[News] Haiti - Naje Pou Soti

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Naje Pou Soti

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/BC/3_7_6/3_7_6.html
by Brian Concannon Jr.

IHDH - Haiti ­ "Naje pou soti" in Haitian creole 
means "swim your way out." Haiti sits on an 
island, where rivers swell and rage after rain, 
few people know how to swim, and many die trying 
to flee the country in rickety boats. So hard 
experience makes the saying less theoretical and 
more disconcerting than Americans' "sink or 
swim." Haiti's President-Elect, René Preval, 
famously invoked the saying towards the end of 
his first term in office, which ran from 1996 to 
2001. Preval had been elected to pursue 
progressive economic and social policies ­ 
building schools, roads and hospitals, reforming 
and supporting Haiti's agricultural base, 
developing a judiciary responsive to the majority 
of Haitians who are poor, etc. ­ but had struggled to implement the mandate.

Parliamentary Paralysis

Preval's biggest obstacle was the Parliament, 
even though most legislators were elected on the 
same progressive platform. The OPL party, the 
largest party in the legislature, changed course 
after the election and opted for the policies 
championed by the International Financial 
Institutions and the U.S. ­ cutting government 
spending, allowing the private sector more 
control of the economy and reducing tariffs that 
protected Haitian agriculture.

The policy dispute spilled beyond Parliament into 
the streets, where protests forced the 
resignation of the OPL Prime Minister in June, 
1997. For the next nineteen months Parliament 
refused to confirm any of President Preval's 
nominations for a replacement Prime Minister. The 
International Community took the legislators' 
side, and withheld urgently-needed development 
assistance to force the administration to give in to the opposition's demands.

The dispute turned into an impasse, and for the 
next three years endless negotiations diverted 
the Administration's energy and paralyzed 
government operations. Even officials not 
involved in the talks were reluctant to initiate 
long-term projects, because they expected the 
negotiations would at any time replace them with 
a new team with new plans. The impasse was 
eventually broken not by talks, but by 
Parliamentary suicide ­ the legislators' 
intransigence led to their terms expiring without 
new elections being held. But in the meantime 
Haiti's poor became poorer and more numerous.

Desperate measures for desperate times

Mr. Preval invoked "naje pou soti" in a meeting 
with peasants who were complaining about the 
difficulty of their situation ­ complaints that 
the President was hearing everywhere he went. An 
agronomist by training, Preval knew how bad 
things were in the countryside, but as President 
he also knew that there was no easy solution. He 
invoked the saying to dispel any false hopes: the 
peasants needed to know that the government did 
not have the resources to elevate them out of 
their misery, and that the International 
Community would not come through with the 
promised development assistance. But President 
Preval also wanted to instill a hope that was 
more limited and desperate, but more real ­ that 
Haitians could at least survive by relying on their own resources.

The President turned out to be right on both 
counts. No one did help ­ throughout the 
remaining time of his Administration, the 
International Community increased its pressure 
and decreased its development assistance. But 
Haiti also did manage to swim ­ not out of 
danger, but enough to keep alive and fighting. 
President Preval found ways to build hundreds of 
miles of roads, dozens of schools and a few 
health centers. He transferred thousands of acres 
of land into peasants' hands and he organized the 
two best human rights trials in Haiti's history.

It appears that Preval will once again be 
President, once again with a mandate to implement 
progressive policies. But despite the strength of 
his landslide election victory on February 7 ­ he 
won 4 times more votes than his nearest 
competitor ­ President Preval and the citizens 
who elected him will need to start swimming from 
the very beginning. An impressive array of forces 
and obstacles has already assembled to delay, 
frustrate and block his implementation of progressive policies.

Parliamentary Paralysis II

Preval may have even more trouble with Parliament 
this time around. Although the results of the 
legislative elections will not be decided until 
the second round (which is still not scheduled, a 
month after the first round), it is clear that 
Parliament will be fragmented, with many parties 
each having a few seats. Perhaps more important, 
a large percentage of legislators will be from 
conservative parties opposing Preval's progressive agenda.

