Amid Hoopla, Haiti’s Have-Nots Worry About Future

The speeches by the leaders standing in the shade of a Presidential Palace awning were warm and confident. But for those sweating in the sun-seared street, the words stirred concern and uncertainty.

Most of the signs circulating through the relatively sparse crowd Friday echoed the sentiment on one professionally produced placard: “You made the right move, Bill. Thank you.”

“Yes, welcome, Bill Clinton,” said Jean Marcel, a soda vendor who hoped to make some money from the crowd in front of the palace as President Jean-Bertrand Aristide thanked President Clinton for delivering him and Haiti from the terror of military dictatorship.

“But,” Marcel continued, “we need jobs, we need to work, and we need to be safe.”

Uncapping a soda, a Haitian boy walked by and displayed his sign. “The high cost of living is the enemy of democracy,” the red letters said.

The street crowd, which was kept at least 15 feet from the palace fence, totaled about 5,000 for the morning exchange between Clinton and Aristide. It was much smaller than the crowd that showed up for Aristide’s Oct. 15 return from three years of forced exile--and much smaller than the tens of thousands that Haitian organizers had hoped for.

Almost all of those who came were black, young and dressed in tatters.

The scene was in stark contrast to the one five miles away where a thousand or so of Haiti’s white and mixed-race elite gathered at the Port-au-Prince Country Club to watch the opening round of a Davis Cup qualification match between Haiti and Paraguay.

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The tennis watchers arrived in so many Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs, Jaguars and other luxury vehicles that their cars had to be parked as far as a mile away. Most of those watching Clinton and Aristide came by foot.

Perhaps because Clinton and Aristide spoke from behind bulletproof glass on a stand about 200 yards from the closest street audience, response to the event was markedly reserved.

Only when Aristide urged the crowd to chant “We are all Lavalas!” a reference to his political movement, did people eagerly respond.

Prosper Antile, 18, preferred to talk about the frightening growth in crime rather than cheer people he could barely see.

“I am afraid at night,” he said. “There is more crime now than before the Americans came.”

Others came more to pass time than be part of history.

“I heard there would be people here,” said Chantal Rigaud, who stood barefoot on the heat-softened asphalt street.

“Is that Bill Clinton?” she asked of a U.S. civilian security agent on the other side of the fence.

But the afternoon ceremony marking the transfer of the international military operation here from U.S. to U.N. command was barely noted in the streets.

By the time Clinton, Aristide and U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali appeared after lunch, there were nearly as many people at a nearby street carnival than in front of the palace.

The handoff had no real immediate impact. Nearly 5,000 U.S. troops are still here, although that figure will drop to 2,400 by the end of April, when troops from other U.N. countries will form the bulk of the operation.

What is noticeable is the color of the international military vehicles. The olive-brown camouflage surfaces of U.S. equipment, trucks, armored vehicles and even helicopters are being repainted a chalky white.