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"Aristide: Haiti a 'House on Fire'"
Harvard
Law Record - April 15, 1994 - Pages 1, 15
By Victoria Kuohung
reprinted by permission
Surrounded by heavy security
and greeted with multiple standing ovations, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide spoke to an HLS audience of more than 700 in Austin Hall last Friday
afternoon. The Law School was one of several stops Aristide made on his
recent tour of the Northeast.
Aristide's visit came only days after his recent letter to
the Clinton Administration which stated his withdrawal from the bilateral
accord allowing the United States to seize and repatriate Haitian boat
people. The open letter follows failed U.S.-mediated diplomatic efforts
to restore Aristide after he was deposed by military leaders on September 30,
1991. An agreement that aimed to bring Aristide back to Haiti in July
1993 was broken in October when Haitian Army commander Raoul Cedras refused to
step down.
Aristide criticized both the United States and the
international community for lacking the "political will" to address
the present situation in Haiti and called for better enforcement of the
current embargo in order to force coup leaders out of power.
"We need to see a clear political will from the
international community while we're still committed to fight for
democracy," said Aristide. "We know how the military has a
program for death.
"Time is not only against us, it is also against
them. We have stopped making concessions. It's up to [the coup
leaders] to make concessions."
In light of the political impasse, Aristide outlined
several requirements that would have to be met before his return. In
addition to demading that Cedras and police commander Joseph Michel Francois
give up all power, Aristide also requested the reconstitution of the
parliament, the deployment of a United Nations technical mission to Haiti, the
appointment and ratification of a new prime minister, the lifting of economic
sanctions, and a resumption of aid to Haiti.
Likening Haiti to "a house on fire," Aristide
also criticized American interdiction policy -- first designed by the Bush
Administration and continued under Clinton -- as ignoring stepped-up political
killings in Haiti: "When those inside find a way to escape, the U.S.
government throws them back into the burning house."
More than 5000 people have been killed in the aftermath of
the coup, with 300,000 internally displaced. In recent weeks, more than
70 people have been executed by military command in each of several
countryside towns.
Aristide rejected the use of violence to achieve his goals,
but said that the "strategy of the gun" adopted by coup leaders has
not in reality been denounced by other countries.
"We cannot save Haiti without the strategy of the
pen," said Aristide. "We say 'no' to vengeance, 'no' to
retaliation. ... Officially, the international community says to choose the
strategy of the pen, but practically we do not see evidence that they have not
chosen the strategy of the gun."
At times Aristide spoke in Haitian Creole, with his
comments eliciting bursts of applause from the Haitians in the audience.
During the question-and-answer period, Haitian members debated whether
Aristide should complete his remaining term in office, or assume a five-year
tenure. Commenting on the debate, Aristide joked, "It's a good way
to practice democracy."
Aristide is the first democratically-elected president of
Haiti since its independence in 1804. From a field of ten candidates, he
received 67 percent of the vote in a U.N.-supervised election in December
1990, which had a 75-percent voter turnout.