Peter Hallward on NGOs in Haiti

7/28/2019 Peter Hallward on NGOs in Haiti

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DAMMING THE FLOOD Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment

PETER HALLWARD

~VERSO

London New Yo rk

r.


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U yo vIe touye chen yo di' I ouWhen people want to kiU c dog they say it's rabid.

First published by Verso 2007 Copyright (U Peter Hall ward 2007

All rights reserved The mora l right of' the au thor ha s bccll asserted

3 5 7 9 10 0 4 2Verso UK: 6 Meard Stre et, Lon don WI F OEe

USA: 180 Va ri ck Stree t, Ne w York , NY 101J14-4606 \ \/ \V\v.vcr:;obooks.CO ll1

VeJ>o is the imprint of Ne w Left BooksISBN :


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8

2003-2004: Preparing for War

Ou we sa w,'>(enycll) ou pn kOrln sa l/l refe(YOLl know what you've got , but you don't know what 's coming).

Looking back at the pel;od 2000-04 a couple of years after the fact, thesequence of events that culminated in Aristide's abduction by US troopson 29 Feb ruary 2004 can be read in one of three ways.

In the first place, many if no t most people seem to think that therewasn't a coup at all but just a local variation on the SOlt of "OrangeR evo lutions" that became popular during the height of a global war onterror, evil and dictatorship. Th is was the official line, of course, put outby the US State Department, the Haiti Democracy Project, the Groupof 184 and their allies. Confronted w ith a co rrupt ,ll1d tyrannicalregime, the Haitian people rose up and liberated themselves from theiroppressor, and the US only intervelled, once things started to get Out ofcontrol, to protect Arist ide and his family from haml. This was also theversion panoted by much of the mainstream pre ss. There was no coup,sa id The Times on 1 Ma rch 2004, but rather a "popular revolution"inspired by "the resentment left by AI;stide's Jawed victory lin 20001. hisincreasingly despotic and enatic rul e, and the w holesale collapse of thelocal eco nomy."!

Some other people remember what hap pened to Arbenz in 1954, toAllende in 1973, to Manley in 1980, to Ortega in 1990, to Chavez in2002 - and to Al;stide himself in 1991 - and recognize an obviouspattem. From this perspective, the whole destabilization campaign looksall too familiar and all too predictable, and it was indeed predicted.Febru ary 2004 was one of the most widely anticipated "surprises" ofcontemporary world politics. In 2001, Stan Goff could already see thewri ting on the wa ll, and knew that th e "reactionary wing of the


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176 DAMMING THE FLOODRepublican Party will settle for nothing less than Aristide's politicalneutralization" and the "surrender oflHaitian 1sovereignty. ,2 Writing in2002, Robert Fattoll observed that "Rightwing US policymakers havealready condemned Aristide for bel11g a dangerous radical and anintransigent man wh o surrounds himself with 'narco-traffickers' ande'ncourages 'thuggish vIOlence'. These accusations, which have neverbeEn substantiated, could easily become the basis for a major campaign ofsystematic denigotion," and prepare the way for Aristide's "surgicalremoval" on the Panama-Noriega m o d e l . ~ In sevEral sEaring articlESpublished over the course of2003, writer-activists like Kim Ives, GeorgesHonorat and Kevin Pina documented the' machinations of the impendingcoup in compelling dc'tail4 in speech after speech, the PPN's Ben Dupuymade the same point. Th e prescience of these analyses speaks for itself.

[t IS a short step, however, fj'om predicting such an outcome toaccepting it as almost inevitable. This is the I.isk ru n in Fatton's pessimisticversion of events. as it is 111 some leftwlJ1g analyses preoccupied with thediabolical machinations of the CIA and the IR1, 'llong with the stiflingm:devolence of the IMF or the World 13:mk. Th e trap laid by the enemyfor Alistide and for Lavalas was too poweliul, the argument goes, and thel110re they tried to resist their fate the weaker and more compromisedthey became; in the end, all that is left isJal!! itself. What then is to stop usfro])] drawlllg the conclusion that the sequence that led to February 2004should be understood 111 terms of closure and defe:lt, as the cnd of theelllancipatory project that began with the dec/IOIdeaj of 1986?

