Aristide still the scapegoat of the U.S. right wing

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 26, 1996

That Republican Washington does not like Jean-Bertrand Aristide is not new. That the Washington media has generally editorialized against Haiti's now lame-duck president is also a matter of record. That Aristide does not go out of his way to placate his critics is equally so. Aristide may be a prophet, but that doesn't make him a saint.

The U.S.-Aristide gap is cultural as well as ideological, but one fact stays fairly constant. That usually the only side of the story that gets told is the U.S. side. A recent congressional hearing (see page 7) is a case in point. Newspaper commentary on Aristide's November speech at the funeral of his slain cousin, Jean-Hubert Feuille, was another.

At that time, accusing Aristide of being "inflammatory," The Washington Post editorialized: "He used the (funeral) occasion to denounce the United Nations peacekeepers, who include American troops, for their failure to disarm his enemies, and he urged his followers to go after the big houses where the rich people. lived."

How's that for inflammatory writing? What Aristide said, was, "I ask the Haitian people for the following: Do not sit idly by, do not wait; accompany the policemen when they are going to enter the homes of people who have heavy weapons, give them information, do not be afraid of them. When you do that, tell the policemen not to go only to the poor neighborhoods, but to go to the neighborhoods where there are big houses and heavy weapons. The game of hypocrisy is over. Too much blood has been shed in the country. Both rich and poor, everybody, must find peace. For this to happen, we must rid ourselves of the big men with heavy weapons."

This month, House Republicans -- suddenly concerned about human rights -- were politically incensed because Aristide has taken into the new civilian police force, that replaced the army that had supported a succession of dictators, some members of the previous police force and army.

Aristide has addressed this issue several times, including just before Christmas. His justification is reconciliation -- that all Haitians should b given the opportunity to make a new start. Aristide told the world press last month that even as he prepared to return to Haiti from exile in 1994, he met with young men who had fled Haiti during the three-year regime that followed the coup d'etat.

They knew he wanted a civilian police force. If he successfully returned, they told him, they wanted to be a part of it. And Aristide said. he told them -- former army and policemen among them -- that if they qualified and if they were prepared to uphold the constitution, they would receive the same consideration as everyone else.

Their presence is now being used by House Republicans to smash the U.S.-sponsored police academy program training that new police force.

Many morals can be drawn from all this. But a moral isn't necessary. Haitian priest summed it up for NCR last month when he said that the U.S. right wing is still fighting the Cold War and poor Haiti is all they have to bash -- an island of 7 million people with a per capita income of $250 a year.

And all because the Washington right and its parroters cannot distinguish between ideology and a prophetic commitment to the poor an because some in the media don't bother to report who actually said what.