DAMMI NG THE FLOOD
Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment
PETER HALLWARD
~ V ERSO London • New York r. U yo vIe touye chen yo di' Ilou When people want to kiU cl dog they say it's rabid.
First published by Verso 2007 Copyright (U Peter Hallward 2007 All rights reserved
The moral right of' the au thor has bccll asserted
3 5 7 9 10 ~ 0 4 2
Verso UK: 6 Meard Street, London WI F OEe USA: 180 Va ri ck Street, New York, NY 101J14-4606 \ ·\/ \V\v.vcr:;oboo ks. CO ll1
VeJ>o is the imprint of New Left Books
ISBN: <) 78-1-84467-234-<) (hbk) ISBN 978-1-84467-1 06-9 (pbk)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A caulogue record for this book is available hom the British LibralY
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog re cord for this book is available li'olll the LibralY of Congress
T ypeset in Belllbo by H ewer Tex( UK Ltd, Edinburgh Printed and bound in (he USA by "x"xx.;s 8
2003-2004: Preparing for War
Ou we sa w,'>(enycll) ou pn kOrln sa l/l refe (Y OLl 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, the sequence of events that culminated in Aristide's abduction by US troops on 29 February 2004 can be read in one of three ways. In the first place, many if not most people seem to think that there wasn't a coup at all but just a local variation on the SOlt of "Orange R evolutions" that became popular during the height of a global war on terror, evil and dictatorship. This was the official line, of course, put out by the US State Department, the Haiti Democracy Project, the Group of 184 and their allies. Confronted w ith a corrupt ,ll1d tyrannical regime, the Haitian people rose up and liberated themselves from their oppressor, and the US only intervelled, once things sta rted to get Out of control, to protect Aristide and his family from haml. This was also the version panoted by much of the mainstream press. There was no coup, sa id The Times on 1 March 2004, but rather a "popular revolution" inspired by "the resentment left by AI;stide's £Jawed victory lin 20001. his increasingly despotic and enatic rul e, and the w holesale collapse of the local economy."! Some other people remember what hap pened to Arbenz in 1954, to Allende in 1973, to Manley in 1980, to Ortega in 1990, to Chavez in 2002 - and to Al;stide himself in 1991 - and recognize an obvious pattem. From this perspective, the whole destabilization campaign looks all too familiar and all too predictable, and it was indeed predicted. February 2004 was one of the most widely anticipated "surprises" of contemporary world politics. In 2001, Stan Goff could already see the writing on the wall, and knew that the "reactionary wing of the 176 DAMMING THE FLOOD 2003-2004 PREPARING FOR WAR 177
Republican Party will settle for nothing less than Aristide's political itself a failure. As we shall see in our fmal chapter, its authors failed to neutralization" and the "surrender oflHaitian1sovereignty. ,,2 Writing in accomplish their main objective - the elimination of Lavalas as an 2002, Robert Fattoll observed that "Rightwing US policymakers have organized political force. February 2004 was less a defeat than a setback. already condemned Aristide for bel11g a dangerous radical and an The military coup of February 2004 would be reversed in due course by intransigent man who surrounds himself with 'narco-traffickers' and the popular anti-coup of February 2000, which itself opened the door to e'ncourages 'thuggish vIOlence'. These accusations, which have never a new phase in the Lavalas project. beEn substantiated, could easily become the basis for a major campaign of We are already familiar with the routine features of the destabilization systematic denigotion," and prepare the way for Aristide's "surgical campaign: crippling economic aggression, forced structural adjustment, removal" on the Panama-Noriega model.~ In sevEral sEaring articlES the mobilization of rightwing civil society, paralyzing negotiations with published over the course of2003, writer-activists like Kim Ives, Georges an invented opposition, systematic media manipulation, repeated allega Honorat and Kevin Pina documented the' machinations ofthe impending tions ofcOll:uption, violence and the abuse ofhuman rights, and so on, all coup in compelling dc'tail4 in speech after speech, the PPN's Ben Dupuy backed up with the pressure of naked paramilitary force. To get their made the same point. The prescience of these analyses speaks for itself. coup in 2004, hO\vever, the US, France ,111d Canada, together with the [t IS a short step, however, fj'om predicting such an outcome to domestic elite, would have to do three things that they hadn't needed to accepting it as almost inevitable. This is the