Both the parliamentary fragmentation and the 
conservative success are the product of two years 
of repression against progressive political 
activists. Many top leaders, including the last 
Constitutional Prime Minister, were kept out of 
politics by being kept in jail, illegally. 
Grassroots activists were arrested or killed, 
police routinely fired at peaceful, legal 
demonstrations and critical news outlets were 
closed or intimidated. Paramilitary groups, 
including groups of former soldiers who had led 
the 2004 coup d'état, harassed, intimidated and 
even killed progressive activists with impunity.

The repression was particularly focused against 
Haiti's largest political party, Fanmi Lavalas, 
which won large majorities in both the Senate and 
the Chambre des Deputés in Haiti's last election, 
in 2000. Fanmi Lavalas refused to participate 
because the Interim Government of Haiti (IGH) 
refused to free its political prisoners ­ 
including former Ministers and parliamentarians ­ 
or to stop the brutal repression of grassroots 
activists. (Some individual candidates claimed 
the Fanmi Lavalas banner, without the approval of 
the organization, or for the most part, the 
voters.) As a result, the party with the best 
organization throughout the country, the most 
electoral support and the most legislative 
experience was removed from the contest.

Other parties close to Fanmi Lavalas, including 
Preval's Espwa (Hope) party ran candidates in 
some races, but not all. They lacked Lavalas' 
organization and name recognition, and the 
repression forced them to run a very limited 
campaign. Even Preval, with the international 
spotlight on him, planned very few public 
campaign activities and was forced to curtail 
this limited schedule when mobs destroyed the 
podium for one appearance and attacked his supporters at another.

The low-key campaign was adequate for the former 
President with universal name recognition and a 
five-year record. But it was not adequate for 
less experienced and prominent local candidates, 
who were unable to conduct the grassroots 
organizing work necessary to build a political 
base. Allies of the IGH, on the other hand, were 
able to organize freely at the local level, and 
often had the benefit of political patronage to 
attract campaign workers and supporters.

Many areas that voted overwhelmingly for 
President Preval's progressive policies will be 
represented in Parliament by conservatives 
committed to opposing the policies. As a result, 
to have any of his program passed, Preval will 
need to compromise away from the platform he was 
elected on. Preval will not have much opportunity 
to increase Parliamentary support during his term 
either. There are legislative elections scheduled 
for late 2007, but only for 1/3 of the Senate. 
Broader elections for the entire House of 
Deputies and another third of the Senate are 
scheduled for 2009, but even if Preval's 
candidates win that one, they will take office 
with only a year left in the Presidential term.

Fragmentation in the legislature will make it 
extremely difficult to assemble a majority on 
even uncontroversial legislation. The 
fragmentation is compounded by inexperience ­ 
only a tiny percentage of those in the second 
round have served in a legislature before. The 
Senators and Deputies will need to learn their 
jobs, choose leaders, find ways of working with 
people from across the political spectrum, and 
draft and pass the legislation that the Haitian 
people urgently need, all under extreme pressure.

The fragmentation will almost certainly be 
compounded by yet another political crisis 
following the runoff elections. The first round 
on February 7 was plagued by poor organization 
and a vote count that was unruly, and by many 
accounts fraudulent. Thousands of ballots were 
missing, many of which turned up partially burned 
in a dump. Electoral officials and political 
parties claim the count was manipulated and information concealed.

Many of the irregularities were rendered 
irrelevant in the Presidential contest by 
Preval's landslide, but they will loom larger in 
close legislative contests. The Electoral Council 
is also in disarray ­ its General Director, 
Jacques Bernard, fled to the U.S. ahead of fraud 
allegations, and spent two weeks on a lecture 
circuit sponsored by Lavalas opponents in the 
U.S., claiming that others were responsible for 
fraud, and that his farm was burned in 
retaliation for his work. He claimed he would 
return only after three members of the Electoral 
Council were fired, but he returned to Haiti in 
early March to the same Council (and according to 
an investigation, to an undamaged farm).

Under these circumstances anyone who loses, 
especially in a close race, will have grounds to 
contest the results. So many first round 
candidates complained that the Electoral Council 
indefinitely postponed the runoffs scheduled for 
March 19. To effectively deal with these 
complaints, the Council should organize a 
transparent and precise retabulation of the 
results, and reconstitute results that were 
destroyed using the election code's backup 
systems. The Council declined to take these 
measures to resolve the dispute over the 
Presidential election, preferring a negotiated 
settlement that preserved everyone's right to 
complain. It is likely that the Council will take 
a similar path with the legislative results, 
planting the seeds for the next political crisis in fertile ground.

