Operation Uphold Democracy rolled into full swing last week. American troops immobilized the Haitian Army and cracked down on paramilitary groups. The first of Haiti's three coup leaders, Police Chief Lt. Col. Michel Francois, scurried to refuge in the neighboring Dominican Republic. And the Haitian Parliament adopted an amnesty law, meaning that all the junta leaders, including military chief Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, could step down any time, but no later than the U.S.-brokered October 15 deadline.
That's when ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide intends to return to Haiti. His advisers say he already has chosen a new cabinet and intends to plunge immediately into rebuilding the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, which has been made even poorer by three years of rule by the corrupt military regime and international sanctions against it.
But the island nation has a bloody and contentious history; Aristide will have to juggle a multitude of competing interests if he wants to bring a semblance of democracy and order to Haiti. The still-potent remnants of paramilitary forces and the Army wonder what treatment they will receive from Aristide. The rich business class, much of which considers Aristide a populist rabble-rouser, is looking for a niche in a post-junta economy in which privilege and corruption may be less tolerated. The island's urban and rural poor, the overwhelming majority of the population, are counting on Aristide to lift them from wrenching poverty -- but could turn on him quickly if he fails. A crosscut of the voices of Haiti:
THE TYCOON
Reginald Vorbe is from the 1 percent of Haitian society that, according to the World Bank, controls half the country's income. The king of France sent one of Vorbe's ancestors to Haiti in 1764 to be the colony's official contractor. Vorbe carries on the tradition as head of V&F Construction Co., one of the country's largest construction firms.
But Vorbe's name also figures on a not-so-secret U.S. Embassy list of alleged coup collaborators some dub the "MRE": the morally repugnant elite. That makes Vorbe laugh. "They even included my 4-year-old nephew."
Still, Vorbe makes no bones about his "understanding" of the 1991 ouster of Haiti's legally elected president -- or the fears he shares with other Haitian tycoons about Aristide's impending return.
"Aristide's disastrous ... and his people aren't going to solve the real problem: getting Haitians to live together," says Vorbe. Besides, he insists, "dictatorship may be a dirty word," but in a divided country where only about a third of adults are literate, "it's impossible to function as a democracy."
The coup government gave Vorbe's firm a contract to repave the highway used to truck in embargoed goods from the Dominican border, which saved him from the financial disaster that struck many local businesses during the three-year economic blockade of Haiti. Even so, the yard at V&F Construction is jammed with bulldozers idled for lack of work and spare parts.
Now, says Vorbe, the only hope is that Haiti's economy "takes off big time." That, he believes, can happen only if U.S. forces stay long enough to keep peace. "Otherwise, this place could explode."
Come what may, Vorbe plans to stay put: "I won't give up my land; they'll have to take it from me."
THE PAUPER
On good days, barefoot Olivier Blaise earns the equivalent of $6 hauling staggering loads of firewood through the putrid streets of downtown Port-au-Prince. But even that paltry sum puts him ahead of most in Haiti, where per capita average income is just $250 U.S. a year, against an overall Caribbean average of $1,950.
Three of Blaise's hard-earned dollars go to the man who rents him his hand wagon. That leaves the 33-year-old porter with little to feed the four children who share his roadside cardboard-and-wood shack: "Many days there's nothing to eat," he says.
Blaise is one of Haiti's malere-yo -- the miserably poor mass of Haiti's 7 million people who voted overwhelmingly for Aristide in 1990 and who look to his return for their salvation.
"We want a bit more food and clothes, a better job," he says. Indeed within the first two months after Aristide returns, the Clinton administration plans to start infrastructure work projects that will create about 50,000 new jobs for Haiti's poor. Blaise applauds the presence of American troops because they are here to ensure the ousted president's return; he is eager to see whether Aristide can make good on his promises. "I came from my village to find a better job, and this is all there is to do. I pray to the bon Dieu to help all of us."
THE YUPPIE
Hans Garoute was 15 when he watched as "Papa Doc" Duvalier's dreaded Tontons Macoutes arrested his father, a retired Army officer. "We never saw him again," says Garoute, who hid for a year before fleeing to the United States.
Now 48, Garoute is part of a generation of U.S.-educated Haitian yuppies whose ranks are likely to swell after Aristide's return. He studied at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology and returned to Haiti in 1988 with a dream: to train Haitians to produce quality fashions from imported fabrics. Garoute organized a network of more than 300 owners of small sewing shops and launched INDEPCO, a center in downtown Port-au-Prince where he plans to train an army of tailors, seamstresses, cutters and pattern makers.
The international trade embargo against Haiti slowed his project, but now Garoute is raring to go.
"I didn't vote for Aristide, and he can't turn things around overnight," Garoute explains. "But it will take an Aristide to change things in Haiti. It's time to stop the killing and start the building."
THE LOCAL COP
To dozens of residents of the tiny fishing village of Aquin, policeman and military officer Pierre Erlin is a bully, a man who allegedly beat locals simply because they had once supported Aristide or were found with a photo of the bespectacled leader in their homes. But the 24-year-old corporal says many of the 4,000 Aquin townsfolk are lying: "Nobody got hurt here. Nobody got persecuted."
Police authorities from around the world, under the direction of former New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, are supposed to instill democratic behavior in the ranks of Haitian police officers in coming months. But Erlin's boss, Police Chief Francois, fled last week to the Dominican Republic and is said to have left in place hundreds of right-wing paramilitary forces that could retain allegiance to him -- and pose a terrorist threat to the Aristide regime and U.S. troops.
Officers like Erlin are prime candidates for these opposition groups. He expects that American troops will soon swoop in aboard their Chinooks and occupy Aquin, as they have other settlements across Haiti. But standing on Aquin's main road in combat boots, dark aviator glasses and with a loaded .38 strapped to his waist, Erlin remains defiant: "For myself, I will fight to the end."
THE FARMER
The rural village of Vialet is only a two-hour drive southwest of Port-au-Prince along the potholed National Route 2. But for farmer Andreis St. Louis, the Haitian capital seems light-years away. His stub-legged pony is his only means of transportation, limiting his travels to a few kilometers in either direction on Route 2 from the small patch of rice, corn and beans he tends just outside of town. St. Louis once could afford to ride on a tap tap, one of the colorful Haitian pickup trucks converted into buses. But like so many in Haiti, where two thirds of the working population is involved in agriculture, his customer base has dwindled over the past few years.
"The embargo has hit us on every part of our bodies. All we can do is breathe," says St. Louis, 69, who has two children and five grandchildren.
That should change soon after Aristide's return, when about $26 million in international assistance will begin flowing to Haitian farmers.
"Since Aristide left, there is suffering and misery," s