I.isk run in Fatton's pessimistic do back in 1991: (a) they would need to nourish ideological support for version of events. as it is 111 some leftwlJ1g analyses preoccupied with the regime change not only on the right but also on the left of the political diabolical machinations of the CIA and the IR1, 'llong with the stifling spectrum, via the collusion of "progressive" NGOs and pressure groups m:devolence of the IMF or the World 13:mk. The trap laid by the enemy like PAPDA, Batay Ouvriye and Grassroots International, together with a for Alistide and for Lavalas was too poweliul, the argument goes, and the stage-managed student protest movement; (b) they would need to win l110re they tried to resist their fate the weaker and more compromised over not just merely tactical fellow-travelers of Lavalas (Pierre-Charles, they became; in the end, all that is left isJal!! itself. What then is to stop us Evans Paul, Paul Denis ..) but also some militants and organizations fro])] drawlllg the conclusion that the sequence that led to February 2004 who were once sympathetic to Alistide himself (Dany Toussaint and his should be understood 111 terms of closure and defe:lt, as the cnd of the cotelie, as well as Labanye's gang in Cite Soleil and Amiot Metayer's gang elllancipatory project that began with the dec/IOIdeaj of 1986? in Gona'lves); (c) when push came to shove, the coup dc gracf would have A thIrd interpretation (which infol1m the present book) agrees with to be delivered not by Haitian proxies like the FLRN and the former Illuch of the second. Yes the assault on Lavalas was consistent with the military but by imperial troops themselves. long-standing pattern and pliorities of illlpelial foreign policy in Latin A1l1erica and the rest of the vvorld. For this :lSSault to succeed in 2004, PREPARING THE GROUND: however, it was obliged to go to quite exceptional lengths. The coup of NGOS AND POLITICS OF BENEVOLENCE 20()4 was ttr more difficult to achIeve thall that of 199J. [t took much longer and cost 1l1uch more. It required the coordination of many 1110re Few things are more urgently needed for a better understanding of people-, and the deployment ofa vastly more elaborate and valied range of contemporary Haitian politics than a detailed :malysis of the precise strategies. The sheer bbor and intensity of the destabilization campaign economic and ideological role of the non-governmental organizations (together with the amount offoreign money dnd troops reqUIred to cope (NGOs) that now play such a big part in the administration of the with its aftermath) is itself a llleasure of the strength of its target. It is an country. There's no space for such an analysis here, but it is well worth l!1dicltioll of the fact that the outcome was never inevitable - though drawing some attention to the most salient aspects of the question. hardly ;111 accident, February 2004 was indeed a surplisc. I t is better First of all, there are a lot of NGOs in Haiti. According to several understood as scandal than as [lte. estimates, there are more NGOs per capita in Haiti than anywhere in the February 20()4 was J sCllldal, it was never inevitable, :llld its effects are world. In 1998, the World Bank guessed that there are anything between not Irreversible. Despite its violence and atrocity, moreover, the coup was 10,000 and 20,000 NGOs working in the country.s Something like 80% 178 DAMMING THE FLOOD 2003-2004 PREPARING FOR WAR 179 of basic public se rvices (the provision of water, health care, education, tiny fraction (perhaps 5% of the total) of aid money is aimed where it is san itation, food distribution ..) arc undertaken by NGOs; the largest most needed - towards a lasting reinvigoration of H aitian agriculture and organizations have budgets bigger th:lIl those of their corresponding the nlral econ omy.l l Rather than strengthen Haiti's capacity to resist the govcfIlmcllt departl1lents(' The vast majority of the $1.2 billion promised foreign manipulation of its economy, USAID initiatives like PIRED or to Haiti's post-coup regime by imermtional dOllors as part of the 2004 the Pan-America n Development Foundation combine with IMF-driven Intclilll Cooperative FrJlllework \\I,IS pledged vi,1 USAID, USAID's stnlctural adj ustment to enhance US penetration of the local market and Office of Transition Initiatives, or !1Iorc indepelldent-seeJlling NGOs, to reinforce the economic basis ofH;}iti's ligid class structure. Some of the rJther thall to governnIent agencies. Usually man;lged by well-connected more devastating consequences ofsuch policies are then softened (but also Illembers of the elite ill conjunction with illterllatio n,1 1pJrent companies exacerbated) by secondary initiatives