San Diego Union-Tribune

Feb 17, 1998

A-1

Haiti
    The nightmare over, but better life still a dream

By MARCUS STERN
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

BUTEAU, Haiti -- Pompilus Profet lives in a shanty by the sea. No electricity. No plumbing. No job. Finding food is a daily struggle.

He had hoped things would improve when 22,000 U.S. troops landed here three years ago to evict Haiti's brutal military junta and restore democracy. He had allowed himself something few Haitians dare: to dream of a better life.

But, as is so often the case in this troubled land, those dreams have faded. Despite more than $1 billion in foreign aid, Profet and most of Haiti's poor are worse off financially than before. Inflation has put basics -- like rice, bread and charcoal -- even further out of reach.

"If it weren't for the fish in the sea, we wouldn't eat at all," he lamented. "The government is doing nothing."

It is easy to look at Haiti today and see only failure.

When the United Nations-sanctioned military mission officially ended in December, signs of futility remained:

-- The nation's infrastructure remains in shambles.

-- Poverty is by far the worst in the hemisphere.

-- A stubborn political impasse has left the country without a functioning national government.

-- Street crime is up.

-- Political violence threatens to flare anew.

But experts warn against judging Haiti -- or any emerging democracy -- by U.S. standards. Hidden within the layers of grinding poverty, persistent overcrowding, rampant disease and ever-present despair are lessons of patience that could prove crucial to democracy's future in small corners of the world.

Snapshots of Haitian life that at first glance reflect total failure can also reveal important signs of progress.

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Profet, 60, has 14 children by six different women. Under the tropical midday sun, he stood with his wife, Cezanne, 42. She held their newest baby in one arm, a grandchild in the other.

Asked when he'll stop making babies, Profet laughed.

"That's all there is to do here," he answered.

But there is one change since the intervention.

Pompilus Profet, at least for now, doesn't fear his own government.

"Little by little, there's more peace here," he said. "Now you can swear at the president's mother and they won't do anything to you."

That crucial improvement is easily lost amid the poverty.

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An hour's drive up the coast from Buteau, in the gritty capital city of Port-au-Prince, Juliene Hilaire sang and danced outside the locked gates of Haiti's parliament. She was summoning voodoo spirits to prod her government.

Hilaire and the street sweepers dancing with her have been waging a bitter strike over back pay. They want the parliament to pass a law that would help them collect their money.

"I have a new baby who's sick," Hilaire, 43, said plaintively.

But the parliament can't act on the strikers' request until it first chooses a prime minister. The previous prime minister resigned in June, and Haitian President Rene Preval has been unable to win support for a replacement.

The street sweepers called on voodoo spirits to break the deadlock, which had reigned for seven months.

"Dress the devil in red and take him away," they crooned in Creole, as men with pistol-grip shotguns watched from the parliament steps.

Inside the building, the time had come once again for the Haitian Senate to vote on a new prime minister. Of 27 senators, only Sen. Wesner Emmanuel was present.

He sat alone at a wooden table writing in a day organizer.

"Democracy hasn't gotten on its feet here yet," he said somberly.

New political fighting could break out any minute, he warned.

"Because of the people's discontent, their misery and insecurity, some of the traditional politicians see it as a time to exploit. They are organizing themselves and arming themselves to strike."

In Haiti, the next coup is always just around the corner.

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High above Port-au-Prince, behind iron gates, surrounded by lush grounds, and in the comfort of an air-conditioned building adorned with fine examples of Haitian art, Philippe Dewez serves as the resident representative of the International Development Bank.

After the United States and United Nations forced out the military junta, Dewez thought Haiti's economy would finally get rolling.

The international community was ready to pump in $2.8 billion, and the Haitians were ready to make needed economic reforms -- or so Dewez thought.

Alas, he found, it wasn't to be.

Haiti's political impasse has held up more than half the promised
assistance, including money for badly needed roads and water projects.

For instance, the development bank approved $65 million to make drinking water more widely available. Even though 70 percent of the people of Haiti have no access to safe drinking water, the projects are on hold.

"We have the money," Dewez said. "As soon as there is a new government, we'll be able to sign a contract and begin work."

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Aramick Louis, local head of the Haitian National Police in Port-au-Prince, sat behind his modern smoked-glass desk.

"We're a young force that has inherited many problems," he said.

Building a capable judicial system from scratch has been a key priority in Haiti for the past three years. The country has never had a civilian police force whose job was to protect and serve. Instead, the army and police, one and the same usually, have been used by dictators to terrorize and exploit.

To break the cycle, the U.N. sent police trainers, observers and mentors from around the world to launch a professional police force. Haitian recruits were screened and trained at a new academy.

But the new police force at times has looked like the old one.

