To the Editors:
I welcome Peter Dailey’s review of my book, Haiti’s Predatory Republic [NYR, March 13 and 27]. I believe, however, that while he demystifies Lavalas and Jean-Bertrand Aristide convincingly, he assumes too easily that both were free to do as they pleased, when they were in fact constrained by powerful antagonistic forces. In addition, he barely explores how la politique du ventre—the politics of the belly—transformed Lavalas into a vehicle of class ascendancy. Finally, Dailey does not flesh out the role of the opposition, regrouped as Convergence Démocratique, in sustaining the current impasse.
The central theme of my book is that Haiti’s predatory democracy reflects a class structure based on an extremely weak economic foundation lacking both a classical bourgeoisie and a large working class. The result is a politique du ventre, generating a class of grands mangeurs scrambling to appropriate state offices in order to advance its private interests. Like Lavalas, the opposition suffers from the vicissitudes of la politique du ventre. Convergence has consistently behaved opportunistically and its different sectors have all changed allies and enemies without paying attention to ideology or principle. Indeed, many of those who are now crying foul and castigating Lavalas for violating constitutional norms behaved similarly in the past. For example, there is no reason to believe that the irregularities that marred the 2000 ballot, egregious as they were, had a greater impact on the final results than those of 1995 when the Organisation du Peuple en Lutte (OPL), still allied with Préval and Aristide, won under very dubious circumstances. However, the international community, and the United States in particular, deemed the 1995 elections “free and fair.” Both the opposition and Lavalas—not to mention the international community—legitimate electoral processes according to their ever-shifting interests and changing dispositions toward alleged “winners” and “losers.”
Convergence represents a bizarre alliance of old Lavalasians, ex-Marxists, neo-Duvalierists, liberals, and ultraconservative businessmen. They are united only in their visceral dislike of Aristide. Convergence has no program and not surprisingly, in spite of an acute economic crisis, increasing governmental corruption, and Aristide’s significant loss of popularity, it has not been able to develop a large mass following.
Both Lavalas and Convergence are seeking to “eat” and thus they simply want power. This quest for power betrays an earlier idealism that gradually eroded under the constraining weight of powerful, hostile domestic and international forces. Lavalas’s failures are not merely the result of dubious political choices, nor are they the simple reflection of Aristide’s personality, as Dailey’s interpretation would suggest. Lavalasian rule has had to contend with a series of powerful constraints that emasculated its popular project. From the very beginning, Aristide confronted old Duvalierists and military despots as well as the unmitigated opposition of the “bourgeoisie.” His brutal overthrow in 1991 is a clear manifestation of this reality. Moreover, the conditions that restored his presidency undermined his earlier transformative agenda. To gain US support and military assistance, Aristide had to make his peace with former enemies; constrained by international financial institutions, he was compelled to accept their program of structural adjustment. In short, Aristide had little room to maneuver.
Haiti faces unpleasant alternatives given the current standoff between Lavalas and Convergence. Short of a truly popular revolution which is unlikely to materialize given the local and external constellation of forces, there seem to be only three options: (1) an unsavory but necessary compromise between Aristide and his foes; (2) a continued descent into hell with or without Lavalas and its leader; or (3) an improbable but not altogether farfetched foreign occupation.
A compromise, under the impetus of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United States, is still possible. Haiti’s predatory democracy is not without its spaces of freedom. While the opposition faces great difficulties, it is not completely silenced; civil society is not extinguished, and an independent press remains vocal. It is simply wrong to equate, like many foes of Aristide do, Lavalas’s authoritarian reflexes with the dictatorial violence of the Duvalier tyranny. An opposition operating openly and calling for the overthrow of the President would have been inconceivable under the Duvalier dictatorship. Lavalas’s human rights record is deplorable, as Dailey points out, but it has not reached the levels of the repressive violence of the Duvalier regimes or the military junta of the early 1990s. Lest a compromise be engineered there is no guarantee, however, that the current situation might not degenerate into a civil war culminating perhaps in a new foreign occupation.
Some Lavalas factions may prefer to preserve the status quo in spite of its vicissitudes because an agreement with the opposition could exclude them from the prebends of public office. Aristide, however, certainly has incentives to reach a compromise, and organize elections. In fact, he may well want to incorporate some segments of the opposition into a new government of consensus. Lest he isolate himself completely from the international community, lose all foreign assistance, and transform Haiti into a “pariah” nation, Aristide has little choice but to reach an accommodation with the opposition. An accommodation would not only free the $500 million promised in international aid, but it would also smooth relations with Washington and the Bush administration. Moreover, Aristide needs new allies to cut his ties with his troublesome Chimères, the violent gangs he has utilized to intimidate the opposition. While the Chimères may have played a useful role in consolidating his power, they are no longer a pliable instrument in his arsenal. If Aristide is to preserve his authority he has to rein them in, and only a pact with the opposition would give him the power to do so.
