HAITI UPDATE

Donald E. Schulz

January 29, 1997
ii

*******

Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be

forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army

War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013-5050. Comments may also

be conveyed directly to the author by calling commercial (717)

245-4123 or DSN 242-4123. Copies of this report may be obtained

from the Publications and Production Office by calling commercial

(717) 245-4133, DSN 242-4133, FAX (717) 245-3820, or via the

Internet at rummelr@carlisle-emh2.army.mil.

*******

All Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) monographs are loaded

on the Strategic Studies Institute Homepage for electronic

dissemination. SSI's Homepage address is: http://carlislewww.army.mil/usassi/

*******

The author wishes to thank Ambassador William Swing, Major

Joseph Bernadel and Mr. Eric Falt for the assistance they gave

during his recent trip to Haiti. During that visit, he spoke with

many people, including U.S., Haitian and other nationals. In

addition, Ms. Rachel Neild provided much useful information.

Finally, Ms. Neild, Dr. Gabriel Marcella, Dr. Steven Metz and

Colonel Richard Witherspoon all provided substantive criticism of

the manuscript. Needless to say, the views expressed in this

report are entirely the author's and do not necessarily reflect

the position of the U.S. Government, the American Embassy, the

Department of Defense or the U.S. Army War College. Any errors of

omission or commission are entirely the author's responsibility.
iii

FOREWORD

Recent developments in Haiti including political

assassinations attributed to both former Haitian military

personnel and members of President Preval's presidential security

unit have once again thrust that troubled country into the

international spotlight. In the process, questions have been

raised about the viability of the nascent Haitian democracy and

the political stability on which it rests. In turn, that has led

to questions about the length and nature of the international

commitment, including that of the United States. Thus it was that

in September 1996 Dr. Donald E. Schulz, the author of two

previous Strategic Studies Institute reports on Haiti

(Reconciling the Irreconcilable: The Troubled Outlook for U.S.

Policy Toward Haiti, coauthored with Gabriel Marcella, 1994; and

Whither Haiti?, 1996), spent a week in country gathering

information about the current situation and the prospects for the

future. During that visit, he spoke with numerous people,

including U.S., Haitian and other nationals, on a not-forattribution basis. This report is the product of those

conversations, his personal observations of what he saw, and his

continuing research on Haiti.

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to publish this

study as a contribution to understanding events in this important

Caribbean country.

RICHARD H. WITHERSPOON

Colonel, U.S. Army

Director, Strategic Studies Institute
iv

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

DONALD E. SCHULZ is a Professor of National Security Affairs at

the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College. He is the

coauthor of Reconciling the Irreconcilable: The Troubled Outlook

for U.S. Policy Toward Haiti and The United States, Honduras and

the Crisis in Central America, and coeditor of Mexico Faces the

21st Century, Revolution and Counterrevolution in Central America

and the Caribbean, Cuba and the Future, and Political

Participation in Communist Systems. His articles have appeared in

Foreign Policy, Orbis, the Journal of Interamerican Studies and

World Affairs, and Small Wars and Insurgencies, as well as such

media outlets as Newsweek, The Washington Post, the Miami Herald,

and the Christian Science Monitor.
v

SUMMARY

This study reviews recent political and economic

developments in Haiti and assesses the prospects for

democratization, political stability and economic development.

The report is pessimistic, but far from hopeless. While political

violence and human rights violations persist and the economy is

stagnant, the Preval administration and the Haitian Congress have

finally made the hard decisions to press on with economic

modernization, including partial privatization and civil service

reforms. International lenders are once more extending aid, which

means that the economy should improve. In general, both President

Preval and Congress receive high marks for their performances.

Even the Haitian National Police, though still probably incapable

of maintaining law and order without the help of U.N.

peacekeepers, has done reasonably well considering its limited

resources and the trying circumstances under which it is

operating.

Nevertheless, the challenges facing Haiti and the

international community remain enormous. The moment of truth will

come when the U.N. peacekeepers leave. Since the United Nations

is unlikely to stay past July 1997 and the Haitian police will

probably not be up to the task of maintaining law and order by

that time, other bilateral and/or multilateral security

arrangements will have to be made. The United States and Canada

should take the lead in forging those arrangements in the months

ahead. Beyond this, the report also calls for an accelerated

effort to create a functioning judicial system and recommends

that the United States convert its military support mission into

a semipermanent operation with ongoing infrastructural and

humanitarian responsibilities. Finally, the author notes that

there is a need to hold the Haitian government's feet to the fire

with regard to human rights violations. If allowed to continue,

the recent slide down the slippery slope of political violence

could destroy everything that has been accomplished thus far.
1

HAITI UPDATE

From time immemorial in Guinea, every man betrays his

neighbor.

Creole proverb

The Americans, in short, had modernized everything but

Haiti and the Haitians.

Robert and Nancy Heinl,

on the U.S. occupation of Haiti,

1915-34

A year ago, this writer painted a fairly bleak, though by no

means hopeless, portrait of Haiti's political and socioeconomic

prospects.1 In a nutshell, it was argued that in spite of the

substantive progress that had been made since the September 1994

U.S./multinational intervention in that country, there was still

a long way to go. The political situation remained extremely

fragile and volatile, and the prospects for socioeconomic

development were at best problematic. The latter was all the more

doubtful because of the suspension of over $130 million in

foreign aid due to the failure of the Aristide administration to

privatize state industries and rationalize the economy in

accordance with the prescriptions of the U.S. Government and

international financial institutions. The administration was

warned that unless this deadlock were broken, Haiti would sink

back into hopelessness and ungovernability, and that the tactical

success that had been achieved to that point would likely, sooner

or later, turn into a strategic failure.

Recent developments have once again thrust Haiti into the

international spotlight and raised questions about the ability of

the Preval government to maintain political stability and

democracy after the U.N. Mission departs, which will presumably

occur sometime in 1997. The past year has witnessed an

intensification of political violence, primarily associated with

former members of the now disbanded Haitian Armed Forces (FAdH),

but also involving the presidential security unit responsible for

protecting both Preval and former President Aristide. Since March

1996, moreover, at least nine members of the Haitian National

Police have been killed in a pattern that suggests that its

officers are increasingly being targeted by elements on both ends

of the political spectrum, as well as by gangs in slums like Cite

Soleil.

The Recent Crisis.

