No End to the Turmoil
CLEAVER, CAROLE
No End to the Turmoil Silencing the Guns in Haiti: The Promise of Deliberative Democracy By Irwin P. Stotzky Chicago. 294 pp. $24.95. Reviewed by Carole Cleaver Author, "Spirits of the...
...Actually, all of the coup leaders—Raoul Cédras, Philippe Biamby, and the vicious police chief, Michel François—are living carefree lives abroad...
...Charges at the port are so exorbitant, though, that cargo ships routinely dock in the Dominican Republic and have their goods smuggled in overland...
...Under past regimes they have conducted midnight arrests, beatings and torture, and have held people in detention for long stretches without trials or legal counsel...
...bayonets are steel...
...troops on March 31,1995—and whose last contingent left Haiti the first week of this past December: It failed to disarm the populace...
...The few judges who are not incompetent or corrupt have often had to make decisions in fear for their lives...
...The FRAPH leader, Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, was on the CIA payroll...
...Political stalemates aside, Haiti is a difficult place to do business...
...That Creole proverb has accurately described justice in Haiti throughout its 200-year history...
...intervention, after three years of exile...
...But Stotzky does not infer that the CIA masterminded Aristide's overthrow, as many of his partisans do...
...Aristide originally agreed to sell the companies to international conglomerates...
...No budget can be passed, no Prime Minister can be approved, no action is possible on privatization...
...and Canadian troops who were to prepare for Aristide's return...
...Nevertheless, the book is interesting because it is well-researched and accurate...
...Further exacerbating matters is the fact that foreign aid accounts for twothirds of Haiti's national budget, yet it has defied the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stipulation that no loans will be forthcoming unless nine state businesses are privatized...
...Silencing the Guns in Haiti is impaired by convoluted academic jargon...
...In this new book Irwin P. Stotzky, a human rights attorney who was an adviser to former President JeanBertrand Aristide's government, argues that bringing about "respect for the rule of law" is the key to establishing democracy and creating a functional economy there...
...Reviewed by Carole Cleaver Author, "Spirits of the Night: The Vaudou Gods of Haiti" "Laws are paper...
...the second, Minister of Justice Guy Malary, was killed in 1996...
...One of the victims, a businessman and Aristide financial backer, was killed in 1993...
...An estimated 250,000 weapons, he notes, remain in the hands of soldiers who were mustered out of the Army for human rights violations, and of former Tonton Macoute paramilitary thugs alone...
...The new UN-trained police force has not inspired confidence that much will change...
...Back in Haiti the UN contingent is down to a 300-man advisory group, and the police appear to be pretty much on their own...
...Access to city water is limited...
...Stotzky focuses primarily on the major events of the last seven years in the country: its first democratic presidential election, held in 1990 and won by Aristide...
...Disarming the Haitians would make them very apprehensive...
...Indeed, it could trigger a devastating mass exodus of the meager supply of doctors, lawyers and businessmen—similar to the brain drain in the worst days of President for Life François "Papa Doc" Duvalier...
...Individuals have learned to forge their own security by means of family and social ties, bribes and, when necessary, brute force...
...The roads are full of enormous potholes, traffic jams are perpetual, and the airport is crowded with thieves and beggars...
...But in Haiti the court system is a farce and the police have traditionally been oppressors...
...What his specific duties were has never become clear...
...his overthrow by a military coup seven months later...
...The country has also been without a Prime Minister—and thus without a functioning government—for more than seven months...
...Its infrastructure is either crumbling or nonexistent...
...Stotzky makes plain, for example, the Central Intelligence Agency's involvement with the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), which terrorized the country during the years of military rule...
...For one thing, its ability to put down riots has yet to be tested...
...Neither the electric nor the phone company has the technical expertise, or the financial resources, for repairs—not to mention modernization and expansion...
...Members of the wealthy elite—who make up less than 10 per cent of the population—are well-educated, Catholic, speak French, and are for the most part light-skinned mulattoes...
...Just how critical the latter are can be seen from the March 1995 assassination of Mireille Durocher de Bertin, a Right-wing antiAristide attorney...
...Then the Aristide-controlled Parliament refused to pass the legislation necessary to fulfill Haiti's end of the bargain...
...It achieved particular notoriety when it prevented the American ship Harlan County from landing U.S...
...As his title suggests, however, Stotzky's stress is on the need "to inculcate in the minds of the people" the importance of a lawful society...
...For another, it totally lacks investigative skills...
...Significantly, too, the rural "section chiefs" Aristide promised to abolish were simply replaced with his own men and continue to wield absolute power with the help of paramilitary "attachés...
...But Haitian fears of foreign influence led him to renege on his promises...
...and the paralysis now plaguing his successor, President René Préval...
...Préval came up with a new plan that would have international corporations run the businesses and share ownership with the government...
...Meanwhile the flour and cement factories have virtually stopped production, and even though 80 per cent of the people are agricultural workers, the soil is depleted to the point where food must be imported...
...The telephone circuits are so overcrowded that it can take hours to make a local call, and 130,000 people who have requested new lines will have to wait an estimated six-and-a-half years for installation...
...In these circumstances people rightly feel they have to protect themselves...
...Today they are without employment and many have resorted to crime, currently at a record high...
...But despite her having been gunned down in front of her car in broad daylight on a busy thoroughfare with hundreds of witnesses, even the FBI was unable to identify the assassin...
...The situation is to a considerable extent a consequence of the international sanctions imposed after Aristide's ouster in an attempt to topple the military dictatorship...
...the security and economic crises he confronted...
...Although Aristide's rhetoric emphasized "reconciliation," there are, in effect, still two Haitis...
...his triumphant return, thanks to U.S...
...The IMF readily accepted this and accordingly released a first installment of $22 million in loans...
...Because of inept prosecution, riggedjuries, and a carnival atmosphere, two of the three obviously guilty defendants (those accused of murdering Malary) were not convicted...
...Every hotel, business and moderate-sized house has armed security guards...
...Hence his most serious criticism of the United Nations peacekeeping force that took over from U.S...
...Two months ago, like the police of old, they arrested, beat and jailed a 61 -year-old former official who had the temerity to run against Préval in the last election...
...In the 1980s, large numbers of them flocked to the slums of Port-au-Prince to work in assembly plants...
...Almost all of the rest of the people are poor, illiterate, voodoo-worshiping, Creolespeaking, and black...
...Foreign companies were forced to move their manufacturing operations elsewhere, and none have returned...
...Numerous international corporations have indicated an interest in the joint ventures, but no contracts have been signed...
...Stotzky himself points out that Haiti has never had an independent judiciary...
...In that case the FBI sent in a fact-finding team...
...Allowed to enter the United States following Aristide's reinstatement, he was briefly jailed but never extradited to stand trial...
...Will Haiti once again have an abusive police force enforcing the whims of a President for Life...
...The government-owned electric company is so inefficient and corrupt that only those with private generators can expect a constant energy source...
...The money acquired was to be used to expand education and health care, at present available to only 10 per cent of the population...
...With Aristide and Préval battling for control of their dominant Lavalas Party, Parliament is deadlocked...
...In the year 2000 when Préval's term expires, it is expected that Aristide will reassume the presidency...
...More typical is the author's description of the trials of three political assassins...
Vol. 81 • January 1998 • No. 1
