Behind the News : Pistols in the Parliament: On Haitian Politics

There’s no politics like Haitian politics, a murky, jabberwocky world where words have two, three and more meanings, double-dealing and triple-crossings are the norm and the gun surpasses the word in debate.

It is a world where conservative businessmen back an orthodox Communist as prime minister over a renowned free-market economist; where an elected deputy brandishes a gun on the floor of Parliament and equates the .45-caliber automatic with debate; and where the country’s most respected human rights advocate accepts the role of puppet prime minister and apologist for the same army officers he had bitterly opposed.

In this world, the first democratically elected president, a Catholic priest, speaks eloquently--even lyrically--of the lovely aroma of burning tires hung around the necks of opponents.

In Haiti, politics is not a settling of problems, it is a settling of accounts.

If the results weren’t almost always coups, corruption, brutality and gruesome death, Haitian politics would be funnier than Will Rogers or Jay Leno could even imagine. It certainly would test Rogers’ assertion that he never met a man he didn’t like.

All of this Alice-in-Wonderland madness and more is evident in the descent into the nether world of the Aristide affair.

It began with the 1990 election of radical Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president and has continued through his violent overthrow last fall, a harsh U.S. economic embargo and the unseemly support of Aristide’s military tormentors by people once described by the United States as Haiti’s best hopes for democracy.

The deposed president and his opponents reached a vague settlement last week aimed at returning him to office, if not power. But even if it works, there is nothing in the process that promises any better news in the future.

If anything, what has happened in the latest Haitian crisis points to an even darker future--a drama where all the heroes are doomed to acts of betrayal because of tragic failures of their own souls.

Consider, as both apt example and object lesson, Marc Bazin, the U.S. Embassy’s favorite Haitian politician. A middle-aged man of some wealth, Bazin seems on the surface an ideal Western, democratic politician. An internationally recognized economist and former senior official of the World Bank, Bazin moved comfortably in the orbit of U.S. ambassadors, foreign investors and journalists with his perfect command of English and French. He has a bit more problem at home, since he doesn’t speak the local language of Creole.

Although a finance minister under the inept and brutal Jean-Claude Duvalier, he became the bright hope of American officials here, who convinced themselves that because of his educational and social background, his moderate pro-American rhetoric and his general demeanor, he was the country’s best bet for democratic reform. Bazin made several tries for the presidency in the various and doomed elections of the 1980s, finally running a bad second to Aristide when an honest vote finally took place in 1990.

Bazin pledged not to back any anti-Aristide coup. But when the army moved, he hesitated only briefly before speaking out in support.

Sitting under the lavender flowers of the bougainvillea trees that shade the veranda of his home in the wealthy suburb of Petionville the other day, Bazin smilingly spoke in measured tones of why he, a democrat, prefers a military-directed regime over a popularly elected president.

“Aristide is no democrat,” Bazin said, his eyes sparkling behind his gold-rimmed, aviator-style glasses. “He is an autocrat . . . who sees himself as a combination of (Fidel) Castro and (the Ayatollah) Khomeini.

“I was against the coup in principle,” he said, “but there are many misconceptions about the army . . . (and) in the three months since the coup, I think the army has developed a social base of its own because of its opposition to Aristide . . . and more people are willing to support the army.”

The army leaders, he contended, are a new breed, “better prepared to do good. . . . An army government in some sense will do more than Aristide” for the people.

Besides, Bazin said, “Why do you expect me to do more for Aristide than Aristide did for himself? . . . Why should I support him?”

Well, it was suggested, given the bloody and self-destructive record of Haitian political history, might this not be the time for professed democrats to set aside personal ambitions, ideologies and business associations in order to join in a national unity movement to ensure that elections are respected and presidents allowed to serve a full term so the democratic process is continued?

Not for him, Bazin said. “I understand your point, but you can’t understand mine unless you were here (during Aristide’s eight months in office)”

“If you were here in this house for three consecutive weeks waiting for the crowds he sent to come, with your wife upstairs in the house that I bought with my own money . . . .” His voice trailed off into silence. Then: “What does he do but come after me?”

His change of mind about the coup might have something to do with the fact that he was backed by some officers to be the new prime minister. There is also the consideration that his prime financial backers are coup supporters.

“I can’t stay quiet because I have a responsibility to the people who support me,” was the way he put it on the warm and languid afternoon of the interview.

The late British writer Graham Greene, whose novel “The Comedians” is still one of the most insightful explorations of the Haitian phenomenon, once wrote that tyranny produces heroes and “Haiti ought to be given the chance to be ruled by heroes.”

The problem, it seems now, is that Greene got it backward; in Haiti the heroes produce tyranny.