TV REVIEWS : ‘Haiti’ Explores Plight of Island Nation

To mark the first anniversary of the military overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, PBS is airing tonight the one-hour “Haiti: Killing the Dream,” a saddening, informative documentary.

Vividly capturing the poverty, squalor and chaotic violence that despoil an otherwise beautiful island nation, “Haiti: Killing the Dream” is the latest in a line of documentaries that conscientiously charts the ugly history of U.S. imperialism and indifference in the Caribbean and South America.

It airs at 9 p.m. on KCET-TV Channel 28 and KPBS-TV Channel 15, and at 8 p.m. on KVCR-TV Channel 24. It was directed by Babeth, Katharine Kean, Hart Perry and Rudi Stern and presented by Jonathan Demme, Harry Belafonte and Edward Saxon. Narrator Ossie Davis gives weight and dignity to Juan Gonzalez and Marc Levin’s informative commentary.

A combination of the words of interviewees, some of them in hiding, and a long list of grim statistics tell the story: Haiti, ruled by a succession of dictatorships, is the poorest, most vulnerable country in the Western Hemisphere, with about 75% of the adult population illiterate and unemployed. In the wake of the 1986 flight of dictator Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier, Haiti’s poor and oppressed were at last given hope with the emergence of Aristide, a priest who was elected with a whopping 67% of the votes, in December, 1990--yet he was opposed by the U.S. government.

He set up literacy programs, AIDS education and land reform while concentrating on narrowing the awesome gap between the vast numbers of the poor and the handful of the superrich, who paid no taxes and were “virtually a law unto themselves.” However, in the eyes of the military, Aristide made his first mistake when he requested that seven generals resign.

The role of the United States in Haitian history, right up to the tragic present, is shown to be hardly edifying, to say the least. And “Haiti: Killing the Dream” ends appropriately with a protest against the fact that, of the 38,000 Haitians fleeing from their homeland since the overthrow of Aristide, the United States has turned back 27,000 to face whatever the military might have in store for them. A refugee center official claims racism informs our policy, an accusation not easy to refute.

--KEVIN THOMAS