These developments came to a head last summer in a flurry of
2

political arrests, conspiracies and assassinations. The most

troubling incidents occurred in August. Early that month, U.S.

officials got wind of a plot by former military officers to kill

Preval and Aristide. Accordingly, security around the two men was

reinforced. On August 16, Haitian police arrested some 20 members

of Hubert de Ronceray's ultra-right wing Mobilization for

National Development (MND), most of whom were ex-FAdH and were

said to have been planning political assassinations. Two nights

later, gunmen wearing military-style uniforms attacked the

national police headquarters and the parliament building. Then,

on August 20, MND leaders Antoine Leroy and Jacques Florival were

killed by unidentified gunmen. The political opposition

immediately denounced the government as being responsible. The

former mayor of Port-au-Prince, Evans Paul, who used to be an

ally of Aristide and Preval, even charged that there were no

differences between Lavalas and the "Macoutes'--that both used

the same methods.2 In turn, Preval accused the ex-military of

being instruments of destabilization: "But behind them," he

claimed, "you will find the politicians who are pulling the

strings, and the people who are really committing these actions,

the economic sector."3 Meanwhile, gunmen opened fire on Haiti's

television station, and a number of journalists received death

threats.

By now the White House was getting nervous. A detachment of

165 paratroops from the 82nd Airborne had already been dispatched

to Haiti in late July for a week of training and to provide

security for the 300 to 500-member American military support team

that had been building bridges and roads and providing medical

care to Haitians since U.S. peacekeepers left the previous

spring. Subsequently, the day after the Leroy/Florival

assassinations, a second contingent of troops, composed of 49

Marines, was landed. Quite apart from their other missions, this

was a not-so-subtle way of telling those who might be tempted to

destabilize or overthrow the government that the United States

was still watching the situation and, in the words of one source,

"we can still kick your ass." Clearly, however, something more

was needed. By late August, eyewitness accounts, recovered shell

casings and other evidence had linked elements in Preval's

security guard to the Leroy/Florival killings. While there was no

evidence that the Haitian president himself was involved, it was

important that the issue be addressed before it was too late.

There were, in fact, two problems here. The most immediate

was political: If the involvement of Preval's presidential

security unit were to become public--and there was a good chance

it would--it would become an issue in the U.S. election campaign,

with the Republicans using it as a weapon to attack the Clinton

administration's claim of having achieved a foreign policy

success in Haiti. Moreover, if the cancer were not cut out now,

while it was still small and readily manageable, it might grow,
3

eventually endangering both the democratization process and

Preval himself.

Thus it was that at month's end President Clinton's Special

Assistant for National Security Affairs, Anthony Lake, and Deputy

Secretary of State Strobe Talbott were quietly sent to Port-auPrince. There they were joined by their Canadian counterparts for

a meeting with President Preval at the residence of U.S.

Ambassador William Swing. Under heavy pressure from Lake and

Talbott, who urged him to move decisively against those suspected

of involvement in the murders, Preval agreed to clean house. The

head of the presidential security unit, Joseph Moise, and his

chief deputy, Milien Romage, were transferred. It was announced

that an additional 10 or 12 other members of the force would be

suspended, and that some of the 200-member Palace Guard would

probably also be removed. At the same time, the Americans and

Canadians quickly placed a protective cocoon around Preval.

Several dozen armed Canadians surrounded the Presidential Palace.

Over a score of State Department agents were rushed to Port-auPrince to join a smaller contingent of security personnel that

had been in place ever since Aristide was restored 2 years

earlier.4

The retaking of the Presidential Palace--as one scribe

referred to it--dramatically underscored the fragility of Haitian

democracy/political stability. In effect, the United States now

found itself in the embarrassing position of having to protect

Preval from his own U.S.-trained body-guards while these units

were investigated, given additional training and turned into a

security force that the president could trust. How long this

would take was difficult to say.5

The Aristide Wild Card.

No sooner had this crisis begun to die down than a new

problem arose. On September 17, former President Aristide took to

the airwaves with a torrent of criticism aimed at the Preval

administration. The machinery of government, he warned, had

become loaded down with corruption and disorder. Certain

politicians had become blinded by power and had given up on the

people. An economic coup d'etat was underway; privatization was a

trap that had sown division, confusion, conflict, and sorrow

among the Lavalas family. If order were to be restored, there

must be good relations between the Lavalas in power and the

Lavalas out of power.6

Relations between Preval and Aristide had long been the

subject of speculation. Though the two men have been close for

years--Preval served as Aristide's prime minister in the latter's

short-lived government in 1991, and they have often been referred
4

to as twins--their temperaments and styles are in fact quite

different. Whereas Aristide is intense, Preval is low-key. One is

a rabble-rouser, with an enormous public following based largely

on his messianic presence; the other is an administrator, whose

popular support flows from his constitutional authority and the

backing he has received from Aristide. Lacking a strong

independent political base of his own, Preval's continuing public

support largely depends on his ability to improve living

conditions, provide public order/security and, above all,

maintain good relations with his political benefactor. This last

requirement, indeed, partially accounts for his reticence to 

purge his presidential security detail, since that unit was

largely composed of Aristide loyalists, many of whom had been

with the former president when he was in exile.

The crucial questions, of course, concern Aristide's motives

and intentions. Why did he launch his criticisms? And where will

he go from here? It is no secret that Aristide has ambitions to

regain the presidency in 4 years, when the constitution will

allow him to run for office again. Thus, at minimum, his

statement may be seen as an attempt to keep himself in the public

spotlight while distancing himself from a government whose

policies are not likely, in the short run, to improve living

conditions. Aristide's own popularity has fallen significantly

since he left office, and there may have been a perceived need to

halt that decline.7 Most important, the government's

modernization program was on the verge of receiving final

approval in the Haitian Senate. The plan, which combined the

partial privatization of nine state enterprises with a series of

belt-tightening measures and was intended to reopen the

sluicegates of international aid, had been rejected by Aristide

when he was president. Nothing that had happened since had

changed his mind.

How hard would Aristide push on this matter? Was he merely

engaged in a bit of political posturing, or was he demanding, in

effect, veto power over certain areas of policy? If the latter,

what would he do if he didn't get his way? Would he remain a

member of the loyal opposition, or would he increasingly try to

undermine Preval in order to better be able to present himself as

a political alternative? The hardening of differences between

pro-Aristide and pro-Preval factions could seriously weaken both

the government and Lavalas (which was already deeply divided) at

precisely the time when the ex-military, the macoutes, and other

violence-prone elements were beginning to come out of the

woodwork. The upshot, potentially, could be the destabilization

of Haiti.

As of this writing, it is still too early to tell what will

happen. In November, Aristide announced the creation of a new

umbrella movement, the Lavalas Family, which, he claimed, was not
5

intended to challenge the president or create more division, but

merely reinvigorate and unify the Lavalas coalition. At the same

time, however, he took the opportunity to criticize international

financial institutions for having imposed regressive economic

reforms on Latin American and Caribbean governments. He also

spoke of "traitors, invisible enemies and disinformation . . .

aimed at destabilizing the population." While he made a point of

denying that there were divisions within Lavalas, even as he

spoke activists from opposing factions distributed leaflets to

the audience accusing Aristide of sowing division, the misuse of

funds, and treason.8

The Security Situation: The Good News . . . and the Bad.