A thIrd interpretation (which infol1m the present book) agrees withIlluch of the second. Yes the assault on Lavalas was consistent with thelong-standing pattern and pliorities of illlpelial foreign policy in LatinA1l1erica and the rest of the vvorld. For this :lSSault to succeed in 2004,however, it was obliged to go to quite exceptional lengths. Th e coup of20()4 was tt r more difficult to achIeve thall that of 199J. [t took muchlonger and cost 1l1uch more. It required the coordination of many 1110repeople-, and the deployment of a vastly more elaborate and valied range ofstrategies. Th e sheer bbor and intensity of the destabilization campaign(together with the amount of foreign money dnd troops reqUIred to copewith its aftermath) is itself a llleasure of the strength of its target. It is anl!1dicltioll of the fact that the outcome was never inevitable - thoughhardly ;111 accident, February 2004 was indeed a surplisc. I is betterunderstood as scandal than as [lte.

February 20()4 was J sCllldal, it was never inevitable, :llld its effects arenot Irreversible. Despite its violence and atrocity, moreover, the coup was

2003-2004 PREPARING FOR WAR 177itself a failure. As we shall see in ou r fmal chapter, its authors failed toaccomplish their main objective - the elimination of Lavalas as anorganized political force. February 2004 was less a defeat than a setback.Th e military coup of February 2004 would be reversed in due course bythe popular anti-coup of February 2000, which itself opened the door toa new phase in the Lavalas project.

We are already familiar with the routine features of the destabilizationcampaign: crippling economic aggression, forced structural adjustment,the mobilization of rightwing civil society, paralyzing negotiations withan invented opposition, systematic media manipulation, repeated allegations of cOll:uption, violence and the abuse ofhuman rights, and so on, allbacked up with the pressure of naked paramilitary force. To get theircoup in 2004, hO\vever, the US , France ,111d Canada, together with thedomestic elite, would have to do three things that they hadn't needed todo back in 1991: (a) they would need to nourish ideological support forregime change no t only on the right but also on the left of the politicalspectrum, via the collusion of "progressive" NGOs and pressure groupslike PAPDA, Batay Ouvriye and Grassroots In ternational, together with astage-managed student protest movement; (b) they would need to winover not just merely tactical fellow-travelers of Lavalas (Pierre-Charles,Evans Paul, Paul Denis . . ) bu t also some militants and organizationswho were once sympathetic to Alistide himself (Dany Toussaint and hiscotelie, as well as Labanye's gang in Cite Soleil and Amiot Metayer's gangin Gona'lves); (c) when push came to shove, the coup dc gracf would haveto be delivered no t by Haitian proxies like the FLRN and the formermilitary bu t by imperial troops themselves.

PREPARING THE GROUND: NGOS AND POLITICS OF BENEVOLENCE

Few things are more urgently needed for a better understanding ofcontemporary Haitian politics than a detailed :malysis of the preciseeconomic and ideological role of the non-governmental organizations(NGOs) that no w play such a big part in the administration of thecountry. There's no space for such an analysis here, but it is well worthdrawing some attention to the most salient aspects of the question.

First of all, there are a lot of NGOs in Haiti. According to severalestimates, there are more NGOs per capita in Haiti than anywhere in theworld. In 1998, the World Bank guessed that there are anything between10,000 and 20,000 NGOs working in the country.s Something like 80%


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178 DAMMING THE FLOODof basic public se rvices (the provision of water, health care, education ,sanitation , food distribution . . ) arc undertaken by NG O s; the largestorga nizations have budgets bigger th:lIl those of their correspondinggovcfIlmcllt departl1lents(' Th e vast majority of the $1.2 billion promise dto Haiti's post-coup regi me by imermtional dOllors as part of the 2004Intclilll Cooperative FrJlllework \\I,IS pledged vi,1 USAID, USAID 'sOffice of Transiti on Initiatives, or !1Iorc indepelldent -seeJlling NG O s,rJther thall to governnIent agencies. Usually man;lged by we ll-co nnectedIllembers of the elite ill conjunction with illterllatio n ,11pJren t companiesor partners, much of wh a t thc )' do is effectively independent of governillCllt scrutiny. Most of what thcy do, moreo vtT , is extremely fragmented .All by itself. the co mplex llIultiplicity of the NCO sector discouragesinci,iVc' eVJluJtioll . Th e [let that there are so m:m y NGOs, each withtheir o'vvn priOlities and projects (which ,li T ofte ll qu ite foreign to actualHaitian requirelllellts), makes it alll10st impossible to develop a coordill:1tcd policy ill ,my g iven field . There are som e exceptions - the Jl1edicJlproject Zallllli LlsaJl[C' (Partners ill Health) , for in st,mce, work.s closelywith Haiti:1n governnlent nIcdical autholities in v;ui o l1 s parts of thecountry, as we ll as with intcrlIational dOllors and experts

