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Caribbean compromise
Damming The Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment
By Peter Hallward
Published by Verso, 2007, £16-99
Reviewed by
Iain Dalton
DAMMING THE FLOOD tells the tale of Haiti over the
past two decades. This Caribbean nation had been the scene of the
successful slave revolt which threw off French rule way back in 1804,
but it had suffered economic isolation and ‘underdevelopment’ from the
vengeful imperialist powers ever since. It was only in 1987 that it
began to emerge from the dictatorships of Papa Doc and Jean Claude
Duvalier.
The book begins with the period leading up to
Haiti’s first democratic election in 1990 when a Catholic priest from a
liberation theology background, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, won a large
majority in the presidential elections at the head of the Lavalas (the
flood) movement. He was elected on a pro-poor platform with his regime
lowering food prices and increasing the minimum wage. He also attempted
to reign in the army which had acted with impunity during the
dictatorship and the few years after, and it was this that precipitated
his overthrow in 1991, which unleashed a torrent of repression on the
Lavalas movement.
In exile in the US, Aristide tried to negotiate for
his return to Haiti and the removal of the coup dictatorship. He was
eventually restored to power by the US in 1994, for which he made many
concessions towards imperialism. He introduced World Bank and
IMF-sponsored ‘structural adjustment plans’ and privatised some state
enterprises, although he also dismantled the armed forces.
His successor as president, René Préval, Aristide’s
first prime minister, continued these policies. Yet support for Aristide
remained very high, and he again won an overwhelming majority in the
2000 presidential elections (this time, as the candidate of his own
party Fanmi Lavalas). But yet again, despite many pro-poor policies
(such as again increasing the minimum wage), he made concessions to
imperialism in order to restore the international aid being withheld to
strangle his regime.
Former soldiers, backed by the ‘democratic
opposition’ (local capitalists and politicians that had fallen out with
Aristide) launched a wave of guerrilla operations from the Dominican
Republic that overwhelmed Northern Haiti. This eventually forced
Aristide into exile in the Central African Republic, with US complicity.
Yet this overthrow, in February 2004, was not without opposition from
the people who took to the streets to demand Aristide’s return, in a
manner reminiscent of the mobilisation of the Venezuelan masses to
demand Hugo Chavez’s return after the 2003 coup attempt there.
The despicable role of the imperialist powers is
nowhere more clearly shown than in its ‘humanitarian intervention’
forces which, rather than trying to prevent abuses of human rights,
actively perpetrated them. In particular, they repressed the remnants of
Fanmi Lavalas, killing many and throwing its leading activists into
prison. This shows how the imperialist powers will intervene in a
country, not to protect ordinary people, but to defend their own
economic and strategic interests.
Peter Hallward’s book has several strengths. Firstly
it is very well researched and he is able to quote from a variety of
sources to refute several myths that have been promoted by various
groups (including some well-known human rights organisations) about the
period. These include a dispute over a technicality in the 2000
elections, how Aristide left the country in 2004, and the links between
the armed forces and various oppositional groups. He also explains how
such myths originated from the biased opposition press which, after
being repeated without verification in the US, became unchallengeable
‘facts’ for much of the rest of the worldwide media.
Hallward also interviewed many of the participants
in the Lavalas movement and the Fanmi Lavalas party, providing a clear
view of the amount of support that Aristide still holds to this day,
despite his exile. Hallward actually compares Aristide to Chavez, as
their respective movements depend on their leading figures to a large
extent. (Of course, Chavez identifies himself with the need for
socialism, and Aristide does not in the slightest.) But there are also
similarities with the social organisation basis of Evo Morales in
Bolivia too, as Fanmi Lavalas continues to operate with well-established
leaders and is not wholly dependent on the figurehead leader. This is
evidenced by the actions of the Latortue regime (the dictatorship that
replaced Aristide) in imprisoning these leaders so they could not
contest elections.
However, there are a few obvious weaknesses in the
book, too. One is the continual insistence by Hallward that there was no
other route that Aristide could have taken apart from compromise with
the major imperialist powers (in this case, the US and France). He gives
two reasons for this. The first is that Haiti was dependent on foreign
aid and that, as Haiti ground to a halt without these funds, Aristide
could not carry out his pro-poor initiatives. Yet a resolute programme
to nationalise the major parts of the Haitian economy (especially the
assets of those funding the armed opposition) would have countered this.
It is true, as Hallward notes, that large sections of the economy are
geared towards export. But an appeal for further assistance from Cuba
and, during his second term, Venezuela – who both before and since
Aristide’s presidency have had significant trading agreements with Haiti
– could have overcome economic dependence on foreign aid. Of course, due
to the nature of those regimes it would not be guaranteed that they
would have come to Aristide’s aid, but such an appeal would certainly
have been supported by Cuban and Venezuelan workers and poor, and would
also have pointed towards the need for a socialist confederation of
those countries with Haiti.
The second reason Hallward gives is related to the
first. He argues that because Aristide had no armed forces he could rely
upon he was therefore at the mercy of foreign armies if they chose to
invade, and also the armed opposition. Yet, at the same time, Hallward
praises Aristide’s pacifist stance, which led to the demobilisation of
the spontaneous attempts of Haitian workers and poor to defend
themselves against the opposition forces.
This is linked to another issue that Hallward is
weak on, the existence of pro-Aristide gangs (referred to by the
opposition as chimeres). As Hallward states, the gangs, led by some
Lavalas supporters, formed in the wake of the first coup to defend
themselves and the communities they were based in from paramilitary
violence. However, the gangs also relied on criminal and thuggish
activities to support themselves. But such gangs would not have existed
if Aristide and other Lavalas supporters had mobilised a movement aimed
at stopping either of the coups in their tracks.
Examples can be taken from history, such as the
mobilisations that stopped the attempted coup of Kornilov in Russia in
1917, that of General Spinola in Portugal in 1975, or even the ‘tancazo’
plot to overthrow Salvador Allende in Chile in June 1973. Such
mobilisations could also have formed the basis for opposing foreign
military intervention. Although around 200 years ago, the slave revolts
in Haiti show that technically superior foreign armies intervening into
a social revolution can be successfully defeated, especially as, at this
time, the US was already tied up in Afghanistan and Iraq.
One certainly can see another resemblance between
the events in Haiti in recent years and the Haitian slave revolution.
Like the brave, but continually compromising Toussaint L’Overture
(1743-1803), Aristide made concessions where he should have been
decisive. The main ingredient that has been missing from Haiti over this
period is a revolutionary party that could take decisive measures – more
in the manner of another rebel slave leader, Jean-Jacques Dessalines
(1758-1806) – which could bring about the necessary conditions for the
real freedom and liberation of the Haitian masses, a socialist Haiti and
socialist world. This conclusion is not presented in the book, but it is
the task that Marxists will have to take up in the country. Despite
these criticisms, however, this is an excellent book and deserves
attention.
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