This being said, things are not completely bleak. There have

 been some very real gains, and these need to be recognized lest

one draw the conclusion that nothing has been accomplished or

that Haiti is a U.S. policy failure.

Perhaps the most important thing (notwithstanding the

developments cited above) has been the marked improvement that

has occurred in the Haitian security situation since the 1994

U.S. intervention. In large part, this has been due to the

dissolution of the Haitian Armed Forces and allied paramilitary

organizations. Here, a certain irony exists. Originally, U.S.

officials had wanted to keep the FAdH--purge it, professionalize

it, and maintain it at a reduced level of manpower--which was a

terrible idea considering the predatory nature of the institution

and the overwhelming lack of legitimacy it enjoyed among the

populace.9

 But Aristide outmaneuvered them, effectively

dissolving the army in stages. (The remnants may still be seen in

the form of the presidential brass band.) Had the military been

retained intact, the danger of a coup or assassination would

always have been in the background. Haitian presidents would have

been forever looking over their shoulders. The very existence of

the institution would have undercut the public's confidence in

the government. Just to be associated with it--in any way--would

have had a delegitimizing effect.

Now, instead, there is a Haitian National Police (HNP)

which, for all of its weaknesses and faults, is still infinitely

preferable to what existed before. While human rights abuses

continue, they are not massive or systematic, as was the case

under the de facto regime (1991-94) when at least 3,000 people

died. In recent reports, the O.A.S./U.N. International Civil

Mission (MICIVIH) found that the police had killed some four

dozen civilians and wounded scores of others during their first

year and a half on the beat. Those abuses that did occur--and not

all of these cases were confirmed as such--were isolated

instances. In general, most officers were doing a credible job in
6

spite of their inexperience and an often debilitating lack of

equipment.10 Moreover, progress is being made in establishing

internal investigatory procedures capable of addressing abuses of

authority. Both the Director and the Inspector General of the HNP

appear committed to ending the practice of impunity under which

police have traditionally operated. Scores of officers have been

dismissed, and at least 13 are being prosecuted. One must keep in

mind, however, that the concept of police accountability is

foreign to Haiti, and that resources to investigate, try and

punish abuses are very limited. (Among other things, the courts

are almost entirely nonfunctional.) Nevertheless, in spite of all

the problems the HNP faces, most urban Haitians, at least, still

seem to believe that a fair amount of progress has been made in

creating an effective police force.11

At the same time, the security situation--while it has

clearly deteriorated--is not quite as bad as it might seem from

reading the U.S. press. The events of last August do not

necessarily mean that things are falling apart. As Rachel Neild

of of the Washington Office on Latin America has observed,

violence tends to come in waves in Haiti, with each new flareup

generating enormous tension before gradually dying down.12 Indeed,

this has been the pattern over the past half year. Furthermore,

those anti-government forces that have been resorting to violence

are still very weak and disorganized. The largest group consists

of former enlistees from the FAdH, who suffered an abrupt drop in

their economic well-being when their careers were terminated.

They feel they have legitimate grievances. They want their

savings, pensions and severance pay, and have become increasingly

militant in demanding them. In June 1996, several hundred exsoldiers held a protest in the capital, threatening to take up

arms if their demands were not met. There are small political

groups on both the extreme right and the extreme left who are

trying to manipulate the former enlistees for their own purposes

and draw them into conspiratorial activities.13 These elements

view democracy and the rule of law as threats to their own

privileges and ambitions. They prefer a police force that they

might be able to subvert or control to one that is professional

and apolitical. Thus, their efforts to undermine the HNP.

Two other security issues must also be mentioned. One

involves the criminal gangs that have proliferated over the past

2 years. This is a serious problem. The police are afraid to go

into some of the slums for fear they will be attacked. Even U.S.

Embassy personnel have been forbidden to go into Cite Soleil

without special permission. Still, there is a distinction between

criminal violence and political violence. There are five or six

identifiable gangs in Cite Soleil, but they don't cooperate with

one another and often shoot at each other. Even the most

notorious of these groups--the so-called Red Army--does not exist

in the sense of being a well-organized, cohesive entity. While
7

some of its members may share a fantasy of being part of a broad

popular army, they have no idea how to organize or discipline

themselves. On the other hand, with opportunities for enrichment

scarce and guns plentiful it should not be surprising that some

might hire themselves out as thugs or assassins.

Finally, about a dozen government-licensed security

companies as well as scores of unlicensed security forces

organized by local authorities and wealthy families have appeared

over the past 2 years. Currently, there are more private security

agents than police officers in Port-au-Prince, and they are often

more experienced. Many are former members of the FAdH, who are

putting to use the skills they learned in the military. They tend

to be better armed than the police, who are still limited by law

to side arms. While there is a bill before parliament that would

allow the equipping of special police units (SWAT and crowdcontrol teams) with heavier weapons, its fate remains uncertain.

In the meantime, the side-arm restriction is increasingly being

reinterpreted in practice to permit officers to carry rifles and

shotguns.

The bottom line is that none of these groups currently has

the capability of overthrowing the government. The best they can

do--for the time being, at least--is to continue to engage in

sporadic violence. Under these circumstances, the threat is not

so much a coup, which is unlikely to be successful and in any

case could not be consolidated in the face of the foreign

military presence. Rather, the primary dangers are (1) the

assassination of Preval, Aristide or both, leading to massive

violence between their followers and those perceived to be

responsible for the killings, (2) the triggering of a dialectic

of revolution in which ongoing violence from each side

accelerates the violence from the other, and (3) the creation of

such chaos and anxiety as to undermine and eventually destroy the

government's ability to maintain order and public confidence,

thus preparing the way for its eventual collapse or overthrow.

This is the real meaning of the recent deterioration in the

security situation. Pre-revolutionary conditions are being

created which, if not contained, could lead to something much

worse. The problem is complicated by the fact that the

government's security forces show signs of falling into the

classic trap of overreacting to the threats and provocations that

are occurring. The Leroy/Florival killings were only the most

notorious case. While the MICIVIH reports on the HNP have been

generally favorable, they have documented a sharp increase in

police violence in 1996.14 Though not all of these incidents

constituted abuse, there is little question that such behavior is

on the rise. Efforts to investigate and punish the guilty still

leave much to be desired. Since April 1996, moreover, over 100

individuals have been arrested on vague charges of subversion,
8

sometimes without warrents, leading to accusations that the

government has been targeting political opponents engaged in

perfectly legal activities.

