Thursday, March 04, 2004
Recent events in Haiti have made me wonder about US nation-building and what role democracy plays versus US national interests. In the last week elected Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned from power in the face of an ardent opposition movement and increasing international pressure. Aristide's departure leaves a lot of unanswered questions about Haiti's future.
Aristide became Haiti's first democratically elected president in 1990. Prior to Aristide's election, Haiti was ruled by dictators. There was great promise for progress with Aristide's election but these were snuffed when he was ousted months later by a military coup. It wasn't until the US intervened militarily in 1994 that Aristide was reinstalled as president. He was ineligible to run in the elections in 1995 but ran and won the post again in 2000. His election though was tainted by murmurs of fraud and heavily contested by opposition groups. Along with the opposition, Aristide has faced a poor economy, social crises, and freezing of international aid. There have been several coup attempts made throughout his presidency.
The way that I read it is that Haiti is a very poor country that has historically been ruled by force of might. This has resulted in an economic disparity between a rich minority and a poor majority. I don't know how democratic elections came about in the late 80s to bring Aristide to power but the fact that he was ousted mere months after his election alludes that he either wasn't so broadly liked or that powerful opposition (in that case some military?) still held much sway in the country. It was only through external intervention that democracy was able to return. Yet there seems to recently have been a freeze on international aid to Haiti, some form of sanction for a reason unknown to me. Were they against Aristide's government? Did Aristide go bad and become a liability to the US? Why did we reinstall him in the first place?
Much reading must be done.
</Aurelius> <!--1:25 PM-->