like the distlibution of food aid or partners, much of what thc)' do is effectively independent of govern through agencies like CARE or aggressively pro-US evangelical churches illCllt scrutiny. Most ofw hat thcy do, moreovtT, is extremely fragmented . like the Baptists and Seventh Day Adventists. Distribution of this "free" All by itself. the complex llIultiplicity of the NCO sector discourages food fllrther IIndercuts domestic agricultLIral production and creates new inci,iVc' eVJluJtioll. The [let that there are so m:m y NGOs, each with cycles of economic and ideological dependellcy. their o'vvn priOlities and projects (which ,liT oftell qu ite foreign to actual Since a minimum of around 70'J.{, of NCO funding is distlibuted by Haitian requirelllellts), makes it alll10st impossible to develop a coordi USAID ~lJl d of time spellt 011 the colleccive work project, (ROllli)its) vvh lch are rather than challenge the hegemony of the cosmopolitan elite. As illtc' ~,:r~\l to the rural economy: whell the developmem sc heme then Nicolas Guilhot points out in a helpful study, one of the reasons w hy COIIH?S to an end there is nothll1g to tJKe up th e slack, ;lI1d the ex "NGOs have become key regulatolY actors of globalization" is because 14 employees are soon worse off than before . T he sall Ie thing can happen they effectively enable the renewal, with democratic tenninology and 111 urban areas, wben NCOs like Medecins S,lns Fronticres or the credentials, of a gUdsi-"aristocratic" approach to politics. Apparently Intemational O rganizatio n for Migration s'weep into an drea, double preoccupied with civic virtue, political neutrality and institutional the \Vages of a fc w local peopk for sev-eLi I m onths and then move on, stability, most NGO administrators understand that "civic virtue is best withoU[ lea ving penllJnent programs or fa cilities in th eir wake. I') Again i served by those whose already dominant social status is a guarantee that there arc some exceptions - OXf.llll 'S work VV' ith coffee-growing co their motives are pure and disinterested." Like the notables described by operatives ill norrhcrn Haiti lIla y be a case 111 point - but given the Montesquieu or the hOl1oratiores described by Weber, NGO personnel pnorities of thei r own donors, chality-oriented NCO" are generally less tend to be people whose already privileged status allows them to pose as IIlterested ill helping to enhailce w hat lIlay be strong Jnd Jssertive ill if they " live Jor politics, without livingji-ol11 politics.,,17 By definition, H:1itian society than in offering se rvices to the vulner;lble and the weak. surely, such principled people cannot be bought. Nothing is more As J ll..llc , NGOs do not provid e resources to strellgthen govcrnment obnoxious in their eyes than the spectacle of "corrupt" or "extremist" lIlitiatives like the FL litnacy progr::tlll of 20()1-03, let alonc to help m embers of a lower-income petty-bourgeois class who might dare to empower or org;mize :1 milit::t nt popular movement. They prefer to help seek inclusion w ithin their exclusive ranks - a description which fits a look after the ill, the orph aned, or the under-nourished. W hile sllch large fraction of the new Lavalas cadres, if not (in the eyes of many of services are indeed urgently needed, the way they are provided reinforces his riva ls) Aristide himself. Suitably staffed and oriented, many NGO the prevailing balance ofpolitic:11 power. The great ll1Jjority of those few consultants operate in practice as w hat Guilhot calls "double agents." North AmeriC;ll1s w'ho visit Haiti travel as part of carefully sllpenTised Although th eir influence is ostensibly derived from their grassroots links, religious missions, ;md engage in a so rt of charity-tolllism. Compared in reality they are ever more smoothly imegrated with IFls and other even co very b::t sic state investlllent in say education or public health, transnational :1gencies, to the point that " th ei r identity has been m:l1ly NCO progr::tms h:.lv e very liale to show for the millions they spend dissolved in a seamle ss web of 'global governance' where they interact (other thaJJ the very cO!lsider,lblc proportion that they lavish on them and sO l11 etimes overlap with goverJIment agencies, international orga selves), The poorest region of Haiti, the North-West department, is also lllzatlons" all d corporatIons. . "H; the zoll e most intensely penetr::tted by NGOs. "The NCOs need th e Rather than the army or stdte bureaucracies, NGOs now provide the situation to continue," th e director of the Cite Soleil hospital points out, main institutional and ideological mechanism tor the reproduction of "sillce m hervv isc they have no