A ‘Communist’ Solution for Haiti? : Politics: The country weighs a plan to end its crisis by naming a moderate leftist as prime minister.

“Haiti is so screwed up,” the senior Haitian army officer told the foreign official, “that when communism has failed all over the world, Haiti is naming a Communist as prime minister.”

“Communism, shmomunism,” scoffed another foreign official. “Who cares?”

These contrasting views exemplify the division and shifting of traditional positions that mark the crucial maneuverings over what is called here “The Solution.” They refer to a plan to end the crisis that began Sept. 30 with the violent overthrow of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide by appointing as prime minister Rene Theodore, an outspoken Aristide opponent, and arranging Aristide’s return with restricted powers.

The problem is that Theodore, 51, is a Communist. Or as he explained it recently, a soon-to-be former Communist. “When I am named prime minister I will resign from the Communist Party,” he told reporters, “and I will be an ex-Communist or former Communist, or whatever you want to call me.”

In a country where the powerful business and political elite fear any move toward class reconciliation or equitable redistribution of wealth and where the controlling army has been trained by the United States to loathe communism, Theodore is an anomaly.

The United States, the leader of the world’s anti-Communist movement, is actively backing Theodore, as is Aristide from exile; the army high command and major segments of the intellectual and business sectors are also supporting him.

“Rene is one of the most intelligent, honest and best men in the country,” said Maryse Penette, Haiti’s ambassador to the European Community for five years and a major figure in the Port-au-Prince economic elite. “There is nobody better suited to lead this country.”

But there is important opposition, now so strong that The Solution is in danger of falling apart. As Marc Bazin--another member of the Haitian elite, onetime World Bank vice president and a prime minister aspirant--explains the resistance to Theodore: “Once a Communist always a Communist. Theodore is a Communist . . . a serious Communist.”

Theodore, based on his record, does not appear to be a classic Marxist-Leninist of the old Soviet style.

The great grandchild of one of Haiti’s many short-lived presidents (David Devailmar Theodore served as president in 1914 for three months), Rene Theodore is a member of the country’s “black bourgeois,” black Haitians who have attained economic and political stature in a society dominated by light-skinned mulattoes.

His background was not that of the stereotypical Communist, emerging from poverty and alienation. Theodore graduated from the Superior Normal School with a degree in physics and mathematics. His father, a legislative deputy from 1967 to 1971, now lives in Tampa, Fla. A brother is a noted thoracic surgeon at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University. He squires Rene around in a black Mercedes-Benz sedan when his Communist brother visits Washington. A sister resides in south Florida.

Discouraged by the corrupt, often brutal, political and economic conditions here, Theodore left Haiti in 1968 and studied in the old Soviet Union, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. His supporters note that while in Moscow, where he married a Russian woman and fathered twin girls, he attended the Institute of Social Sciences--not Patrice Lumumba University, the training ground for many of the Third World’s budding Communists.

He joined the Haitian Communist Party, called the PEP here, as a student. But he stayed away, moving to France in 1975. He didn’t return permanently to Haiti until 1986, when he took an active role in a new version of the party called the United Party of Haitian Communists or PUCH. “Since then,” he told foreign journalists recently, “I’ve taken a direct role in a political fight for real democracy in Haiti.”

By rabid anti-Communist and even pro-Communist standards, that role was different and low-key. “My evolution is clear,” he said, outlining a program that would repel a staunch, Castro-style Communist. His program would include capitalism, foreign aid, foreign investment and a multi-party coalition government with jobs determined by merit not party membership.

“The world has changed for me,” he said when asked about his shift from a traditional Communist view. “I do not cling to an anachronistic and archaic spirit.”

In a press conference this week, he said that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s communism was out of date and that the onetime spiritual father of Third World Marxism and anti-Americanism will be affected by the changes in the world and must bend to the new trends to survive.

Although some, such as Bazin, refuse to accept him and equate him with the class driven populism of the ousted president, Theodore ran against Aristide in the 1990 elections; he finished fourth with 3.5% of the vote. Theodore also was among the first to oppose the new president’s erratic, sometimes autocratic policies.

“Aristide had no program,” he told the foreign journalists. Referring to Aristide’s movement, Theodore said it “wanted to profit from power, to transform society to a very particular vision that did not correspond with the reality of the time.”

Besides his moderate, even conservative economic and social approach, one of the factors that has made Theodore most attractive to the U.S. Embassy, the Haitian military and the business community is his lack of self-consciousness and ego, a separating characteristic in a country where self-promotion and personal ambition mark nearly every other would-be leader.

His personal life supports that modesty. He lives in a pleasant but ordinary house in a nice but unassuming neighborhood. At a time where many expect his enemies to try to kill him, Theodore travels with few bodyguards, driving an inexpensive, Japanese car.

He is tall, thin and speaks Spanish, French, Russian and Creole. His lack of English is considered one of his few drawbacks in a country largely dependent on American support.

In Theodore’s view and in that of most diplomats and many Haitians, Haiti’s future is in the hands of the National Assembly, which is bogged down in a crucial debate over The Solution. The key to the dispute is whether the constitution, usually observed here in the breach but suddenly being cited as all-controlling, permits The Solution or requires new elections to replace Aristide.

If the debate concludes that a new prime minister can be named and Aristide returned, then the two-house assembly will vote directly on The Solution. If the decision is that Aristide is no longer president and the constitution requires new elections, or if Theodore is voted down, most experts say Haiti is doomed to years of violence, corruption, poverty and international isolation.