serious problems involved illegal counting for the senatorial races. Haiti’s constitution and electoral law explicitly state that a senatorial candidate must receive an absolute majority to be elected on the first ballot. Otherwise, a second-round election must be held. In late May, the CEP issued preliminary results: Of the seventeen winners declared in the first round, sixteen were Lavalas candidates. Election observers testified that the vote-counting stacked the outcome in favor of Lavalas candidates. The OAS Mission calculated that if the votes had been counted accurately, ten of the sixteen races would have required a second round.
The situation had serious consequences. Most of the opposition members of the CEP resigned at the request of their parties, and the president of the council fled the country rather than certify the false calculations. The CEP refused to correct the counts. By July, the OAS Mission had determined that “the results are biased and had a major impact on the number of senatorial candidates elected in the first round, and thus cannot be the basis for a credible and fair electoral process.”107 In a July 13 report, the mission concluded that “the highest electoral authority of the country violated its own Constitution and electoral law.”108
The United States, Canada, France, the UN Security Council, and the OAS appealed to the government of H
aiti to correct the fraudulent results of the May 21 elections, but to no avail. Haitian authorities would not budge. As a result, the runoff elections on July 9 were not observed by international monitors and were considered to be as flawed as the originals. The opposition then boycotted the presidential election in November 2000, with the result that voter turnout was under 10 percent and Aristide won with 92 percent of the votes.
In some ways, Aristide’s second run for president was different from his first. No longer “Father” Aristide, he was married and had two daughters. No longer poor, he lived with his family in a large house in an expensive neighborhood. To be sure, he won the election, but it is difficult to interpret the results. Aristide had no real opposition—most other candidates had withdrawn—and there were very few foreign observers. The OAS and the United Nations declined to send observers, as did France, the European Union, Canada, and the United States—all “special friends” of Haiti. Anticipating violence, American Airlines and Air France canceled all flights to Haiti on the day of the election.
By now, preelection violence was a familiar phenomenon in Haiti. Murders and drive-by shootings multiplied. The chief of Haiti’s national police, Pierre Denize, seemed to concede that law enforcement was beyond his control: “The last elections were the same thing. I don’t think there is too much we can do about this except go through the elections and get it over with.”109 On November 17, the State Department issued an advisory to Americans that their safety could not be guaranteed in the week leading up to November 26, and noted that the tone of the dialogue among candidates and government officials had become “distinctly anti-American.” Members of the so-called popular organizations supporting Aristide were responsible for sporadic violence, threats, and fires.
Democratic Convergence, the fifteen-party opposition alliance, boycotted the election and refused to recognize Aristide as the legitimate president-elect; they vowed to create a shadow or alternative government unless an agreement could be reached with him to rectify the problems of the 2000 elections. Threats against the opposition intensified; its leaders were told to drop their plans to form an alternative government or suffer extreme consequences. On January 9, 2001, groups claiming to support Aristide and the Fanmi Lavalas summoned Haitian reporters to St. Jean Bosco (the church where Aristide had preached as a liberation theologian) and read the names of opposition figures whose “blood will serve as the ink and their skulls the inkwells for writing Haiti’s second declaration of independence.”110 The list included most of the leading opposition figures.
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