7More oftenthan no t , however, the power and nlultiplicity of NGOs serves to

uJldercut if not silllply to replace government initiatives, and in doingso help, re in fo rc e the prejudice that aid or developlll ellt mOlley is betterfunnel ed thr o ugh " reliable" NGOs than through co rrupt or inefficient(k pawllC' !ltS of sta[(.'.

Th e mainstream press ha


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180 DAMMING THE FLOOD

~ l J l of time spellt 011 the colleccive work project, (ROllli)its) vvh lch arei l l t c ~ , : r ~ \ l to the rural economy: whell the developmem scheme thenCOIIH?S to an en d there is nothll1g to tJKe up th e slack, ;lI1d the exemployees are soon worse of f than befo re . 14 T he sall Ie thing can happen111 urban areas, wben NC O s like Medecins S,lns Fronticres or theIntemational O rganizat io n fo r Mi gration s'weep into an drea, doublethe \Vages of a fc w local peopk for sev-eLi I m onth s and then move on,wit hoU[ leaving penllJ nent p rograms or fa cilities in th eir wake. I') Againthere arc some exce ptions - OXf.llll 'S wo rk VV' ith coffee-growing cooperati ves ill norrhcrn Haiti lIlay be a case 111 po in t - bu t given thepnorities of thei r ow n do nors, chality-oriented NCO " are ge nerally lessIIlterested ill helping to enhailce w hat lIlay be strong Jn d Jssertive illH:1itian society than in offering se rvices to the v uln er;lble and the weak.As J ll..llc , NGOs do not pro vide resources to strellgthen govcrn mentlIlitiatives like th e FL litnacy progr::tlll of 20()1- 03, let alonc to helpempower or org;mize :1 milit ::t nt pop u lar movement. Th ey prefer to helplook after the ill, the o rph ane d, o r the under-nourished. W hile sllchservices are ind eed urgently needed, the way they are provided reinforcesthe prevailing balance ofpolitic:11 power. Th e great ll1Jjority of those fewNorth AmeriC;ll1s w'ho visit Haiti travel as part of carefully sllpenTsedreligious mi ssions, ;md engage in a sort of charity-tolllism. Comparedeven co very b::tsic state investlllent in say education or public health,m:l1ly NCO progr::tms h:.lve very liale to show for the millions they spend(other thaJJ the very cO!lsi der ,lblc proportion that they lavish on themselves), Th e poorest regio n of Haiti, the North-West department, is alsothe zo ll e most intensely penetr::tted by NGOs. "The NCOs need th esitu ation to co ntinue, " th e director of the Cite Soleil hospital points out,"s illce m hervv isc th ey have no reason to be here." I (, As for its ideologicalImp act, the prov isio n of w hit e en lightened charity to destitute an_d

.. :l Ueged ly "supe rstiti o us" blacks is part and parcel of an all too Dl1lil.iarnc o- co lo nial pJttern . Wea lth y nation s have all obvious int erest in preserv ing th e image of poorer nations as "failed states" thdt need generollso utside ht'lp co survive, j ust as the charities h;lVe all int erest in preservIngthe stru ctur al conditiolls of Haitian poverty, w hile raising mo ney toalleviate a few of its mo st unsightly effects.

T here is Jnother structura l side-effect of NC O infiltratio n in H aiti .Eillplovlllenr a1\d promotion in an internationally OIi ented NCO is b stbecollllng a well-troddt'n path towards power and influ ence with inH ::titi itself - the configuration of the G 18-+ is an obvio lls case in poineExpansion of an iutcr-collllected NG O sec tor sen/es to co m olidate