The Transition: Leadership and Resources.

One of the most notable achievements during the past 2 years

has been the political transition that has taken place. A

veritable revolution has occurred in the Haitian Congress, and it

has been clearly for the better. Granted, this was not

immediately apparent. The June 1995 elections that ushered in the

new legislature were seriously flawed, and were at the time

roundly denounced by critics in both Haiti and the United States.

By the same token, the landslide victory by Lavalas gave rise to

fears that Haiti was developing a one-party state dominated by

the most radical elements in the Aristide camp.

In retrospect, those concerns appear to have been

exaggerated. The problem with the elections was primarily one of

chaos and incompetence, rather than systematic fraud or violence,

and was largely confined to the initial round of balloting. No

serious observer doubts that Lavalas would have won an

overwhelming victory even under the most pristine conditions. The

Congress that emerged is a broadly representative body--the

first really representative legislature that Haiti has ever had--

and the deputies are taking their jobs very seriously. (In

contrast, the previous parliament was overflowing with political

hacks and opportunists.)

As for Lavalas, it was never a monolithic organization.

Lavalas is a coalition of groups, several of which have

representatives in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies. There is

no party discipline. Even Gerard Pierre-Charles, the leader of

the largest of these blocs--the Lavalas Political Organization,

or OPL--claims he doesn't know how many deputies he has. And

certainly they don't always do what the Executive wants. The

legislators have rejected a number of presidential appointments

and programs, and even an Inter-American Development Bank loan

that was considered inappropriate. Whatever else this parliament

might be, it is no rubber stamp.

The name of the game is responsible co-government. Not the

least of this Congress' virtues is that it is serving as a check

on the president. This is a healthy contrast to the traditional

Haitian propensity to place all power in the hands of the

Executive. And in spite of an incredible lack of resources, the

legislature's performance has been impressive. Keep in mind that

there is no party machinery to advance the process of

legislation, and almost no trained staff. There is no legislative

research service, and few people to help with the drafting of
9

bills. There are not enough secretaries, xerox machines,

telephones, desks or chairs. Nor is there air conditioning. (The

temperature in the Chamber of Deputies is often around 95oF.) The

Senate does not even have a chamber of its own in which to meet;

it has had to adapt a conference room for that purpose.

Yet, even under these conditions, tangible progress has been

made. Notwithstanding Aristide's opposition, a major

modernization law providing for the partial privatization of

state enterprises has recently been passed after prolonged debate

and negotiation. So has a civil service law designed to help

streamline the bureaucracy. And other measures also should be

forthcoming in the months ahead. These reforms are part of the

price for restarting the flow of aid from international lending

institutions. (In November, Haiti received the first installment

of a 3-year $131 million loan from the International Monetary

Fund.) They are also necessary if Haiti is to attract investment

and construct an economy that is capable of operating with some

semblence of efficiency. The government monopolies, in

particular, have been notorious sources of graft, overstaffing

and incompetence. Ghost workers abound. Most companies lose money

or do not operate at all, and the only way the telephone company

can turn a profit is by charging inflated prices for overseas

calls. Without such reforms, Haiti's prospects for developing

self-sustaining economic growth are nil.

But it is not just Congress that has distinguished itself.

President Preval also deserves credit. A case can be made that,

God and Aristide willing, the Haitian revolution is entering a

new stage. The initial heroic period is over, and another kind of

leadership is needed to deal with the everyday problems of

getting things done. Within that context, political flexibility

and management/adminis-trative skills are more important than

charisma, ideology and the ability to deliver fiery speeches. It

is perhaps no accident that Preval's approval ratings are now

higher than Aristide's among urban Haitians, for substantial

majorities believe he is as well or better equipped than the

former president to manage the economy, improve living standards,

maintain law and order, improve the quality of judges and courts,

and encourage national reconciliation.15 Moreover, there is

evidence of this in both the quality of some of his appointments

and in the administration's performance. People like Pierre

Denize, chief of the HNP; Robert Manuel, the Minister for Public

Safety; and Leslie Delatour, the Central Bank Governor;16 are

competent technocrats who are committed to economic reforms, the

prevention of human rights violations, and all the other things

that must be done if Haiti's future is not to be a repeat of her

past.

Yet, in the same breath, one must also note that Haiti is a

country with an extremely limited human resource base. The
10

quality of personnel at the top is mixed, and there is an

appalling lack of competence below the ministerial level. In

effect, what you have in Haiti are ministers without ministries.

The comparative handful of talented and dedicated people are

constantly being bombarded--indeed, overwhelmed--by demands. They

can only do so much. Lacking proper administrative support, they

end up having to deal with problems that should be dealt with at

lower levels of the bureaucracy. As a result, things move very

slowly. Nor is there any assurance that the decisions and

policies that are made will be carried out by those who are

responsible for implementing them.

The Immensity of the Challenge.

U.S. Ambassador William Swing recently remarked that one

must start from the assumption that everything in Haiti is broken

except for the human spirit. Everything needs fixing, and there

are precious few resources. Haiti, in fact, is still not very far

from the Year One; its political, economic, police and judicial

arrangements are being built virtually from scratch. In the

process, an attempt is being made to transform deeply engrained

perceptions, attitudes, values, and behavior--the political

culture of the people. All this will require at least a

generation of effort, and probably much longer.

Looking back over the 2 years since Aristide was restored,

there has been considerable progress in building the

institutional bases of democracy, but somewhat less in changing

the political culture. The old values, attitudes and behavior

live on, and they are an enormous weight that is dragging the

country down even as it continues the struggle to get to its

feet. This can be seen everywhere. Haiti is a society that has

largely been built on mistrust. The old fears and suspicions

continue to exist just below the surface, and all it takes to

bring them into the open are events such as those of last summer.

At the same time, there is a propensity for violence which, while

not manifested in the daily lives of ordinary people, can easily

break out at moments of stress, as occurred in the aftermath of

the fall of the Duvalier regime when hundreds of Tonton Macoutes

and Vodou clergy were hunted down and killed.17 Even in 1995,

there were over 100 cases of vigilante justice, and there were

reportedly 110 people killed in such incidents between January

and October 1996.18 This says much about the low public confidence

in Haiti's law enforcement capabilities, especially the judicial

system.19 It also reflects a lack of understanding of the role

that the police and courts play in a democracy. The idea that one

can look to those sources for justice--as opposed to taking

matters into your own hands--is a new idea for Haitians and will

require time to take root.20
11

Beyond this, there is a deeply engrained, 200-year tradition

of predation to overcome. This has been a political culture in

which, traditionally, everyone has been out for himself. Every

politician wanted to be president, or at least get his share of

the spoils. Given that mentality, it should not be surprising

that the state would become a mechanism to extract wealth for the

benefit of those who controlled it. (Similarly, political parties

have usually been nothing more than vehicles for the personal

ambitions of particular leaders or aspiring leaders.) When

combined with grinding poverty, endemic corruption, and deepseated distrust and insecurity, the result was chronic violence.

