Originally published on 10/02/2005 by O Estado de S. Paulo
Eduardo Nunomura
SPECIAL ENVOY
PORT-AU-PRINCE – Haiti and the small Clarence Utyle live distinct fights covering common ways. First independent nation of slaves of the world and today a arremedo of country, Haiti waits to carry through in the month that comes elections to give the first step in the retaken one of the democracy and to leave a serious institucional crisis. To the 4 years, the fragile boy suffers from a visible anomaly in its nudez that is alone part of a drama. It is miseravelmente poor, living in the most violent Haitian slum quarter and without that nobody, much less its mother, can cure its illness or kill its hunger. In the two cases, to survive already is a victory.
Poor children are common in Haiti. The families belong who if support with less of one dollar per day and live the gift, never the future. Monita Sezar, mother of Clarence, do not have access the health rank and it does not imagine when it will have condition to pay a school for the son. For the time being, the boy wanders for the streets of Cité Soleil, the violent slum quarter of more than 300 a thousand inhabitants. However coal is in way the women packing, as its mother makes every day. However it circulates to the side of young armed chimeras, that make question to defy the power. E in some occasions if takes refuge of violent operations of foreign military, including of the Brazilians.
Cité Soleil is today the problem and the solution. It evidences some of the biggest difficulties of Haiti that goes to the ballot boxes divided, in November ends. In 6 of July, the Minustah – the force of peace of the Joined Nations – made an operation of war in the slum quarter. Commanded for the Chilean ambassador Juan Gabriel Valdés, head of the mission of the ONU, and having to the front Brazilian general August Heleno Ribeiro Pear tree, the action more than involved 400 soldiers and 40 vehicles heavy and left sets of ten of died civilians, between them Emannuel Dread Wilmé, influential leader of armed gangs. Most unexpected: many inhabitants had started to hate the Minustah.
“We could not tolerate that a group of 50 individuals continued spreading the panic in Port Prince and destroying the possibility of tranquillity for the country”, Valdés said. The exit was to adopt the military tactics of the “encapsulamento”. To the operation of war, actions had been followed to isolate Cité Soleil and, over all, the partisans of the Lavallas, contrary movement to the Minustah. Defending fidiciary offices of former-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, that fell in February of 2004, they tried to desestabilizar the country with a wave of kidnappings, detonations for the streets of Port Prince and indiscriminate slaughter. Without Wilmé, the gangs seem to have if desmobilizado and lost force.
Today, Port Prince, the capital of 3 million inhabitants, is a calmer city of the one than it has 15 months, beginning of the mission of peace of the ONU. The new cars had come back to circulate it. Many commerce had reopened and more is not seen as much garbage in the streets. In Bel-Air, tap-taps, the Haitian capacities, before banished for the gangs, transits normally.
Since August, the third contingent of the sent Brazilian Army to the country started to have greater presence, transmitting security for the population of the capital. In créole, military vehicles had divulged messages as “Quarter without outlaw has schools and ranks of health opened, children playing ball in the street”. Well they had been received. “Age our car of pamonha”, plays the lieutenant-colonel Andres Luis Novaes Miranda.
In the remain of the country, the situation is normalized. The misery is the same one and the difficulties are translated the fight to gain money. Yolanda Joa, of 18 years, deferred payment in the verge with the Dominican Republic. It travels kilometers to buy Chinese shoes in Haitian Handle and to resell them in the neighboring city, Dajabón, to the second and thursday, only days of free border. “We risk here because in Haiti nobody purchase nothing”, says it. The risks go of the passage in the dangerous roads in buses sucateados until venda of the merchandise for Dominican that each time more wants distance of the Haitians. Only in May, 3 a thousand had been more than deported.
ISOLATION
To the little a violence it is not so present in the interior. Former-military who tumultuated the life of Haitian Handle, north of Haiti, demanding the reinstallation of the Army practically had been silenced. The majority followed for the capital demanding the payment of pensions to the temporary government and it does not worry more the Chilean contingent. In Gonaïves, where she has one year the Jeanne hurricane arrasou already the devastada city of 200 a thousand inhabitants, the Argentine troops had acted in humanitarian fronts, had obtained to interrupt the cycle of seted gangs, but they had not diminished the force of the radios. They are more than 10 stations that stir up to the in agreement population the trend that apóiam. They only notify what he interests to them. For the Minustah, it is a preoccupying problem in all the country.
In this scene, Cité Soleil turned the ugly duckling history. It is as if a problematic slum quarter of the River was isolated and the inquired population if it preferred to be with the remaining portion of the city or the violent part. For all the effect, the Minustah denies the tactics.