reason to be here." I (, As for its ideological Haiti's ruling class. As even the casual visitor to Port-au-Plincc w ill Impact, the provision of w hite enli ghtened charity to destitute an_d immediately gather, foreign aid-workers and their local coll eagues, like ..:l Uegedly "supe rstitious" blacks is part and parcel of an all too Dl1lil.iar other members oftheir class, have access to vehicles, houses and meeting nco-colonial pJttern. Wealthy nations have all obvious interest in pre places that set them sharply apart from the great majolity of the serving the image of poorer nations as "failed states" thdt need generolls population,1<) Many NGO employees or consultant, tend to treat the o utside ht'lp co survive, j ust as the charities h;lVe all interest in preservIng counny they're working in as enemy territOly2(1 The people who work the stru ctural conditiolls of Haitian poverty, w hile raising money to for elite advocacy groups like PAPDA and SOFA come fr om much the alleviate a few of its most unsightly effects. same affluent, well-educated, French- and/or English-speaking milieu as T here is Jnother structural side-effect of NCO infiltration in H aiti . does the rest ofthe political set. Rather than organize w ith and among the Eillplovlllenr a1\d promotion in an internationally OIi ented NCO is b st people, rather than work in the places and on the terms where the people becollllng a well-troddt'n path towards power and influence within themselves are strong, groups like PAPDA, SOFA and NCHR organize H ::titi itself - the configuration of the G 18-+ is an obvioll s case in poine trivialmade-for-media demonstrations against things like the uncontro Expansion of an iutcr-collllected NGO sector sen/es to com olidate w rsial evils ofneo-liberalism or the high cost ofliving21 Such protests are 182 DAMMING THE FLOOD 2003-2004: PREPARING FOR WAR 183 llsually attended by tiny groups of 30 or 40 peopk - which is to say, by supporters. ,,:22 Together with these independent partners (NCHR, nobody O\ltside the orgal11zers' own inter-connec ted circles. PAPGA, GARR, SOFA ...), Christian Ald went on to repeat the US/CD version of the sequence that led to Aristide's departure more or PAPDA AND BATAY OUVRIYE less word for word. "An intractable crisis has lmrked the political landscape for several years, because of human rights' and civil liberties' Ont' of the most stliking things about the 2004 coup is the vigorously abuses, Jl1d a dispute about the validity of the electod process in 2000. It polirical role pla yed by sO llle of th ese same As the pressure 0 11 the FL administration increased after 2000, " there was l)APUA iss lI ed a lingin g caU for Aristide's immediate depJrture. It insisted a growing split between the two kinds of organizations, with the grass in PJrticubr that no-one sh ould interfere in the persecution of Lava!Js roots remaining pro bvabs and Alistide, and the NGOs mostly op pJltisan s that rhi<; depalture was sure to trigger. "PAPDA IS OPPOSED T O THE posed. " Soon th e leaders of gro ups like SOFA and C ONAP became INTEnVE N TI O~ Of ANY M ULn NATION1\ L POLICE OR M ILITAR Y FORCE O N "hysterical m their opposition to anything ass ociated with Lavalas and HAlTI AN SOIL UNDER THE PI(ETEXT OF HE-ESTABLISHING ORDER.,,:;3 Finally, Aristide, including now Prcval and th e Lespwa platfonn.,,28 two months after getting rid of their nemesis and in the midst ofthe most These days SOFA an d NCHR are perhaps too discredited to warrant brutally violent \-vave of repression in re ce nt HJitian history, PAPDA flllther di sc ussion. PAPDA, on the other han d, still retains a certain Joined with NCHR, CONAP ;ll1d J handful of th eir friends in a foll owing on the fiinges of the internati onal left, and US- or UK-based chJracteristica ll y tiny public protest - not aga inst the killing of hundreds allies like Grassroots International and the Haiti Support Group ensure of bvalas supporters in the slums, but exclusively against the alleged that its opinions receive considerable attention 2 9 PAPDA emerged as an crooks of the previous regime. The Jim of their demonstration was to ostensibly significa m voice on Haitian affairs in an age when the very censure Latortll e for " being too slow in the process of arresting JII those institutions it appe;m to attack - the U S State D epartment, U SAID, the accused of committing cnmes under the Aristide government." Accord World Bank and other IFIs - all Cll11 e to embrace a broad human rights ing to the Agcl1ce Haitien nr Prcssc reponer w ho covered the event, and "civil society" agenda. PAPDA began to receive international PAPDA and its co- protestors "did not comment on the issues of attention and funding at a time w hen all these hegemonic ac cors began confirmed criminals still walking the streets and fom1er rebels who pretending to embrace " 'bottom-up' methodologies and 'grass-roots' committed serious crimes dUling th e events of recent months." InsteJd JPproaches" that mIght '\,viden participJtion" while ensuring good they called for the alTes t ofex-pli111 e minister Yvon Neptune, on account governance and encouraging the development of neutral and stable of his apparent complicity in the so-called "massacre " at La Scieri e ill political institutions.'