For those with the means, force or the threat of force was often

the option of first resort, and those without means became not

merely the objects but sometimes the instruments of terror.21

While the Duvalierists have been ousted, the political culture

which spawned them has been only partially uprooted. As long as

there are weapons available and elements in the government and

opposition willing to resort to violence, democracy will remain

vulnerable.

Political culture is important in numerous other ways as

well. One can see it in the behavior of the oligarchy and many

(though by no means all) elements in the business class, whose

pursuit of self-enrichment at any cost to national development

has helped make Haiti the poorest country in the hemisphere.

Again, this has been a predatory elite, with no sense of identity

with or responsibility to the Haitian people. And that raises the

question of the role these elements will play in the "new Haiti."

Clearly, their talent and capital must be tapped if the country

is to have any hope of escaping from the quagmire of

underdevelopment. But how does one provide the kinds of

incentives that will get these elites to invest in their own

country? Certainly, it is much safer to send one's money abroad.

Moreover, even if their capital can be attracted, will it be

invested in such a way as to promote the national interest, as

well as their own private interests?

Part of the problem with the economic strategy that

international lenders have imposed on Haiti is that, within the

context of the norms and habits of the Haitian political culture,

it may perpetuate and even intensify certain abuses. How does one

assure, for instance, that privatized state monopolies will not

simply become private monopolies continuing many of the same

exploitative practices (e.g., high prices, low wages) that have

marked past behavior? And how can one prevent the kinds of

corruption that have accompanied privatization in so many other

countries? (Mexico is a classic example.) In an environment like

Haiti's, where graft is endemic and socioeconomic inequalities

immense, the danger is that neoliberal reforms may lead to even

greater inequalities and hardships. (This is generally conceded

for the short run. Haitian officials estimate that as many as
12

3,000 workers will be laid off at the overstaffed port, telephone

and electric companies and another 7,500 cut from the civil

service.22 The hope is that in the longer term more jobs will be

created than have been eliminated, but there are no guarantees.)

Another area of concern is the extent of foreign ownership.

Most Haitian businessmen do not have the capital to buy the

larger privatized entities. This means that the major industries

are likely to be transferred to U.S., Canadian or French control.

While it can be argued that this is not neccessarily a bad thing-

-the capital has to come from somewhere and foreign owners may

actually be less susceptible to corruption and more sensitive to

their social responsibilities than Haitians--it is already a

source of discontent among some Haitian nationalists and

businessmen and could lead to a backlash.

This not an argument against reform. The old predatory and

parasitic socioeconomic structures and relationships must be

changed if Haiti is to move forward. But such transitions are

always difficult and painful. There must be social safety nets in

place to catch those who are endangered, and mechanisms of

oversight and accountability to prevent abuses. Otherwise the

damage done may offset any improvements that are made. For its

part, the Haitian government has attempted to ameliorate some of

these problems by retaining a state role in the companies that

are to be privatized. None of these entities will be totally

privately owned. Rather, the plan is to enlist private sector

capital and talent through management contracts, concessions, and

capitalization or joint ventures similar to those undertaken in

Bolivia. But how all this will work out in practice--if, indeed,

it works at all--remains to be seen.

Complicating all of these challenges enormously is a

staggering lack of resources, both human and material. This can

be seen everywhere. Take, for instance, the HNP which, as has

been suggested, is one of Haiti's success stories: The police

often lack the means to conduct basic operations. They need more

officers and vehicles, heavier weapons, more money, better

leadership--in short, more of everything. Due to the government's

financial crisis, they have gone for months at a time without

pay.23 They suffer from an incredible shortfall of leadership and

management at all levels. Added to this, morale and public

support are seriously eroding, as officers increasingly become

the targets of political or gang violence and resort to

unnecessary violence in return.

But then the police at least function, which is more than

can be said for the judicial system. There the problems are

simply mind-boggling. In the words of one observer:

Haitian justice lacks everything: financial resources,
13

materials, competent personnel, independence, stature

and trust. Court facilities are a disgrace, courthouses

often indistinguishable from small shops or run-down

residences in Haitian cities and towns. Judges and

prosecutors, ill-trained and often chosen because of

their connections or willingness to comply with their

benefactors' demands, dispense justice to the highest

bidder or to the most powerful. No judge or prosecutor

in Haiti, until mid-1995, had received any specialized

professional training. Law schools are woefully

inadequate and lack the most rudimentary necessities

like decent classrooms and a law library; cronyism

reigns, professors are ill-trained, students illprepared, passing grades bought and sold.24

One of the advantages police reform has had over judicial

reform is that it could construct a new police force more-or-less

from scratch after the old police (which had been part of the

FAdH) had been dissolved. In contrast, the new Haiti has

inherited the old Haiti's judicial system (including personnel)

lock, stock and barrel. While some progress has been made in

getting rid of corrupt or incompetent judges and prosecutors,

training new ones, distributing law books and so on, judicial

reform has taken a back seat to the more immediate demands of

security. As a result, there has been a serious disconnect

between the development of these institutions. It matters little

if the police can apprehend criminals if the courts cannot

process them and the jails cannot hold them. The resulting

breakdown in the process of justice has simply added to the

demoralization of the police, fostering apathy, cynicism,

corruption and extrajudicial punishment in the field. (Not to

mention declining public support and continuing vigilante

justice.)

Another enormous complex of challenges concerns the

rejuvenation of the countryside. Uli Locher once commented that

"rural Haiti as we know it is doomed."25 It is easy to see what he

meant. The first thing one notices when viewing Haiti from the

air is the barren mountains. Flying over rural Haiti is a lot

like flying over moonscape. Deforestation and soil erosion are

turning parts of the country into a desert. Today, a mere 3

percent of the original forest cover remains; tropical storms

have carried some 20 percent of the topsoil to the sea; and only

about 11 percent of the land is still arable. In the last half of

the 20th century, arable land per capita will have decreased

from .38 hectares to about .16 hectares, a casualty of an

exploding rural population, overworked lands, deforestation and

erosion.26 The upshot is that Haiti can no longer feed itself.

