TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/101491/1014001.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.6 KB | 120 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 36

HAITI

More Than A Little Priest


A charismatic firebrand, Aristide also proved to be a masterly
politician

By AMY WILENTZ/WASHINGTON


    As deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide addressed the
Organization of American States in Washington last week, the
scene outside was reminiscent of the good old days in
Port-au-Prince. Thousands of Haitians sang and danced and
demonstrated on his behalf outside the white fortress-like
building on Constitution Avenue. The atmosphere was heady,
anticipatory. There were drums. "While he is trying to get
justice in there, we are with him out here," said a Haitian
protester, who waved a long red-and-blue banner that said it
all, in simple terms: WE WANT ARISTIDE. In Haitian Creole they
have begun to call him Msieu Mirak, or Mr. Miracle.

    Back in Haiti, Mr. Miracle had been an embattled figure,
the tumultuous center of a brewing storm. After the Duvalier
dynasty was overthrown in 1986, the slender but resilient priest
slowly emerged as the embodiment of hope. Aristide's church was
filled with the excitement that lit up Haiti's poor, its
unemployed, its peasantry and most of all its youth, when he and
other liberationists taught that there was a slim possibility
for democratic change.

    When a band of hired thugs killed hundreds of peasants in
Haiti's northwestern province in July 1987, Aristide was there
to denounce the massacre. Four months later, when paramilitary
forces burned down a central market in Port-au-Prince, Aristide
was there to excoriate the perpetrators and to raise money to
rebuild the place. When one military dictator after another came
to power promising democracy down the road, Aristide dismissed
them, one after another, with an ironic Creole proverb and a
blistering sermon. He never gave the least philosophical
quarter to those he perceived as "roadblocks to the liberation
of the Haitian people."

    Aristide is a man of contradictions. Soft-spoken and
relaxed in private, he is like a pillar of fire when he
addresses the public. As a priest he spoke tirelessly against
what he considered "sham" elections -- then he became a
candidate himself. In 1987 he thought the new, liberal Haitian
constitution was a fancy-dress costume being worn by a brutal
dictatorship; as President he learned to use it well. A longtime
champion of human rights, he has been reticent until very
recently about condemning mob violence.

    Aristide came of age in the Roman Catholic Church in the
1970s, at a time when priests throughout Latin America were
developing the concept of liberation theology. As a young
seminarian in Haiti, however, he was known more as a biblical
scholar than a firebrand. But when he returned in 1981 after
studying abroad, he was nonplussed by the poverty of the Haitian
people. "I had been away for some time," he said about the shock
of returning, "and so my eyes were reopened to the squalor and
misery." Ordained in 1982, Aristide became a liberationist and
soon found himself in conflict with the conservative bishops.
In 1988 he was ousted from his religious order for preaching
politics.

    His outspokenness earned him little favor with the
military dictatorships under which he preached. The armed forces
were involved in at least two violent attempts on Aristide's
life. From these attacks, and from others where the military was
not openly involved, Aristide emerged virtually unscathed: Mr.
Miracle.

    The same kind of fervor that surrounded him as a priest
followed him through his short but memorable candidacy in
Haiti's first free and fair presidential elections. Aristide
called his movement Lavalas, which in Creole means flood or
avalanche, and Haitians flooded around him in waves as he made
visits to every corner of his country. Running against a former
leader of the Duvaliers' repressive Tontons Ma coutes and a
handful of recidivist candidates, Aristide turned a lackluster
election into a colorful political cockfight.

    His landslide victory came as a slap in the face to
certain sectors of Haitian society. The army was concerned,
since Aristide had never made deals with the military in the
tradition of most Haitian presidential candidates. The economic
elite was worried because they had been telling each other for
years that "that little priest" was a communist. The Roman
Catholic Church was nervous because Aristide's relations with
the Haitian hierarchy continued to be rocky.

    But, typically, the man of contradictions surprised
everyone. Formerly considered adamant and intransigent, he
moderated his militant tone as President. He spoke to the
Haitian generals of the love he felt for them -- even as he
retired them. He fell into a cordial relationship with the
American ambassador after years of criticizing the U.S.
government. For seven months he performed the high-wire trick
of remaining faithful to his poor and clamorous constituency
while trying to stay in power.

    Although the negotiations for Aristide's life while he
was in military custody last week were touch and go, Haitians
were not surprised that he escaped unscathed. They are used to
watching him emerge from the ashes without a scratch. Some even
believe he is divinely protected, by either Christian powers or
the powers of Haitian vodou. He shrugs off such assertions but
adds, "I have been immunized against fear." In Haiti now, in the
dark slums, in the bloodied hospitals, behind burning
barricades on country roads, they are waiting for Mr. Miracle
to return.