() Fronted by the affable and cosmopolitan econo Saint-Marc on 11 FebnlJry 2004 (see above, page 159).:'4 Ronald Saint mist Camille Chalmers, PAPDA's main purpose is to compile trenchant Jean speaks for m;I1l Y exasperated allies of La vab s w hen he delides though p olitically inconsequential Jnalyses of th e damage inflicted upon PAPUA as nothing other than "the humanit:l1ian face of the CIA.,, 35 H aiti's rural econ0111Y by more than tw enty years of structural adjust When the London-based Haiti Support Group came to prese nt its 111 ( 11[. 1 1 From 200 ]-04, it also produced J steady stream ofpress releases interpretation of the Febmary 2006 electiOIl result, by comr,lst, PAPDA denouncing the irredeemJble depravity of the bvalas government. WJS the one and only Haitian voice it chose to cite, in J newsletter thJt Three quotatio ns should be cnough CO illustrate th e basic point. In managed to explain Preval's re-election without so much as mentio ning 2()Ol, after the short burst of vi gilance violence that followed FLRN's the 11l8in reaso n for his success : his endorsement en masse by the very same Jrt cl1lpted coup of 17 D ecember, PAPDA j oined with SOFA (itself a Lcivai C;mja and Guy Dclva ,1C knowledge th Grand Goave on 5 October he reaffirmed yet again his insistence that [...J said the episode showed that the authorities would not allow "only elections can help us solve the present crisiS."C,l On 21 October, the opponents to assemble and thus were not contemplating fair elections. head of the CEP announced new measures to allow elections to be held on 12 January, and some lower-profile opposition parties (temporarily This particular EIU report does not draw attention to the fact that Apaid forgetting their actual purpose) said they might be prepared to participate is a wealthy international businessman who owns several factOlies in in them. On behalfofthe CD, Gerard Pierre-Charles, Victor Benoit, Luc Haiti, is the founder of Haiti's most prominent independent television Mesadieu and Hubert de Ronceray responded immediately by urging station, and was a leading ftgure in the spring 2003 campaign to prevent their members [0 keep refusing to participate in any election so long as .. Aristide from doubling the minimum wage. The EIU does go on to note, Aristide remained president, and renewed their call for domestic and however, that international pressure to force the government from power.62 Since Aristide was thus "unable to agree" with the opposition on a new date for the turnout for the rally was lower than might have been suggested by electio11, as the US and France liked to put it, so then once the the Group's claim to have more than 300 member organizations. It was parliamentary term r3n out in January he W;1S obliged instead to govern scarcely able to assemble 1110re than this number ofdemonstrators. The by "dictatOlial" decree. The CD would have no better opportunity to Il prese nce at the rally of many members of the morc affluent sector of characterize their opponent as a tyrant. I society reinforced a perception th;)t the Group 0[184, despite its cbims I For the democratic oppositioll to Lavalas, therefore, the last months of to represent civil society, is an organization with little popular appeal. 2003 were a do-or-die occasion. The G 184 kicked off the final stage of Tllis interpretation was confirmed by the [lilure of a "general strike" the campaign to unseat Alistide with the opposition's most ambitious '\J called by the Group on November 17"'. Although many private demonstration to date, a rally held in Port-au-Prince on 14 November businesses in Port-au-Prince, including priva te schools and banks, 2003('~ Alongside G 184 leaders Andy Apaid and Charles Baker the list of did not open, the state-owned b:l11ks, government offices and public prominent demonstrators included Paul Denis of the OPL, KONA transport, as well as street markets, functioned as normal. In the rest of KOM's Victor Bell01t, ex-colonel Himmler Rebll, and Jean-Claude I\ the country the shut-dow n was largely ignored (,4 Bajeux of the Ecumenical Human Rights Center. The Economist Intelli j gal{e [jlli! identified