Reversing this decline will require not only a major longterm reforestation program, but fundamental changes in Haitian
14

behavior. As matters now stand, there are simply too many

peasants working too little land. Accordingly, population growth

and the demand for charcoal (which accounts for much of the treecutting) must be sharply reduced, and economic incentives and

means provided to enable farmers to cultivate their crops in more

efficient and less destructive ways. Unfortunately, there is

reason to doubt whether either the Haitian government or its

international sponsors will be up to the challenge. The former

has been ambivalent about family planning programs, with the

result that little has been accomplished. At the same time, the

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has cut back

funds for such purposes. And as for reforestation, the USAID

track record provides ample reason for skepticism: During the

1980s, reforestation was a top priority, and by 1990 about 10

million trees a year were being grown. Even that, however, was

far from sufficient, for simultaneously an estimated 15 to 20

million trees were being cut down. Subsequently, in 1991, shortly

before the coup that deposed President Aristide, USAID abruptly

terminated the program. Annual tree planting immediately dropped

to less than 1 million. While that decision has since been

reversed, current efforts appear likely to provide for only 2 to

4 million hardwood seedlings a year, a small fraction of what is

needed.27

Then, there is the problem of urban migration. In 1994,

Haiti had a population of roughly 7 million people. By 2025, it

will have an estimated 13.1 million. This is bad enough, but

whereas in 1994 the populace was only 30.9 percent urban, by 2025

the percentage is expected to be around 53.9 percent. While the

rural population will grow only modestly, from 4.86 million to

6.1 million, the urban population will explode more than

threefold, from 2.2 million to 7.1 million.28 Port-au-Prince, now

roughly 1.5 million people, will be an estimated 4 million

people. This is almost unimaginable. The slums are already so

crowded and the housing so wretched that people often have to

sleep in shifts, with one group sleeping for a few hours, then

being replaced by another. In the most crowded areas, people

frequently sleep upright: One person leans against the wall with

his head in his arms, another leans against him, and so on,

sometimes as many as three or four in a row.29

Keep in mind, too, that the unemployment rate in Haiti is,

by some estimates, around 80 percent. Can enough jobs be created

to absorb all of the newcomers? If not, what are the implications

for political stability and crime? This is not to mention

pollution, housing, education, and health services. Only 53

percent of the capital's population currently has potable water.

Raw sewage pollutes the roadsides. In the face of growing demand,

the water table below the city will continue to recede. Some

observers estimate that the water will turn brackish within the

next few years.30
15

One cannot in this short essay deal with the full range of

socioeconomic problems Haiti will face. To take just a few of the

more telling indicators: Even before the current crisis, Haiti

had the lowest per capita income ($360) and life expectancy (48

years), and the highest infant mortality (124 per 1,000) and

illiteracy (63-90 percent, depending on the criteria employed)

rates in the Western Hemisphere. At least 70 percent of the

children suffered from malnutrition, and about 33 percent were

seriously malnourished. (Extreme malnutrition made Haiti the only

country in the region with high incidence of kwashiorkor and

marasmus.) With only 810 doctors and even fewer nurses to serve a

population of between 6 and 7 million people, Haitians could not

even begin to cope with their severe health problems. To the

traditional afflictions of tuberculosis (affecting 10 percent of

the population), malaria, salmonellosis, venereal disease, and

the endemic illnesses associated with malnutrition has recently

been added the modern-day version of the plague: the AIDS virus.

Between 7 and 10 percent of pregnant women in urban areas tested

HIV positive.31

These conditions worsened considerably during the period of

military rule (1991-94), in part because of the international

embargo of the regime. (Per capita income, for instance, fell to

around $250-260, and AIDS spread to the countryside as several

hundred thousand urban residents fled the cities.)32 More

recently, of course, the situation has improved due to some $800

million in international aid and loans. Nevertheless, much of

this asssistance has been in the form of short-term, quick-impact

projects imposed from above, without consulting the local

populace about its needs and desires. As a consequence, "few

durable new invest- ments materialized and fewer still benefited

the poor majority."33 Moreover, the aid freeze resulting from the

deadlock between the Haitian government and international

financial institutions over privatization postponed the tackling

of costly infrastructural projects and prevented any kind of

sustained economic recovery. Thus, relatively few permanent jobs

have been created. The problem of chronic poverty has been

largely ignored. Popular expectations that democracy would bring

a marked improvement in living conditions have been frustrated,

resulting in growing disillusionment and a heightened potential

for violence.

This brings us to the difficult question of absorptive

capacity. Because of widespread corruption and incompe-tence,

Haiti has only a very limited ability to effectively use the aid

that is being doled out. To take a dramatic example: In

September, the author was told that only about 200 of the 500

vehicles given to the Haitian National Police were still

functioning. In large part, this was because many of the HNP's

recruits did not know how to drive (almost none had licenses at
16

the time they entered the force),34 and many others were

unfamiliar with even the basics of maintenance, such as the need

to occasionally put oil in their vehicles. In the carnage that

followed the fielding of the HNP's automobile fleet, scores of

cars and trucks were wrecked or broke down because of negligence.

Partially as a result, the police today are frequently unable to

respond to calls for help.35

Clearly, one cannot simply dole out money or equipment with

no questions asked and inadequate supervision. Still, there must

be some balance between the entirely justifiable concern of

donors that their assistance not be wasted and the need for such

aid to better serve locally established priorities and be managed

by Haitian institutions. One should remember that aid can also be

squandered on highly paid foreign consultants. As Larry Minear

has noted, the cost of a single day of a World Bank consultant's

time, including travel, translation and local expenses, could pay

two or three days operating costs of a privately run health

clinic in a Port-au-Prince slum. This is one reason, among many

others, why there has been such a disparity between the massive

international resources expended on Haiti and the lack of

sustainable results.36

No Easy Answers.

So, is Haiti a "success" or a "failure"? There are no easy

answers. Americans have a tendency to view the world in

simplistic terms: There are blacks and whites, heroes and

villains, successes and failures. But in the real world, the

categories are often blurred. In making judgments, the proper

frame of reference is the country's past, rather than some

idealistic--and invariably culture-bound--standard of what ought

to be.

On this basis, U.S. policy to date must be judged a

qualified success: Aristide was restored and political power

transferred from one duly elected government to another; a new

police force has been created which, for all its limitations, is

functioning reasonably well under extremely difficult conditions;

though political violence and human rights violations persist,

they are not the massive problem they have been in the past.

Today, indeed, Haiti has a government that not only has the broad

support of the populace, but is clearly the most responsible and

competent government the country has had in decades--and arguably

ever.

The problem is that when one looks to the future, judgments

become much more tenuous. Clearly, democratization is not

irreversible. The situation remains both fragile and volatile.

Crises are abundant. In many respects, the challenge resembles
17

that of a man attempting to climb an enormous mountain: He moves

slowly, one step at a time, planting his feet carefully so as not

to slip and fall. Now and then, he makes a misstep, losing his

grip, and has to scramble to regain his footing. But he keeps

climbing. The danger, of course, is that at some point he may

make a more serious mistake, or his toehold may crumble, and he

may plunge into the abyss below.