Scores of new officers are now behind bars, accused of brutality and drug offenses.

Louis argued that the mere fact that police have been arrested represented progress. The police are finally policing themselves, he said.

The broader justice system is even more of a problem than the police, said one international adviser.

Prosecutors have no pens, legal pads or training. Because few prosecutions occur, many suspects simply go free. As a result, vigilantism is on the rise.

"In a democracy, the police are the strong arm of the judicial system," Louis said. "But you can't have justice in a democracy if the rest of the judicial system doesn't work."

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To hear Justice Ministry spokesman Ezechias Pierre defend his agency, one has to walk past roosters grubbing for bits of food in a barren, rock-strewn patch of yard behind the main Justice building.

A dilapidated Chevy Blazer rests there on its own engine block with the letters of the Ministry of Justice painted on its side.

Hundreds of vehicles had been donated to Haiti. But many were destroyed by new police officers behind the wheel for the first time. They wrecked the vehicles at an alarming rate.

"We have a judicial system that's loaded with problems," Pierre concedes.  "We recognize that we have incompetent and corrupt judges. But we have put forth a great effort to reform the Justice Ministry."

As if to underscore the long odds and lack of resources, Pierre and the rest of the ministry's communications branch have no phones.

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On the seaside mud flats of Rabiteau, beyond large evaporation ponds dug by residents to produce salt, Rony Paul, 29, leaned against a monument built to some of those who died in a grisly April 1994 massacre.

Haitian soldiers had rumbled into this seaside slum before dawn, pounded open doors and shot terrified residents as they hid under their beds. Others fled to the sea where soldiers fired on them from boats.

The troops didn't bother putting on masks. They were making a point, Haitian style: Military juntas kill with impunity.

On the night of the massacre, Paul awakened at 3 a.m. to the sound of trucks, fists pounding against doors, gunshots and screams. Rabiteau was under attack by the army because it was a pro-democracy stronghold.

Paul lay under his bed praying as the killing went on.

At 10 a.m., he emerged.

"When I saw the bodies, I cried," he said.

For days, the police and army refused to let the residents claim the bodies from the bay, he said. The corpses swelled with sea water and, one by one, drifted ashore. The smell was unbearable.

Saint Louis Abdel said he, too, had been asleep when the attack began. He ran to the sea and swam to a boat moored near the shore, hoping to escape in it. But when he reached the boat, soldiers stared down from the gunwales.

Three times he dove in the darkness to avoid their bullets.

Exhausted, he surfaced one last time and pleaded for his life, he said.

They took him ashore and threw him in jail for 13 days where he was beaten, he said. The only food he got was what his wife brought him.

That's how Haiti was then. Indiscriminate killing, inhumane jailing.

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The way Haiti is today, three and a half years later, is on vivid display only a few blocks from where the killings took place. That's where Carietane Nady has languished in a cell for months. One recent afternoon, he stared past iron bars into the severe bright light of the prison courtyard.

Nady is accused of taking part in the Rabiteau massacre.

He says he is innocent.

In the old Haiti, Nady probably wouldn't have made it to prison. More likely, he would have been the victim of a revenge killing or been forced into hiding, guilty or not.

Today, Nady is confident he'll get a fair trial.

Because of recent prison reforms, he and the others get two hot meals a day. They have their own beds and 24-hour access to toilets. They're given playing cards and dominoes and allowed at times to kick a soccer ball in the courtyard.

"I'm not running a prison," Director Frantz D. Joseph said somewhat wryly. "I'm running a guest house."

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When the United States and its allies intervened in Haiti, some said this would be the perfect place to try out nation-building programs. It's a relatively small country of 7 million, so a little aid would go a long way.

The Haitians themselves desperately wanted help. And U.S. taxpayers would be more likely to support an intervention here because of concerns about illegal immigration, drugs and AIDS only 600 miles from Miami.

Some people thought instilling democracy in Haiti would be simple. But that's proven unrealistic.

Some in Congress are already urging the Clinton administration to pull the plug on U.S. efforts here.

But others say that turning a blind eye to trouble-plagued Haiti poses greater risks. The gains of the past three years, meager as they may seem, will almost surely be lost if the international community withdraws from Haiti, they say.

Port-au-Prince Police Chief Louis, sitting behind his desk, quoted an old Haitian proverb that sums it up. He was talking about his young force, but could have been speaking more broadly of Haiti as it lurches from nightmare republic toward democracy.

As Louis spoke, a prowling lizard climbed the wall behind him. On his desk, a digital clock monotonously blinked the wrong time, like a VCR that has never been programmed.

"You don't throw stones at an unripe mango," he said, hinting at a difficult reality. For democracy to ripen in Haiti, patience, both here and abroad, will be needed for a long time.