At the request of the United Nations, Brazil has taken a leading role in the Haiti transition process. Since May a total of 1,200 Brazilian soldiers (970 from the Army and another 230 marines) are on duty in the country.
A Brazilian general is the head of the multinational transition force, which is supposed to eventually number 6,700.
The main objective of the Brazilian mission is to establish peace and prepare Haiti for national elections by December 2005.
Establishing the peace means seeing that laws are obeyed, local militant groups are disarmed, civilians can go about their lives peacefully and that human rights are respected.
The Brazilian mission in Haiti is going to cost around US$ 50 million (150 million reais).
A Look at Haiti
Haiti is the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. Approximately 80% of the population of 7.6 million people live below the poverty line. Half of the country’s population is illiterate.
Basic healthcare services are practically nonexistent, and this in a country where it is estimated that 280,000 Haitian adults (6% of the population) have AIDS.
In Haiti people can expect to live an average of 51.7 years (in Brazil life expectancy is 71). Haitian women, on the average, have 4.7 children (in Brazil that number has dropped to 1.9).
The Haitian infant mortality rate is 76 deaths per 1,000 births (in Brazil it is half that). And while Haiti reels from an intractable unemployment rate of 70%, the city of São Paulo struggles with one of slightly over 15%.
One of the root causes of the problems in Haiti is that there is an economic black hole between the vast majority of the population who are Negroes and a very small minority of less than five percent whose ancestors were French. The latter group owns 50% of the country’s wealth.
Haiti Up Close
Haiti has a long history of turbulence. The present crisis came to a head in February of this year when, after months of civil strife, rebels opposed to the elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide attacked the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Aristide was forced to flee the country leaving behind a chaotic situation that was brought under control by a peace force led by the US and France.
Since May, after the US and French troops left Haiti, a UN Transition Mission has been in the country led by a Brazilian contingent of 1,200 soldiers with the objective of restoring peace and preparing the way for elections by December 2005.
Background
The large Caribbean island that Haiti is a part of was discovered by Columbus in 1492. The whole island belonged to Spain but French invaders arrived early in the seventeenth century.
In 1697 Spain ceded the western one-third of the island to France. That part of the island, now known as Haiti, covering only 27,750 square kilometers, was once one of the richest places in the Western Hemisphere with a strong agricultural sector based on sugar and forestry goods.
However, its economic wealth was totally dependent on slave labor and when the country’s approximately 500,000 slaves rebelled at the end of the eighteenth century, sugar production collapsed.
In 1804 the slave rebellion, led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, was victorious and the world’s first Negro republic was established in Haiti.
One hundred and fifty years later, the Haitian economy still had not recovered. In the 1950s, following the upheaval of the Second World War, François “Papa Doc” Duvalier was elected president.
He created a personal bodyguard, known as the “tonton macoutes,” who terrorized opponents. And with Fidel Castro in Cuba, Papa Doc became an avid anti-communist in order to receive American blessings and investments, which he did.
In 1964 he declared himself president for life. He was still president when he finally died in 1971, to be succeeded by his son, the then 19-year old Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier.
Baby Doc quickly followed in his daddy’s footsteps and declared himself president for life. However, his corrupt regime was overthrown in 1986 and he fled the country for a golden retirement in France.
The Duvalier period (1957-86) was a golden age of US investments, which, unfortunately, mostly went into the Duvalier personal bank accounts and did little to improve Haiti.
In 1990, in elections considered fair and democratic, a first for Haiti, a former Catholic priest, Jean Bertrand Aristide, was elected president.
The US administration of George H. W. Bush (father of the present president George W. Bush) frowned on Aristide because he was a champion of the poor and less than enthusiastic about protecting US interests in Haiti.
For nine long months all US investments were cut off. Then a group of former tonton macoutes, taking advantage of the renewed economic chaos, rose up and overthrew the Aristide government in 1991.
For the next three years an undeclared civil war raged in Haiti between a new government supported by paramilitary groups opposed to Aristides and other groups who remained faithful to the deposed Aristides.
During this impasse, the administrations of Bush (father) and Clinton placed sanctions and a trade embargo on Haiti, although it seems it did not apply to US petroleum firms who continued to do business with the government there.
In 1994, in response to international pressure, Clinton ordered US troops into Haiti in a limited operation.
“Clinton did not disarm paramilitary forces or train government soldiers to protect civilians in the countryside where illegal paramilitary forces operated,” explains Saul Landau of the Polytechnic University of California.
However, there was sufficient calm for a presidential election to take place in 1995, when René Préval was elected (Aristide could not run because he was prohibited from succeeding himself).
In 2000 new presidential elections took place and now, legally, Jean Bertrand Aristide was once again elected. This time he got 92% of the votes but the opposition boycotted the election.
Aristide’s victory did not please the US, which pressured the Interamerican Development Bank to cut off loans to Haiti. That had an immediate negative impact on the country’s water supply and public health services.
As the socio-economic situation deteriorated, opposition to Aristide grew and turned into civil strife. On February 29 of this year, Aristide once again left Haiti without completing his term of office as president.
His departure this time remains controversial. Aristide claims he was forced to leave. The opposition says he fled from the mess he created.
Official languages: French and Creole
Ethnic groups: 95% Negroes, 5% mulattoes and whites
Population: 7.5 million
Life expectancy: 51.7 years
HIV: estimated 280,000 people are infected (6% of the population)
Religion: 80% Catholic,16% Protestant, 4% others (around 50% also practice voodoo).
GDP: US$ 10.6 billion (2002 estimate)
Agência Brasil
Translator: Allen Bennett