2003-2004 PREPARING FOR WAR 181rather than challenge the hegemon y of the cosmopolitan elite. AsNicolas Guilhot points ou t in a helpful study, on e of the reasons w hy"NGOs have become key regulatolY actors of globalization " is becausethey effectively enable the renewal, with democratic tenninology andcredentials, of a gUdsi-"aristocratic" approach to politics. Apparentlypreoccupied with civic virtue, political neutrality and institutionalstability, most NG O adm inistrators understand that "civic virtue is besti served by those whose already dominant social status is a guarantee thattheir motives are pure and disinterested." Like the notables described byMontesquieu or the hOl1oratiores described by Weber, NG O personneltend to be pe ople whose already privileged status allows them to pose asif they " live Jor politics, without livingji-ol11 politics.,,17 By definition ,surely, such principled people cannot be bought. Nothing is moreobnoxious in th eir eyes than the spectacle of "corrupt" or "extremist"m embers of a lower-income petty-bourgeois class wh o might dare toseek inclusion w ithin their exclusive ranks - a description which fits alarge fraction of th e new Lavalas cadres, if no t (in the eyes of many ofhis rivals) Aristide him self. Suitably staffed and oriented, many NG Oconsultants operate in practice as w hat Guilhot ca lls "double agents."Although th eir influ ence is ostensibly derived from their grassroots links,in reality they are eve r more smoo thl y imegrated wit h IFl s and othertran snational :1gencies, to the poi nt that " th ei r identity has beendissolved in a seamle ss we b of 'global go ve rnance' where they interactand sO l11etimes ove rlap with goverJIment agencies, in ternationa l orga" d . "H ;lllzatlons all corporatIons.

Rather than the army or stdte bureaucracies, NGO s no w pro vide themain institutional and ideological mechanism tor the reproduction ofHaiti 's ruling class. As even the casual visitor to Port-au-Plincc w illimmediately gather, foreign aid-workers and their loc al co lleagues, likeother members of their class, have access to vehicles, hou ses and meetingplaces that set them sharply apart from the great majolity of thepopulation,1


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llsually attended by tiny groups of 30 or 40 peopk - which is to say, bynobody O\ltside the orgal11zers' own int er- co nn ected circles.

PAPDA AND BATAY OUVRIYEOnt' of the most stliking things about the 2004 coup is the vigorouslypolirical role pla yed by sO llle of these same


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As the pressure 0 11 the FL administration increased after 2000 , " there wasa growing split between the tw o kinds of organizations, with the grassroo ts rem aining pro b v abs and Alistide , and the NGOs mostly op po sed. " Soo n the leaders of gro ups like SOFA and C ONAP became"h ysterical m their opp osition to anything assoc iated with Lavalas andAristide , including no w Prcval and the Lespwa platfonn. ,,28

These days SOFA and NCHR are perhaps too discredited to warrantflllther di scussion. PAPDA, on the other hand, still retains a certainfo llow ing on th e fiinges of the international left, and US- or UK-basedallies like Grassroots International and the Haiti Supp ort Group ensurethat its opinions receive considerable attention 2 9 PAPDA emerged as anostensibly significa m voice on Haitian affairs in an age wh en the veryinstitutions it appe;m to attack - the U S State D epartment, U SAID, theWo rld Bank and o ther IFIs - all Cll11 e to embra ce a broad human rightsand "civil society" agenda. PAPDA began to receive int ernationalatte ntion and funding at a time w hen all these hegemonic accors beganpretending to embrace " 'bottom-up ' methodologies and 'grass-roots'JPproaches " that mIght ' \,viden participJtion" while ensuring goo dgove rnan ce and encouraging the development of neutral and stablepolitical institutions.'() Fronted by the affable and cosmopolitan economist Camille Chalmers, PAPDA's main purpose is to co mpile trenchantth ough p olitically inconsequential Jnalyses of th e dam age inflicted up onH aiti's rural econ0111Y by mo re than tw enty yea rs of structural adjust111 ( 11[. 1 1 From 200 ]-04, it also produc ed J steady stream of press releasesdenouncing the irredeemJble depravity of the bv alas government.Th ree qu otatio ns should be cnough CO illustrate the basic point. In2()Ol, after the short burst of vigilance violence that fo llowed FLRN 'sJ rtcl1lpted coup of 17 D ecembe r, PAPDA j oined with SOFA (itself amember of PAPUA) :ll1d ENFOFANM (:lI10 ther sm J Il elite wom en 'sgroup) to issue statements saying "No, No , No. This coup mustn'thappen This plot to des tro y the democratic aspirations of the peoplemu stn't happen l " Th e " coup " at issue, however, was not the actual assaultJu t Jttelllpted by eX-Jrmy paramilitaries allied co th e C D but rather thepopular replisals that it provoked , i.e. th e " JPp alling" attacks canied outby "bands of fascists" against properties belonging to leJding members ofthe CD )2 (who were themselves bu sy making the absurd but widelyrepeated claim that the go vernment Iud staged th e COup-Jtte mpt itselQ. Acouple of years bter, ju st days be fore the full FLRN insurgen cy took of fand un der the guise of condemning his "immorali ty, corruption, andsys te1l1ati c violJtions of the mo st elel1lentary rights of Haitian citizens,"

