Aristide Returns to Haiti. Uh-oh... -The iPINIONS Journal

No doubt Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide expected that his long-planned and long-anticipated return to Haiti on Friday would command at least as much international media coverage as his flight into exile in 2004.

And it probably would have if the international media were not already preoccupied, if not obsessed, with coverage of not one but two far more momentous and consequential events: the unfolding nuclear crisis in Japan and looming Western military action against Libya.

This is why all of the hosannas that heralded Aristide’s return smacked of the existential tree falling in the forest which nobody hears.

In any case, he promptly put Wyclef Jean lite Michel Martelly and former first lady Mirlande Manigat, the two candidates in Sunday’s runoff presidential election, on notice by:

…criticizing the fact that his once-dominant party, Fanmi Lavalas, had been barred from the ongoing election campaign, saying it represented the ‘exclusion of the majority’… [He added] ‘today may the Haitian people mark the end of exile and coup d’etat, while peacefully we must move from social exclusion to social inclusion.’

(Caribbean News Now, March 19, 2011)

This does not bode well for political stability in Haiti. Because not only is Aristide still worshipped by a critical mass among Haitians, he clearly still regards himself as the legitimate president of this Godforsaken country.

I’m so happy — it’s like a hunger. I feel in my heart that with Aristide here things will be better.

(Jobless Haitian Nadia Paul as quoted by Caribbean News Now, March 19, 2011)

But I knew it would be thus; in fact, here is how I presaged his return and this day of reckoning over five years ago:

Aristide is no more a man of the past today (after allegedly being forced into exile to South Africa by American forces in 2004) than he was a man of the past in 1993 (after clearly being forced into exile to the United States by Haitian forces – only to make a triumphal return two years later to resume his presidency)…

Indeed, that the Bush administration is putting more pressure on President Preval to renounce Aristide than to announce his plans to resuscitate the Haitian economy indicates the clear and present fear the Americans have of Aristide’s imminent return. And, their fears are well founded: After all, the vast majority of leaders throughout the Americas believe Aristide’s damning claim that he was the victim of a coup d’etat because President Bush (and local businessmen – mostly mulatto bourgeois Europhiles calling themselves “the Group of 184”) found his governing socialist policies politically and ideologically untenable. And these regional leaders never fully recognized the US-installed Latortue government as legitimate.

Moreover, the Americans can be forgiven their suspicion that, despite his pronouncements, Preval remains as devoted to Aristide as ever. Recall that Aristide practically anointed Preval as his successor in 1996 – only to oust him and reclaim power in 2001. And, it’s an open secret that most Haitians who voted for Preval, did so only because they expect him to facilitate the return of their Lavalas leader Aristide to his rightful place in Haiti….

(“What to make of elections in Haiti,” The iPINIONS Journal, February 13, 2006)

This is why it is hardly surprising to me that, instead of presiding over the transition of power to his successor from Sunday’s election (who will be announced in about 10 days), President Preval’s last significant act in office will be ushering in the return of his predecessor and mentor Jean-Bertrand Aristide. And this despite vehement protest against Aristide’s return by Preval’s erstwhile patron, U.S. President Barack Obama.

But if you want to know what this portends for Haiti, just look at the civil war now brewing in the Ivory Coast between factions loyal to Laurent Gbagbo and Alassanne Ouattara over who has the legitimate right to serve as president.

Alas, in Haiti as in Africa, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.