This is Haiti today. It is simply too early to tell whether

the experiment will be successful or not. What one can say,

however, is that the odds are formidable. The country's problems

are so huge, its resources so limited and the weight of the

political culture so great that one should harbor no illusions.

Even if Haitians can forge a stable democracy--and this will be

no easy task--the socioeconomic challenges will be even more

difficult. Privatization is not a "silver bullet." It will not

solve all of the country's socioeconomic ills, and it may even

create some new ones. (Ironically, it will also require a more

sophisticated governmental regulatory role.) Haiti is in the

process of transformation from a rural/ agrarian society into an

urban/light industrial society. Traditional society is crumbling

because its economic base is disintegrating. This is not a pretty

thing to watch. It will involve considerable suffering and

insecurity. And there is no guarantee that Haitians will be much

better off in the new society that is emerging than in the old

one they are leaving.

The bottom line is that if Haiti is to have a reasonable

chance at a brighter future, it will need a lot of help over a

long period. Nationbuilding is never a quick and easy process.

One of the dangers is that the international community--

especially the United States--will not stay the course. Now that

the U.S. elections are over, American interest in Haiti may

disappear. This would be unfortunate and shortsighted, for

Haitians are not likely to let us forget them. If political and

socioeconomic conditions deteriorate again, the flow of boat

people will resume. There are already roughly a million Haitians

in the United States. How many more come will in part be

determined by the long-term success or failure of the current

experiment in democratization and socioeconomic development.

What, specifically, should the international community and

the United States do? Elsewhere, the author has presented a

detailed list of policy recommendations, and these need not be

repeated here.37 A few brief observations, however, would seem in

order:

First, the moment of truth will come when foreign

peacekeepers leave Haiti. As matters now stand, the HNP is simply

not capable of maintaining law and order by itself. Fortunately,

this has been recognized. In early December, the U.N. Security
18

Council extended the current force (UNSMIH) for 6 more months,

with the possibility of a final 2-month renewal through July

1997. One must assume that by next summer support for a continued

U.N. peacekeeping presence will have finally evaporated, and that

other arrangements, either bilateral or multilateral, will have

to be made. (Again, it is likely that the Haitian police will

still not be sufficiently trained and equipped to cope with the

situation alone.) Accordingly, the international community--and

especially the United States and Canada--needs to begin working

out security arrangements for a post-UNSMIH Haiti.

Second, an accelerated effort should be made to create a

functioning judicial system. In comparison to the energy and

resources that have gone into the Haitian National Police, this

sector of law enforcement has been sorely neglected. Yet, without

just and effective courts, attempts to institute the rule of law

will be doomed. Put another way, the sooner Haiti has an

effective judicial system to complement the professional police

force that is being constructed, the sooner foreign peacekeepers

can go home.

Third, much more attention needs to be given to the task of

creating an ecologically viable Haiti. Deforestation, erosion,

soil exhaustion, water depletion, desertification and rapid

population growth cannot be allowed to continue or the country

will become utterly uninhabitable. Of all the problems Haiti

faces, this complex of maladies, with their built-in momentum,

poses the greatest danger to the country's survival.

Fourth, the United States should convert its military

support mission into a semipermanent operation with ongoing

infrastructural and humanitarian responsibilities. One of the

mistakes the United States made when it went into Haiti was

imposing severe limitations on nation- building operations. This

was a golden opportunity lost. Haitians would have loved for the

United States to have done more of this kind of thing, and they

still would. Certainly, the need is there.

Finally, there is a need to continue pressing the Haitian

government with regard to human rights violations. If allowed to

continue, the recent slide down the slippery slope of political

violence could destroy everything that has been accomplished. One

should caution, however, that it makes little sense to cut off

aid for the HNP, as has sometimes been proposed. Rather, the

police need more officers, equipment and training, including

continuing human rights instruction. (Among other things, the

MICIVIH and CivPol missions should be continued.) One does not

create a better police force by denying it the means to become a

truly professional and competent organization. Quite the

opposite.
19

ENDNOTES

1. Donald E. Schulz, Whither Haiti?, Carlisle Barracks, PA:

Strategic Studies Institute, 1996.

2. Lavalas is Aristide and Preval's political movement.

Macoute refers to the Tonton Macoutes, the paramilitary arm of

the Duvalier dictatorship. Evans Paul's accusation may be found

in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), Daily Report:

Latin America, August 26, 1996.

3. Larry Rohter, "Haiti's "Little Kings' Again Terrorize the

Populace," New York Times, August 25, 1996.

4. Christopher Marquis, "U.S. Rushes Security Agents to

Haiti," Miami Herald, September 14, 1996; Larry Rohter, "Pressed

by U.S., Haitian President Begins Purge of Guards," New York

Times, September 16, 1996.

5. The U.S. Embassy does not like to use the word "purge"

with regard to these cases. At this writing, 9 people have been

placed on "administrative suspension" pending investigation. They

have not been "fired." As yet, none have been found guilty of

anything. Theoretically, at least, they might still be restored

to their old positions.

6. Christopher Marquis and Sandra Marquez Garcia, "Aristide

Says Corruption, Chaos Tainting Preval's Government," Miami

Herald, September 20, 1996; FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America,

September 24, 1996.

7. A May 1996 U.S. Information Agency poll of 1208 adults in

Port-au-Prince, Cap Haitien, and Les Cayes, for instance, found

that his approval rating had dropped from 91 percent to 73

percent since the previous October; moreover, those holding very

good opinions of him had fallen from 84 percent to 42 percent. In

contrast, 78 percent of these urban Haitians said that Preval was

handling the presidency very well or fairly well, and many

(especially the university educated) thought he would do a better

job at managing the economy than Aristide. Office of Research and

Media Reaction, USIA Briefing Paper, Washington, DC, B-31-96,

August 2, 1996, p. 1.

8. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, November 6, 1996.

9. In March 1995, Borge and Associates polled 1200 Haitians

on the national situation. Sixty percent felt that the army

should be legally prohibited (24 percent did not), and 72 percent

said that Aristide had been right to retire its officers (only 4

percent disagreed). Arias Foundation/Borge and Associates,

Republic of Haiti National Survey of Public Opinion, March 1995,
20

xerox, pp. 7, 11.

10. See Mission Civile Internationale en Haiti, OEA/ONU

(MICIVIH), La Police Nationale d'Haiti et les Droits de l'Homme,

July 1996; and The Situation of Democracy and Human Rights in

Haiti, Report of the Secretary-General, A/51/703, December 2,

1996.