2003- 2004 PREPARING FOR WAR 185l)APUA iss lIed a ling in g caU for Aristide' s immediate depJrture. It insistedin PJrticubr that no -one sh o uld inte rfere in the p ersecution of Lava!JspJltisans that rhi


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C;mja and Guy Dclva ,1Cknowledge th


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of 2()()3, ~ 1 1 1 1 e l y the employers and the rich , and in pal1:i cular th e richem ployers represented by the Group of 184.

L:1unched towards the end of 200 2, apart from call a typicallyineffect ual "general strike" for 23 January 2003, the G184 did little ofsubstance during m ost of its fIrSt ye n of existence. But th ere are severalreasons vvh y the democratic opposition to Lay-ala s became much moreac tive in the autumn of 2003.First of,lll, the de fection of a pro-Lavahs gang in Gonalves fmally gavethe paramilitary wing of the opposition an all-important foothold insideHaiti (I'll come back to this in a moment, p,)ge OUO).

Second, hy July 2003 a series of La v;ilas concessions (coupled with alawsuit thrt


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Grand Goave on 5 October he reaffirmed yet again his insistence that"only elections can help us solve the present crisiS."C,l On 21 October, thehead of the CEP announced new measures to allow elections to be heldon 12 January, and some lower-profile opposition parties (temporarilyforgetting their actual purpose) said they might be prepared to participatein them . On behalfof the CD , Gerard Pierre-Charles, Victor Benoit, LucMesadieu and Hubert de Ronceray responded immediately by urgingtheir members [0 keep refusing to participate in any election so long asAristide remained pre sident , and renewed their call for domestic andinternational pressure to force the government from power.62 SinceAristide was thus "unable to agree" with the opposition on a new date forelectio11, as the US an d France liked to put it, so then once theparliamentary term r3n ou t in January he W;1S obliged instead to governby "dictatOlial" decree. Th e CD would have no better opportunity tocharacterize their opponent as a tyrant.

For the democratic oppositioll to La valas, therefore, the last months of2003 were a do-or-die occasion. Th e G 184 kicked of f the final stage ofthe campaign to unseat Alistide with the opposition's most ambitiousdemonstration to date, a rally held in Port-a u-Prince on 14 November

2 0 0 3 ( ' ~ Alongside G 184 leaders Andy Apaid and Charles Baker the list ofprominent demonstrators included Paul Denis of the OPL, KONAKOM's Victor Bell01t, ex-colonel Himmler Rebll, and Jean-ClaudeBajeux of the Ecumenical Human Rights Center. Th e Economist Intelli-gal{e [ jlli! iden tifi ed the r;111y as tbe "highest profile" incident in a lisingwave of new ;1nti-government protests. Since this publication cannoteasily be confused with pro-FL propaganda, it's worth quoting its owndesCliption of wh:lt happened at some length:

On the morning of the rall y, a le w hundred Group of 1H4 supportershad assembled at the designated sitt' bu t found themselves heavilyoutnumbered by as many as 8,000 Aristide loyalists. When somegovernment supporters threw stones and shouted threats at theiropponents, the police struggled to keep order. As the situation rapidlydetl'liorated, the police dispersed the crowd using tear gas and firinglive amInunition ill the air. Meanwhile, the Group of 184's flat-bedtruck with a sound system was stopped by police en route to the rallyand thirty people travelling in the convoy \\lith it were arrested whenpolice discovered unlicensed ftrearms. Clearly unable to proceed aspbllned. the Group of 18-1 organizers called off the rally before it hadbeguJl. R.eacting to the events, the Croup's coordinator, Andre Apaid

..

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[. . .J said the episode showed that the authorities would not allowopponents to assemble and thus were not contemplating fair elections.