Judicial reform?

The judicial branch may be equally problematic. 
Haiti's justice system has evolved for three 
centuries to serve the needs of dictatorships. As 
President Preval found out in his first 
administration, effective judicial reform is a 
long-term project. Substantial progress requires 
patiently training a new generation of judges, 
prosecutors and lawyers and persistently 
integrating them into the system with enough 
support for them to do their jobs honestly and well.

But this time around President Preval will find 
the job harder than before. Many of the promising 
judges and prosecutors trained in his first term 
have been pushed out of the system, illegally, by 
the IGH. Some have been beaten, or their houses 
burned. Some may be lured back by renewed 
opportunities to build a democratic justice 
system, but many will be reluctant to stick their 
necks out a second time. The IGH has also packed 
the judiciary with officials whose main 
qualification was a willingness to comply with 
the IGH's orders, especially when the orders 
conflicted with the law's requirements. The most 
notorious court-packing incident came in December 
2005, when Prime Minister Gerard Latortue 
illegally fired five Supreme Court Justices and 
replaced them with his henchmen. But the same 
process has been repeated more quietly throughout 
the judicial ranks for two years.

Cobbling together a government

Preval's most difficult battle of all may be 
within his own Executive Branch. Haiti's 
Constitution grants the Prime Minister and the 
Ministers a large share of executive power. They 
hire most officials, run most government programs 
and manage the lion's share of the national 
budget. Although the President nominates the 
Prime Minister, he must choose someone from the 
majority party in Parliament (if there is no 
majority party, as is likely to be the case, the 
President chooses someone in consultation with 
Parliamentary leaders). Both the Prime Minister 
and his cabinet must be ratified by Parliament, 
and a legislative vote of no confidence will cause the government to fall.

In order to cobble together enough votes for 
ratification, Preval will most likely be forced 
to assemble a cabinet from many disparate parts ­ 
political parties that have no common political 
vision, just a shared agreement to vote for 
ratification in return for the power of 
controlling a ministry. Just getting a government 
ratified by a fractured Parliament will take much 
effort, and perhaps more importantly, time. 
Organizing the government to advance a coherent 
policy will be extremely difficult. In the best 
case scenario, Ministers of good faith but 
diverse ideologies will struggle hard to find 
consensus on a few key issues. In a more likely 
scenario, broad agreement on anything will be 
impossible, and many Ministers will spend their 
time and energies implementing their own, often 
contradictory, policies and expanding their patronage base.

Controlling the police

Managing the cabinet may, however, be easy 
compared to getting a handle on the police force. 
Haiti's police have become highly politicized, 
corrupt and violent over the two years under the 
IGH. Many good officers have been forced out or 
killed; others have been turned into killers by 
the violence. Former soldiers, many of them 
violent, have been integrated into the force, 
bypassing normal recruitment and promotion 
regulations. The population, especially in poor 
neighborhoods, is deeply distrustful of the 
police, for good reason ­ police regularly 
conduct murderous raids in their areas and 
routinely make illegal, warrantless arrests. Even 
the police force's General Director complains 
that at least a quarter of his officers are criminals.

Reforming the police will take time and money, 
both of which are in short supply. Reform will 
also need to be balanced with the urgent need to 
fight increasing common crime. Haiti's police 
force is already dangerously understaffed, which 
will be exacerbated in the short term by 
diverting human resources to reform efforts, and 
even by the process of removing crooked officers.

Demoting democracy, selling sovereignty

Preval's authority with the police was severely 
limited by a controversial and far-reaching 
agreement reached between Prime Minister Latortue 
and Juan Gabriel Valdes, the head of the United 
Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti 
(MINUSTAH). The agreement grants MINUSTAH 
extensive authority over the police and 
government, including a) a right of consultation 
before any police operation, b) veto power over 
police promotions, c) access to all files of any 
government official or entity relating to the 
police, and d) veto power over international agreements relating to the police.

