Reply #39: I don't see how there's that much difference between what we're saying [View All]

I'm making a small point: It seems unfair to me to blame Clinton for all the bad things Aristide would later do, for reinstating Aristide in 1994 when the majority of Haitians, the international community and the human rights community wanted Aristide reinstated.

It seems to me unfair blame Clinton for not being able to predict that Aristide would be much worse than he had been, when no one else predicted what Aristide’s later terms would be like.

For example, you wrote:


So you are saying that some of your family supported Aristide, and those supporters only turned against him after seeing his record "the second time around." But the “second time around” had not happened when Clinton had him reinstated. You yourself say that before the second time around he was "actually doing good."

I don't blame Clinton anymore than some of your family members for not predicting what Aristide would be like "the second time around." Your own opinion seems to echo this:



So again, the Clinton administration restored Aristide "because he was ousted by the military" -- in other words, to uphold the principle that elected heads of states should not be ousted in coups. At the time, there was a broad trend of restoring democracy and elections throughout the Caribbean, and Central and South America, and beyond Haiti, upholding this principle was considered very important for the entire region. You also seem to agree that it was the "third time around" that caused the problems -- something that could not have been known in 1994. He was reinstated to uphold the principle of elected government in Haiti.

All I'm saying is that it seems unfair to blame Clinton for not being able to foresee something that almost no one else foresaw -- that Aristide would be a pretty bad president during his second and third terms.

As for conditions after his first ouster, I'm not trying to "educate" you about the "remnants of the Tonton Macouts." I'm assuming that we are both allowed to use the term without either of us being accused of condescending to the other. Their existence was a fact of political life as you well know. In the same way I am not trying to patronize you, I hope you will not patronize me, and assume that I just looked them up on Wiki. At the time, in the 90s, I was living in a mixed African American, West Indian, Haitian neighborhood of Crown Heights, had many Haitian friends (and still have, including being the godfather of a Haitian friend’s daughter), with whom I discussed the situation, had written both my undergraduate and a graduate thesis on the history of the DR, was involved in both research and pro bono work regarding refugees, and was from time to time supervising Haitian graduate students (including one who wrote a thesis on Haitian economic zones, so I had to read most of what she was reading about contemporary Haiti) and with whom I also talked about and kept informed on Haiti. In other words, my opinions on Haiti are not from just now looking it up on Wikipedia, just as I assume your opinions on other parts of the African diaspora are not derived from just now looking them up on Wikipedia.

You seem to agree that Aristide was ousted by the "remnants of the Tonton Macouts" as I had written, so I'm not sure where the disagreement there is. I think we also agree that what made the level of violence perpetrated by the Tonton Macouts different in the early 90s, was that the old Duvalierist order had begun to collapse with Aristide's first election, and after Aristide's ouster, these remnants were trying to reinstate the old order and root out the populist forces that were tenuously in place. As in many other societies, "restoration" and "reaction" are worse than the ancien regime because it has to violently undo the new order. That's why the refugee crisis peaked after Aristide was deposed the first time. The remnants of the Tonton Macouts were going around trying to kill off the Aristide supporters who briefly had held power.

If the Haitians don’t want Clinton as an envoy, I agree entirely with their right to veto his appointment. My only point is that there seems to be some retroactive blame of Clinton for the mistakes of Aristide, as well as the mistakes of the entire international community for not seeing where Aristide was going.

As for the date, my mistake. I knew Aristide was returned to Haiti in the fall of 94, and that Operation Restore Democracy ended in spring 1995, and was under the impression that there was an interim period of military rule, but Aristide was indeed restored almost immediately on his return, before the U.S. turned peace keeping over to the U.N.