the r;111y as tbe "highest profile" incident in a lising A reporter from Haiti Progres further observed that "most of the signs held wave of new ;1nti-government protests. Since this publication cannot up by G184 demonstrators were 'mitten in English" and that "as if easil y be confused with pro-FL propaganda, it's worth quoting its own I prean'anged, CNN and other international television netvv'o rk crews, desCliption of wh:lt happened at some length: I rarely seen these days in Haiti, showed up" to cover the event. Once the t rally was over, Roger NOliega's newly installed Ambassador James Foley On the morning of the rall y, a le w hundred Group of 1H4 supporters condemned the government's repression of dissent, saying that the had assembled at th e designated sitt' bu t found themselves heavily 1 "refusal of state authoJities to let a peaceful demonstration take place outnumbered by as many as 8,000 Aristide loyalists. When some has cast a shJdow 011 the bicentennial celebrations. ,,(,5 government supporters threw stones and shouted threats at their It wouldn't be difficult to extrapolate, from this single example, a opponents, the police struggled to keep order. As the situation rapidly j general description of the whole civic campaign to dislodge FL. Re detl'liorated, the police dispersed the crowd using tear gas and firing ference to the virtues of civil society is often a vacuous di straction at the live amInunition ill the air. Meanwhile, the Group of 184's flat-bed best of times; in class-riven Haiti it has rarely been more than a positive truck with a sound system was stopped by police en route to the rally t hoax. Luckily for the G 184, by the au tumn of 2003 a l1luch 1110re and thirty people travelling in the convoy \\lith it were arrested when effective and familiar vehicle for popular protest was available, in tbe fOl'm police discovered unlicensed ftrearms. Clearly unable to proceed as of a media-friendly student movement. pbllned. the Group of 18-1 organizers called off the rally before it had r According to PAPDA and many other progressive pro-coup groups, beguJl. R.eacting to the events, the Croup's coordinator, Andre Apaid 1 the turning point in the campaign to oust Laval as "came in the fall of 194 DAMMING THE FLOOD 2003-2004 PREPARING FOR WAR 195 t 2()U3 when student protests about lack of services and lack of university widely considered as a genuine nvaJ. Well-known as one of Haiti's most ;mtonomy were met with severe repression by Haitian National Police Jccomplished biblical scholars, during his second administration Aristide accompanied by extrJ-legal armed gangs." CARI~ spoke for many in the devoted considerable time and resources to the development of a new, democratic oppositioll when it s~lid th;lt these Jttacks Oil students and public-service oriented university at Tabarre, and to encouraging the state other "sectors ofcivil society" were "like the straw that broke the camel's university to fall into line with its own regulations on fmances, admissions ,,(,c, A I . b . c. h 1:Xl('.k S ;ll1ot 1er progressIve 0 server put It, a protest lrom t e and elections. By 2003, the elimination of Aristide by fair means or foul stuclents Vias a protest fi-on] "Haiti's youth - her 1110st promising sons had become for people like Castor or Hurbon a virtLlJl Cllls3de. Jnd d:1llghters, the ones vvho \vould lift the country out ofthe darkness of I Whell the IRI and G J84 went looking for supporters for its desta Ignor:l11ce. poverty, and :111 early, anonymous death. In attacking the biliz8tion campaign, therefore, it wasn't diffIcult for them to enlist a students, }\ristide's partisans essenti;)lly att,lCked tbe entire nation.,,!>7 certain llumber ofstudents to the cause. Between them, the IFES Jnd the Who were these representJtives of the "entire nation," and what were IRI put considerable though unspecifIed amounts of time Jnd money they protesting) Although any generalization is approximate, most into the crcation of several new student groups, including FEUH H;litian university students occupy a fctirly distinct social position. The (Federation des Etudiants de l'Universite d'Etat d'Hct'iti) and GRAFNEH vast Illajority ofHaiti,ms never make it to secondary school, ofcourse, let (Grand Front National des Etudiants Ha'itiens); the latter had an office in aloDe university, whereas the most pl1vileged members of the elite send ChJrles Baker's own building. As anyone who was active in the move 1 theIr children away to be educated in France or North America. The .l.. ment will readily tell you, scores of"stlldent le8ders" Viere offered money thousand or so students who manage to win a place at Haiti's own fiercely and visas to the US