Haiti’s Problems Lie Deeper Than Floodwaters of Tropical Storm Jeanne
October 16, 2004
The flooding caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne as it battered the Caribbean is only the latest round of woes for the long-suffering people of Haiti. In the city of Gonaives, Haiti’s third largest, 100,000 people were directly affected by the flood. Some estimates are that as many as 10,000 homes in Gonaives alone were damaged or destroyed, and reports are that 1,870 people were killed. Another 884 are missing and will likely never be found.
The main route through Gonaives is lined with evidence of the destructive power of the flood. Cars are crushed and twisted by the force of the rushing water, and many houses left only block foundations as a testament to where they once stood. Everywhere, dazed residents are working with shovels and picks to reclaim their lives from the stinking mud that now blankets the city.
But Haiti’s problems are not all buried in the mud of Gonaives. Since the ouster in February of Haiti’s President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti has been racked by increasing unrest and political violence. Armed gangs have looted convoys of relief supplies and attacked aid workers in Gonaives, where the fighting that drove Aristide from power first erupted early this year. Though there are 3,000 troops stationed in Haiti under the United Nations Stabilization Mission to Haiti, known as MINUSTAH, they represent less than half of the 8,000 promised by the UN. Stretched thin, UN forces are unable to provide sufficient security for the massive relief operations unfolding in Gonaives.
The violence of Gonaives has spilled over in to the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, where gangs loyal to Aristide have clashed with police in recent weeks. Dozens have been killed, and several police beheaded in a macabre imitation of the violence in Iraq dubbed “Operation Baghdad” by gangs demanding Aristide’s return from exile. Port-au-Prince remains tense. On October 14 the US Embassy in Haiti authorized all non-essential Embassy staff and dependants to leave the country at their discretion.
And though the violence continues to spread and intensify, its exact cause is difficult to pin point. Many in Haiti believe former President Aristide is orchestrating the violence from exile, a ploy to foment chaos that would pave the way for his eventual return to power in Haiti. Others claim the perpetrators are simply gangs of local criminals, driven to desperation by the dire poverty in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, and feasting on the wealth of relief supplies pouring into the country in the wake of Tropical Storm Jeanne. No matter the causes, the violence gripping Haiti is both a serious obstacle to the relief operations here and an ominous portent of things to come in a country whose history has been written in blood.
After a long history of what many Haitian’s consider abandonment and betrayal by both the US, who restored Aristide to power in 1994 and maintained troops in the country for nearly six years, and their own government officials, many in Haiti fear this latest round of violence is rising from a deeper wellspring of rage that threatens to tear the country apart. The anger in both Port-au-Prince and Gonaives is almost tangible – anger manifested increasingly in the pointless attacks on international humanitarian workers working in Haiti to assist those in need. Fearing for the safety of their staff, some aid agencies working in Gonaives have ceased distribution operations altogether, a disruption that comes with serious consequences for the 300,000 Haitian’s affected by Jeanne.
This year was supposed to be a time of celebration in Haiti, marking the island nation’s bicentennial after the slave revolt in 1804 that freed Haitians of French colonial rule. But as the smoke rises again over Haiti, fears are growing that the country’s darkest days may yet lie ahead.