11. Seventy-one percent, according to the May USIA poll.

About half the respondents in that same poll also said that the

police were doing at least a fairly good job at maintaining law

and order, and 42 percent had a favorable opinion of HNP

Director-General Pierre Denize. Office of Research and Media

Reaction, USIA Briefing Paper, pp. 6, 8. One must caution that

this is not a representative cross section of the Haitian

population. Roughly 70 percent of Haitians live in the

countryside, and there is no way of knowing for sure what their

attitudes are.

12. Letter to the author.

13. Most recently, the government has moved to defuse this

issue by publicly committing itself to address the demands of the

demobilized soldiers. It remains to be seen, however, whether it

can successfully do this. Resources are extremely scarce, and

there is opposition from those who believe that the ex-FAdH do

not deserve such consideration.

 14. From July to December 1995, there were only 11 reported

instances of police mistreatment; between January and May 1996,

in contrast, the number rose to 86. The comparable figures for

killed and wounded were from 6 to 20 and from 21 to 30,

respectively. While the data for the rest of 1996 are incomplete,

it appears that over 40 people were killed in 1996. On the bright

side, the number of allegations of beatings of people in police

custody has recently decreased. MICIVIH, La Police Nationale

d'Haiti, p. 55; and The Situation of Democracy and Human Rights

in Haiti.

15. On the economy, for instance, 45 percent felt that he

will do a better job and 31 percent felt he will do the same. On

improving the lives of Haitians, the figures were 34 percent and

41 percent, respectively. Office of Research and Media Reaction,

USIA Briefing Paper, pp. 6, 8.

16. Actually, Delatour was originally appointed by Aristide,

but Preval kept him on.

17. John Merrill, "Vodou and Political Reform in Haiti: Some

Lessons for the International Community," Fletcher Forum, Vol.

20, No. 1, Winter/Spring 1996, pp. 45-46.
21

18. The first figure is from a U.S. Embassy source, the

second from MICIVIH's The Situation of Democracy and Human Rights

in Haiti.

19. It is significant that in the USIA poll of urban

Haitians only 30 percent of the respondents felt there had been

progress in terms of improving the judicial system. Office of

Research and Media Reaction, USIA Briefing Paper, p. 8.

20. Rachel Neild tells the story of how the residents of

Gonaives lost respect for the police because the latter were "too

nice." After the populace began challenging and throwing stones

at them, officers began beating up detainees and committing other

abuses, which in turn led to greater popular respect for the HNP.

"Police Reform in Haiti: The Challenge of Demilitarizing Public

Order and Establishing the Rule of Law," presentation at a

conference organized by the Canadian Foundation for the Americas,

November 7 and 8, 1996, p. 6.

21. Michel-Rolf Trouillot, for instance, has remarked on the

number of extreme abuses committed by the Duvalier regime's

henchmen. He notes that the perpetrators were mostly "miserable

wretches whose average incomes hardly exceeded what some elite

families spend for four servants." See Haiti: State Against

Nation, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990, p. 155.

22. Carla Anne Robbins, "No Quick Fix: Haiti Tastes Freedom,

But Efforts to Rebuild Run Into Roadblocks," The Wall Street

Journal, October 30, 1996.

23. In early November, Haiti received the initial

installment of a $131 million loan from the International

Monetary Fund, which should allow the government to pay public

employees their long-overdue salaries.

24. William G. O'Neill, "No Longer a Pipe-Dream? Justice in

Haiti," paper presented before the conference on "Dialogue for

Development: The Political and Economic Reconstruction of Haiti,"

Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, September 23, 1995, p. 2. For a recent

detailed report on the state of the judicial system, see Jean

Joseph Exume, Problemes Actuels Identifies dans le Systeme

Judiciaire, Port-au-Prince, September 23, 1996 (draft).

25. Uli Locher, "Land Distribution, Land Tenure and Land

Erosion in Haiti," paper presented at the 12th Annual Conference

of the Society for Caribbean Studies, July 12-14, 1988, p. 16.

26. Mats Lundahl, "The Haitian Dilemma Reexamined: Lessons

From the Past in the Light of Some New Economic Theory," paper

presented at the conference on "Dialogue for Development: The
22

Political and Economic Reconstruction of Haiti," p. 28; Donald E.

Schulz and Gabriel Marcella, Reconciling the Irreconcilable: The

Troubled Outlook for U.S. Policy Toward Haiti, Carlisle Barracks,

PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 1994, p. 5.

27. Ernest H. Preeg, The Haitian Dilemma: A Case Study in

Demographics, Development, and U.S. Foreign Policy, Washington,

DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1996, pp. 33-

34, 37-39.

28. Population Division, Department for Economic and Social

Information and Policy Analysis, United Nations, 1994 Revision.

Electronic document: gopher://gopher.undp.org:70/00/ungophers/

popln/wdtrends/urban, December 13, 1995.

29. Amy Wilentz, The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier, New

York: Simon and Schuster, 1989, p. 18.

30. Preeg, The Haitian Dilemma, pp. 46-47.

31. Schulz and Marcella, Reconciling the Irreconcilable, pp.

3-4.

32. Schulz, Whither Haiti?, p. 11.

33. Robert Maguire, Edwige Balutansky, Jacques Fomerand,

Larry Minear, William G. O'Neill, Thomas G. Weiss, and Sarah

Zaidi, Haiti Held Hostage: International Responses to the Quest

for Nationhood, 1986 to 1996, Occasional Paper No. 23,

Providence, RI: Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Institute for International

Studies, Brown University, 1996, p. 95. See also pp. 78-82, 94-

96.

34. According to CivPol estimates, as few as 2 percent may

have had licenses. Rachel Neild, The Haitian National Police,

Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America, March 18,

1996, p. 13.

35. Similarly, many radios were lost or stolen. Much

progress has since been made in establishing logistical controls

and maintenance systems. Most of the police have received driving

lessons, and several facilities have been set up where Haitians

are being trained as mechanics.

 36. Maguire, et al., Haiti Held Hostage, pp. 110-112.

37. See Schulz, Whither Haiti?, pp. 35-42. See also Preeg,

The Haitian Dilemma; Maguire, et al., Haiti Held Hostage, pp. 85-

108; and Jennifer L. McCoy, Haiti: Prospects for Political and

Economic Reconstruction, Cambridge, MA: World Peace Foundation,

pp. 29-30.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Richard A. Chilcoat

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Director

Colonel Richard H. Witherspoon

Director of Research

Dr. Earl H. Tilford, Jr.

Author

Donald E. Schulz

Director of Publications and Production

Ms. Marianne P. Cowling

Secretaries

Mrs. Karen K. Gardner

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

*****

Composition

Mrs. Mary Jane Semple

Cover Artist

Mr. James E. Kistler