Jnd France in exchange for their help in orgJnizing 1: protests against the government. "Only a fI'JCtion of the students in the competitive (and 111 many ways corrupt and exclusive) state university ! every year often come fi'om faIrly poor backgrounds, and have generally system participated m the protest movel11ent," explains Anne Sosin, "z11ld ",corked extremely hard to gain their chance at a professional qualifIcation many did so to get visas to leave Haiti; many of the so-called students and the social promotion that accompanies it. As the economy was were not actually students in the state university but were sent in to SO\N pushed deep into recession by the combination of structural adjustment I chaos in the system."()!) It is no secret that by the end of2003 "l1lany of and the ,lid emb;lrgo of 20()()-()4, S0111e students began to resent what the student leaders had taken workshops WIth the International Repub they saw as restricted access to their hard-\Noll rewards. Understandably, lican Institute,,70 III exchange for this modest investment, the IRI 111,111y were more interested in escaping poverty than in reducing it, and } bought itself the perfect cover for the coup - idealistic young democrats nothing is 1110re vaiuable for In ambitious student than J visa to the US, like the quasi-student Herve SaintiJus (leader of FEUH), people that Canada or France. Many students, Illoreover, were sympathetic to the independent newspapers like the j\iClIJ York Times could then quote as political tendency that after 1994 relllained heavily dominant within the demanding that "Bush and the State Dep8rtmem come get this toxic university - the tendency represented by PielTe-ChZlrles, Castor and the garbage [Aristidel out of here as fast as they call.,,71 I AJI that was missing was a suitably clear-cut reason to protest Zl OPL. Most of the random sampling of students I met in April 2()()6 said that 111 the February elections of that year their prefen:ed presidential president who (along with Preval) had done immeasurably 1110re for candidate had been the conservative professor Leslie Manigat. The great t Haitian education th811 any other president in the country's history. majority of Intellectuals ctnd academics in Haiti Jre conservative as a FEUH found the pretext it needed when it manJged to presem the 111Zltter of course; most Joined or were sympathetic to the G 184, and removal of Jean-M8rie Paquiot from his position JS rector of the spurred by the energetic Eric Bosc 11l the French embassy some (including ~ university, inJuly 2002, as a gross violcttion of the university's autonomy. Lyonel Trouillot, Laennec Hurbon, Frank Etienne, Yannick Lahens, In reality, Paquiot's four-year term had expired six months previously; as Raoul Peck. .) even formed a group, the Comitc du Nan (Committee of Paquiot continued to stall on the organization of elections for his the No), whose reactionary 111t1ection makes the G184 itself look snccessor, the exasperated FL education minister, Marie Carmel Paul moderate by comparison6s The obvious cbss antagonism was com Austill, decided to replace him with a temporary appointee. Since pounded by the fact that within estJblished university circles, Aristide was Paquiot was an influential member of the OPL and the recipient of !r 196 DAMMING THE FLO OD 2003-2004: PREPARING FOR WAR 197 "7 significant IFES ~upport, critics of the government quickly organized a volleys of stones on OP members who were in front of the national vocal c~l11p:lign ill his defense. A few months later, as usual , FL bowed to university premises and the social sciences faculty. That was the starting public pressure a nd allowed Paquiot to return to his post, pending the point of a demonstration with students ;md opposition members to arrangemellt of imminent elections. The independent media made sure, demand the resignation of governmental authorities. FUlious, OP however, that their listeners remembered the important point: a dicta members got into the university ya rd, which has been closed for over [Qrial A.ristide had tralllpled on one of the bst independent institutions in a week by students who demand their dean's resignation. Violent the courltry. An initial student protest against this government inter blows with sticks and stOnes were exchanged after, between opposition terence was st'lged ill November 2002, but neither it nor the occasional members, students and OP members. That's when an OP member rall y w hich followed It w~s able to generate much public interest or named Harold was shot fi-om the roof of the social sciences faculty, support . where the students and G184 were. Shooting continued to try to stop Things were different a year later,