This particular EIU report does not draw attention to the fact that Apaidis a wealthy international businessman wh o owns several factOlies inHaiti, is the founder of Haiti's most prominent independent televisionstation, and was a leading ftgure in the spring 2003 campaign to preventAristide from doubling the minimum wage. The EIU does go on to note,however, that

the turnout for the rally was lower than might have been suggested bythe Group's claim to have more than 300 member organizations. It wasscarce ly able to assemble 1110re than this number of demonstrators. Th eprese nce at the rally of many members of the morc affluent sector ofsociety reinforced a perception th;)t the Group 0[184, despite its cbimsto represen t civil society, is an organization with little popular appeal.Tllis interpretation was confirmed by the [lilure of a "general strike"called by the Group on November 17"'. Although many privatebusinesses in Port-au-Prince, including priva te schools and banks,did not open, the state-owned b:l11ks , government offices and publictransport , as well as street markets, functioned as normal. In the rest ofthe country the shut-dow n was largely ignored (, 4

A reporter from Haiti Progres further observed that "most of th e signs heldup by G184 demonstrators were 'mitten in English" and that "as ifprean'anged, CNN and other international television netvv'o rk crews,rarely seen these days in Haiti, showed up " to cover the event. Once therally was over, Roger NOliega's newly installed Ambassador James Foleycondemned the government's repression of dissent, saying that the"refusal of state authoJities to let a peaceful demonstration take placehas cast a shJdow 011 the bicentennial celebrations. ,(,5

It wouldn't be difficult to extrapolate, from this single example, ageneral description of the whole civic campaign to dislodge FL. Re ference to the virtues of civil society is often a vacuous di straction at thebest of times; in class-riven Haiti it has rarely been more than a positivehoax. Luckily for the G 184, by the au tumn of 2003 a l1luch 1110reeffective and familiar vehicle for popular protest was available, in tbe fOl'mof a media-friendly student movement.

According to PAPDA and many other progressive pro-coup groups,the turning point in the campaign to oust Laval as "came in the fall of
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2()U3 when student protests about lack of services and lack of university;mtonomy were met with severe repression by Haitian National Policeaccompanied by extrJ-legal armed gangs." C A R I ~ spoke for many in thedemocratic oppositioll when it s ~ l i d th;lt these Jttacks Oil students andother "sectors of civil society" were "like the straw that broke the camel's

k ,,(,c, A I . b . c. h1Xl ( ' . S ;ll1ot 1er progr essIve 0 server put It, a protest lrom t estuclents Vias a protest fi-on] "Haiti's youth - her 1110st promising sonsJnd d:1llghters, the ones vvho \vould lift the country ou t of the darkness ofIgnor:l11ce. poverty, and :111 early, anonymous death. In attacking thestudents, }\ristide's partisans essenti;)lly att,lCked tbe entire nation.,,!>7

Wh o were these representJtives of the "entire nation," and what werethey protesting) Although any generalization is approximate, mostH;litian university students occupy a fctirly distinct social position. Th evast Illajority ofHaiti,ms never make it to secondary school, of course, letaloDe university, whereas the most pl1vileged members of the elite sendtheIr children away to be educated in France or North America. Th ethousand or so students who manage to win a place at Haiti's ow n fiercelycompetitive (and 111 many ways corrupt and exclusive) state universityevery year often come fi'om faIrly poor backgrounds, and have generally",corked extremely hard to gain their chance at a professional qualifIcationand the social promotion that accompanies it. As the economy waspushed deep into recession by the combination of structural adjustmentand the ,lid emb;lrgo of 20()()-()4, S0111e students began to resent whatthey saw as restricted access to their hard-\Noll rewards. Understandably,111,111y were more interested in escaping poverty than in reducing it, andnothing is 1110re vaiuable for In ambitious student than J visa to the US,Canada or France. Many students, Illoreover, were sympathetic to thepolitical tendency that after 1994 relllained heavily dominant within theuniversity - the tendency represented by PielTe-ChZlrles, Castor and theOPL. Most of the random sampling of students I met in April 2()()6 saidthat 111 the February elections of that year their prefen:ed presidentialcandidate had been the conservative professor Leslie Manigat. Th e greatmajority of Intellectuals ctnd academics in Haiti Jre conservative as a111Zltter of course; most Joined or were sympathetic to the G 184, andspurred by the energetic Eric Bosc 11l the French embassy some (includingLyonel Trouillot, Laennec Hurbon, Frank Etienne, Yannick Lahens,Raoul Peck. .) even formed a group, the Comitc du Nan (Committee ofthe No), whose reactionary 111t1ection makes the G184 itself lookmoderate by comparison6s Th e obvious cbss antagonism was compounded by the fact that within estJblished university circles, Aristide was