Aristide’s dilemma, however, is how to reach such a pact without undermining and indeed ending his own presidency. While he has refused to accede to Convergence’s demand that he step down, Aristide has accepted reluctantly to hold new legislative and local elections under the supervision of an autonomous electoral council surveyed by international observers. In return, he hopes that the OAS and the United States will compel the opposition to both participate in these elections and concede that he is the rightful president.
So far, Aristide’s concessions have not sufficed. The opposition’s recent success in organizing a few sizable anti-Lavalas demonstrations has emboldened it to the point that it is now infused with a false sense of euphoria. The danger of a euphoric opposition is that it can become intransigent to the point that it accepts nothing less than Aristide’s exit from politics. Moreover, aware that it enjoys only limited popular appeal and suffers from serious divisions, Convergence refuses to participate in new elections because they can bring it only limited success. The stalemate might therefore actually serve the interests of the opposition. Unfortunately, Dailey seems to overlook these facts and places virtually all the blame on Lavalas.
A peaceful resolution to Haiti’s crisis calls for an unsavory compromise between two unsavory sides. At the moment, the issue is not a deepening of democratic practice, but rather a historic arrangement between the competing blocs of the Haitian political class. It is a matter of making life more bearable for an exhausted population.
Robert Fatton Jr.
Julia A. Cooper Professor of Politics
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Peter Dailey replies:
Professor Fatton’s letter is based on two erroneous assumptions. One is that Haiti has been brought to its current desperate state not by its corruption and ineptitude but by the suspension of $500 million in international loans. The other is that the failure to reach an accord that would allow the release of the loan money results from the intransigence of the opposition rather than from the government’s failure to take the minimum steps necessary to create a climate for elections free of violence and intimidation.
Mr. Fatton argues that at present, the task of all parties concerned “is not a deepening of democratic practice, but rather a historic arrangement between the competing blocs of the Haitian political class. It is a matter of making life more bearable for an exhausted population.” Sympathetic as I am to this goal, it seems to me shortsighted. Creating a sustainable democracy is vastly more important than accommodating the transient interests of Haiti’s politicians. Any “arrangement” that turns away from a democratic resolution is unlikely to bring political stability, even in the short term, or an alleviation of the increasingly harrowing conditions facing the Haitian people.
Nevertheless, even supposing such a solution were desirable, there is little in Aristide’s past behavior that would lead one to believe he would be amenable to the sort of compromise Fatton describes. Mr. Fatton asserts that “Aristide has little choice but to reach an accommodation with the opposition.” But these were precisely the alternatives Aristide faced in May 2000, when all it would have taken to resolve the conflict was Aristide’s consent to a runoff election, and he refused. Fatton urges additionally that “Aristide needs new allies to cut his ties with his troublesome Chimères,” the pro-Aristide mobs that have played a disruptive role in recent months. What evidence is there that he wishes to do so? However unpredictable and violent the Chimères have become, he has always regarded them as less troublesome than the opposition. Today he is more reliant upon them than ever.
But assuming that things go as Mr. Fatton would like—that parliamentary elections are held in early 2004 with international monitors preventing fraud and election-day violence—what happens next? In February 2006, Aristide will leave office. The Haitian constitution, like that of the US, bars the president from serving a third term. Fanmi Lavalas possesses no raison d’être apart from Aristide and it is already starting to fragment, a process that can only accelerate. By the end of next year the contest among FL barons to replace Aristide will be well underway, and there is little warrant for assuming that this process, or subsequent parliamentary elections, will be any less violence-prone or susceptible to fraud than they are now.
Mr. Fatton and I also have different views of how Haiti arrived at its present state. “Lavalas’ failures are not merely the result of dubious political choices,” he argues, “nor are they simply a reflection of Aristide’s personality, as Dailey’s interpretation would suggest.” I don’t believe that Aristide and Fanmi Lavalas were free to do as they pleased, and agree that they had to operate under severe economic and political constraints. But I disagree with the notion that in return for his restoration to power, the United States and international lenders exacted conditions from Aristide that “undermined his earlier transformative agenda.” Prior to his restoration in 1994, Aristide did meet with the international financial community and pledged to undertake a program of structural adjustment that includes the privatization of Teleco, Haiti’s grossly corrupt and inefficient telecommunications company, as well as other state-owned industries and cutting back on the number of government employees. But by the end of six months in office, he had broken his promises.
