When United Nations troops kill residents of the Haitian slum Cité Soleil, friends and family often place photographs of exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide on their bodies.
The photographs silently insist that there is a method to the madness raging in Port-au-Prince. Poor Haitians are being slaughtered not for being "violent," as we so often hear, but for being militant, for daring to demand the return of their elected president.
It was only 10 years ago that U.S. president Bill Clinton celebrated Aristide’s return to power as "the triumph of freedom over fear." So what changed? Corruption? Violence? Fraud? Aristide is certainly no saint. But even if the worst of the allegations are true, they pale next to the rap sheets of the convicted killers, drug smugglers and arms traders who ousted Aristide and continue to enjoy free rein, with full support from the Bush administration and the UN.
Turning Haiti over to this underworld gang out of concern for Aristide’s lack of "good governance" is like escaping an annoying date by accepting a lift home from Charles Manson.
A few weeks ago I visited Aristide in Pretoria, where he lives in forced exile. I asked him what was really behind his dramatic falling-out with Washington. He offered an explanation rarely heard in discussions of Haitian politics. Actually, he offered three: "privatization, privatization and privatization."
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