First, it affirms that the Lavallas goes to participate of the elections. It had, in fact, the registration of on candidates to the party Lavallas Family, but nor all recognize this (to read in the page to the side). A cadastre committee of voters was only installed in the entrance of the slum quarter. “the only exit would be a president of the Lavallas”, twists Willy Gerançon, of 26 years, in the line of an electoral rank. “the situation so far, with these foreign missions, did not move. Still it lacks everything in Cité Soleil.”
The isolation has a high price. The probable hernia of the small Clarence Utyle (to see photo above) could easily be treated in a hospital. Cité Soleil alone has one, kept for the Doctors Without Borders, that take care of the most serious emergencies, as the wounded of 6 of July. Observed at a distance for jordanianas, young troops armed they continue emitting force signals. In the streets, they show metal rings and pistols such as the dealers in the Carioca mounts. They hinder the entrance it to be able public, that it seems not to strengthen itself to be there.
The Minustah now is seen as invading by the rebels of the country. E before idolatrados welded the Brazilian ones already are not more unamimity. For however, the diverse of the military to please to the people with soccer attempts departures, social projects and humanitarian actions occasion some effect. But the Haitians already give signals of that they want much more that this.
Haitian election will have few voters and many candidates
And if the Haitian elections to fail? Establishment of the ONU already works with this hypothesis, so great the imprevisibilidade of the ballot boxes. In a race where it has 32 candidates to the presidency, a stranger, but previsibly reduced participation of voters and latent factors of instability, to wait that it is born of this process a new country he is utopian. “Haiti in the following day to the elections sufficiently will be seemed to the one of today”, says the Chilean ambassador Juan Gabriel Valdés, head of the mission of peace of the ONU, signaling a misty future. “the next government goes to need four years of support of the international community more. To think that if it can abandon the country after just-elect a government is an irresponsibility.”
The elections will be marked by the inaquality, a time that does not have public financing of candidates. The politician who will have more resources will count on outdoors, propaganda in the radios, many controlled times for they themselves, and canvasser. Who will not have, will have to appeal charisma and the pichações that already sprout for all the part in walls leached ashes of the Haitian houses, never finished. The ghost that torments Comitê Eleitoral Provisório (CEP), responsible for the organization of the elections, it is the popular participation. In the truth, the lack of it. The initial forecast was of 4,5 million voters – in Haiti, statisticians are manipulable. Today, one will have 3 million enrolled already will be a victory.
After an initial race, the Haitians had left empty the ranks of electoral register. In a country where half of the population is illiterate and without access to any vestige of being able public, many do not know that it will have elections. To prevent fiasco, a provisory executive order determined that the voter heading would also serve as identity card – Haitian they do not have RG. Until the calendar it is threatened and nobody guarantees that the first turn will occur in 20 of November. To vote is not obligator. “the essential one is qualitative and the to not quantitative one”, affirms Gérard it le Chevallier, head of the CEP.
Since the end of February of 2004, Haiti lives an instability situation politics. Rebellious groups had forced the exit of president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, with support of the United States and France, that after that troops had sent. Four months later, the ONU initiated the peace mission. E from Brazil if involved in a risky task diplomatics when accepting there to lead a military force in the country poor of Americas.
It is as the bigger Brazilian military effort in the exterior, only behind a mission in the Middle East in years 50 and 60 (to see picture in p 20). For the first time, Latin American countries, as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Peru, command a mission of this transport.
MANDATE
The Minustah was created to fulfill a mandate clearly: to stabilize the country, to allow the accomplishment of democratic elections and to disarm the Haitians. The last goal already was left of side. The apprehensions of weapons had been irrisórias and no serious program of disarmament was launched. Haiti lives a situation of relative calm, but it is difficult to foresee the following day with as many armed groups. Therefore, the elections had turned an incognito. As much can be the evidence of the failure of the ONU and the Latin Americans in the leadership of the mission, as the first step in the formation of a legitimate government.
Although to have 32 candidates, two opposing sides must polarize the attention. The partisans of the Lavallas Family, whose preferred candidate is imprisoned, the priest Jean Juste, and will not concur, and influential Group 184, of Haitian entrepreneurs supported by the United States. Years behind, Haitian companies exploring man power cheap were a great supplier of uniforms and electronic components for the Americans. “We are majority and we were excluded. We go to boycott and to protest against these elections “, threat John Joël Joseph, council member of the Lavallas. Already the Haitian elite still did not define its candidate. But, in a needy nation, campaign money can make all the difference.
