HAITI-POLITICS: Aristide’s Political Comeback

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ives Marie Chanel

JACMEL, Haiti, Nov 5 1996 (IPS) - Former President Jean Bertrand Aristide, denouncing the glaring iniquity in wealth between the industrialized and non-industrial nations, has called on Haitian citizens to unite in the fight against poverty.

Aristide, who left office nine months ago, told a gathering of about 3,000 peasants and members of grass-roots organizations that he believed economic reforms imposed by international institutions in other Caribbean and Latin American nations had only increased their misery.

The meeting Sunday held at Jacmel, 88 kilometers south-east of Port- au-Prince was the first by Aristide to explain his newly announced political movement, “Fanmi Lavalas (Family Lavalas).

The former president explained the need for his new organization with three specific points.

– While Haiti had contributed to the independence movements of countries in the hemisphere – including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and the United States – lack of development here made Haiti one of the 20 poorest countries in the world.

– He denounced the iniquities in wealth between the industrialized and non-industrial nations, and criticized the insistence on Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP’s) in Haiti by world financial institutions which he said would deepen the gulf. He called on Haitian citizens to unite in the fight against poverty.

– Aristide declared his belief that these economic reforms had not worked elsewhere in the Caribbean and Latin America and countries in the region still were unable to afford decent educational and health programs to improve living standards.

“Worldwide, 1.6 billion people live in misery, and in Latin America alone, 240 million live below the poverty line,” he said. “The combined wealth of the planet’s 358 richest billionaires equals half the combined wealth of everyone else. Foreign aid represents only 0.3 percent of the gross national product of the industrialized world.”

Aristide has spent the six months conferring with about 100 of his associates, including priests with whom he is reportedly close, looking for solutions to prevent the break-up of his political base.

“The purpose of Family Lavalas (the name given his new movement) is to give us an avenue through which to run candidates for public office,” he said. “Our intention is not to create a party to compete with other political parties, but to facilitate the participation of all sectors of society in political decision- making.”

Aristide stressed specifically that his new group was not a “political party” and warned against possible “disinformation campaigns”‘ regarding his movement, whose symbol is a giant mast surrounded by plaited ribbons.

“We’re in more dire straits today than we were 10 years ago, even though our enemies are less visible than they were during the dictatorships. And one of our enemies is disinformation. You can’t see it like you can a dictatorship, but believe me, it’s already being prepared so it can destabilize us,” Aristide declared.

The announcement by Aristide last week of the creation of his new “movement” surprised officials of the parties making up the ruling left-leaning coalition, and gave way to press speculation as to the form of the new grouping. Several leftist leaders and even some high government functionaries were spotted in Jacmel although they were not officially invited by Aristide to the rally.

After his speech, some listeners remained puzzled.

“Lavalas….has always had forthrightness as its watchword. I can’t speculate on their objectives, although from what I’ve heard described thus far, its a political party,” remarked Sen. Yvelt Chery, a member of the Lavalas Political Organization (OPL) directorate, the most important of the three parties which make up the coalition which supported President Rene Preval’s rise to power in December, 1995.

Chery believed the creation of this new political organization could be one more avenue through which to bring the Lavalas movement to power.

Chery is President of the Public Works Commission which is facilitating the privatization of nine previously government-owned enterprises said his party had firmly supported the economic reform package that President Preval had pushed from the beginning of his presidency.

He called those in the Lavalas leadership who are against the reforms hypocrites, claiming to have proof from the highest levels of the Public Works Commission of Lavalas leaders who have privately accepted privatization contracts while publicly opposing the reforms.

“Many of those who publicly make the greatest fuss against the economic reform package have quietly made arrangements to buy stock as soon as the companies go private. Right now, we’re studying some of these contracts. All during the negotiations on the economic reform package bills, some members of parliament who were on record as being opposed were sneaking around to different foreign embassies making sure that any changes to the bills would still be acceptable to the world financial community”, Chery declared.

The Mayor of Port-au-Prince – Haiti’s capital – Joseph Emmanuel Charlemagne, reserved judgement on Aristide’s new political movement.

He hoped that the movement would “stabilize itself and act constructively to quash demagoguery”.

“There are some people who’d like to make this out as an issue of personal enmity between Aristide and me, but for my part, this is a question of principal only,” he said. “I think that this new initiative will be a good thing, as long as he (Aristide) knows enough to surround himself with honest people”, Charlemagne told IPS.

Political militants, including some from women’s organizations, handed out pamphlets here that criticed Aristide’s management of the country when he returned to the presidency in October of 1994.