2003-2004 PREPARING FOR WAR 195twidely considered as a genuine nvaJ. Well-known as on e of Haiti's mostJccomplished biblical scholars, during his second administration Aristidedevoted considerable time and resources to the development of a new,public-service oriented university at Tabarre, and to encouraging the stateuniversity to fall into line with its ow n regulations on fmances, admissionsand elections. By 2003, the elimination of Aristide by fair means or foulhad become for people like Castor or Hurbon a virtLlJl Cllls3de.

I Whell the IR I and G J84 went looking for supporters for its destabiliz8tion campaign, therefore, it wasn't diffIcult for them to enlist acertain llumber of students to the cause. Between them, the IFES Jnd theIRI pu t considerable though unspecifIed amounts of time Jnd moneyinto the crcation of several ne w student groups, including FEUH(Federation des Etudiants de l'Universite d'Etat d'Hct'iti) and GRAFNEH(Grand Front National des Etudiants Ha'itiens); the latter had an office inChJrles Baker's ow n building. As anyone who was active in the move

1.l.. ment will readily tell you, scores of"stlldent le8ders" Viere offered moneyand visas to the US Jnd France in exchange for their help in orgJnizing

I1:! protests against the government. "Only a fI'JCtion of the students in thesystem participated m the protest movel11ent," explains Anne Sosin, "z11ld

many did so to get visas to leave Haiti; many of the so-called studentswere no t actually students in the state university bu t were sent in to SO\N

} chaos in the system."()!) It is no secret that by the end of2003 "l1lany ofthe student leaders had taken workshops WIth the International Republican Institute,,70 III exchange for this modest investment, the IR II bought itself the perfect cover for the coup - idealistic young democratslike the quasi-student Herve SaintiJus (leader of FEUH), people thatindependent newspapers like the j\iClIJ York Times could then quote asdemanding that "Bush and the State Dep8rtmem come get this toxicgarbage [Aristidel ou t of here as fast as they call.,,71t

AJI that was missing was a suitably clear-cut reason to protest Zlpresident wh o (along with Preval) had done immeasurably 1110re forHaitian education th811 any other president in the country's history.FEUH found the pretext it needed when it manJged to presem theremoval of Jean-M8rie Paquiot from his position JS rector of theuniversity, inJuly 2002, as a gross violcttion of the university's autonomy.! In reality, Paquiot's four-year term had expired six months previously; asPaquiot continued to stall on the organization of elections for hissnccessor, the exasperated FL education minister, Marie Carmel PaulAustill, decided to replace him with a temporary appointee. SincePaquiot was an influential member of the OP L and the recipient ofr


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196 DAMMING THE FLOODsignificant IFES ~ u p p o r t , critics of the government quickly organized avocal c ~ l 1 1 p : l i g n ill his defense. A few months later, as usual , FL bo we d topublic pressure a nd allowed Paquiot to return to his post , pending thearrangemellt of imminen t elections. The independ ent med ia made sure,however, that their listeners remembered the important point: a dicta[Qrial A.ristide had tralllpled on one of the bs t independent institutions inthe courltry. An initial student protest against this government interterence was st'lged ill November 2002, bu t neither it nor the occasionalrall y which followed It able to generate much public interest orsupp ort .

Things were different a year later,


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198 DAMMING THE FLOODuni versity students. They said that IFES had held 'sensitization meetingsat the university that became anti-Aristide r:tllies." On ce P ~ l q u i o t wasattacked, they added, "I t was IFES that ammged to have the Rectorflown out of Haiti within days, along with an IFES escort.,,77

Th e IFES and its C; 184 allies made sure that after 5 Dec ember therewould be no goiug ba ck. A protest that had its origins in a trivial disputeaboLlt the universi ty rcctorship quickl y snowbalJed into a major campaignfor the unconditional elilllination of Alistide. ANMH new s o utlets likel

Peter Hallward on NGOs in Haiti

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