The deal has been controversial because it was 
reached quietly ­ it was signed in New York and 
not even the police chief or Justice Minister 
even knew about it until a week after the signing 
­ and because it hands an immense amount of 
national sovereignty to MINUSTAH. But it should 
be equally controversial because it demonstrates 
a deep disrespect for Haiti's voters, its 
Constitution and its democracy. The deal was 
signed on February 22, a week after the 
announcement of Preval's victory, and five weeks 
before his (then) scheduled inauguration. If the 
agreement was appropriate to negotiate at all, it 
would have been appropriate to negotiate it with 
the President who would have to abide by it, and 
who also had the electoral and constitutional legitimacy to bind his country.

There was no reason why the deal could not have 
been negotiated with the elected President, other 
than a fear that the voters' choice would not 
agree to it. It is not hard to understand why 
Prime Minister Latortue ­ who was never elected, 
and is on his way out after two disastrous and 
unconstitutional years in office ­ would be 
willing to pull a fast one on his country and his 
Constitution. But the UN should be above such underhanded stunts.

MINUSTAH's bad faith is magnified by the fact 
that the agreement grants it extraordinary 
control over a police force under an elected 
President, when the Mission refused to exercise 
even ordinary oversight over the force under the 
unelected dictatorship. Time and again MINUSTAH 
forces stood by while the police massacred 
prisoners, invaded neighborhoods and made illegal 
political arrests, insisting that their mandate 
prevented them from interfering in the police 
force's internal affairs. The Mission that did 
not issue a single investigative report in almost 
two years of Mr. Latortue's reign will now have 
access to President Preval's personal diary if he 
writes in it about the police.

The agreement is unconstitutional and illegal, as 
Mr. Latortue was forced to concede once it became 
public, so President Preval is not legally 
required to recognize it. But he may be 
politically required to do so ­ MINUSTAH 
currently intends to stay for at least half of 
Preval's term, and there is not much he can 
effectively do about it. With little money, a 
police force loyal to his unelected predecessor 
and the example of his predecessor flown to exile 
by the International Community, Mr. Preval's bargaining position is weak.

More desperate times

In the meantime, life will get harder for Haiti's 
poor. The life expectancy for men has dropped to 
48 years, infant mortality and AIDS are by far 
the worst in the hemisphere. Most Haitians 
struggle to get by on little more than $1 a day, over half are malnourished.

As before, President Preval will not be able to 
count on the International Community to help 
fight Haiti's poverty with the necessary 
consistency. There will be some development 
assistance sent to Haiti, and much of it will 
have a positive impact on the ground. But this 
aid will, sooner rather than later, become 
contingent on the Preval administration 
implementing the International Community's 
economic policies. The U.S. government, among 
others, has already declared that Preval must 
compromise with his political opponents, whom the 
voters resoundingly rejected. Those pressures 
will increase with the disputes likely to arise 
from the legislative elections and the choice of 
ministers, with the International Community 
consistently taking the side of Lavalas opponents.

Right now President Preval does not even know 
when his new job starts. Although the 
Constitution called for the inauguration of a new 
President on February 7, and the latest electoral 
decree scheduled it for March 29, the 
inauguration is now held hostage to the second 
round of legislative elections. The Constitution 
requires the President to take his oath of office 
in front of Parliament. The IGH ­ which was 
itself installed without Parliament, and which 
ignored constitutional election deadlines in June 
2004 and November 2005, as well as the February 7 
inauguration deadline ­ is insisting that it 
needs a parliament to hand over power. The best 
likely scenario has the inauguration in early 
May, three months late and five percent through the Constitutional term.

Elusive victories

February 7 was the fourth consecutive landslide 
victory for a Presidential candidate from the 
Lavalas movement. In any other country, such 
electoral success would translate into a long 
period of stability, and an opportunity for the 
victors to implement the policies they were 
elected on. Instead, for three of those terms, 
there have been two coups d'État leading to five 
years of exile for the elected President, a 
nearly perpetual controversy over legislative 
elections, and very little progress on the root 
causes of Haiti's misery. Time will tell whether 
President Preval can escape this cycle of 
instability in the fourth of these terms, but one 
thing is certain: he and the people who voted for 
him had better start swimming now.

Brian Concannon Jr. directs the 
<http://www.ijdh.org/>Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti

www.ijdh.org.


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