Why Haitian refugees still cross the sea

How badly off is Haiti?

Haiti’s 8 million people live amid unimaginable squalor, disease, and social chaos. It is easily the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. The average Haitian earns about a dollar a day; 50 percent of children under the age of 5 suffer from malnutrition. The economy consists primarily of small-scale and subsistence farming; a few foreign clothing and electronics factories employ about 20,000 workers, at wages of $1 to $3 a day. Political strife has scared off foreign investment, and the withered economy has actually grown worse in recent years. With unemployment at 70 percent, refugees regularly pile by the hundreds into wooden boats, hoping to escape. “I was so disappointed in life I decided to take to the sea,” said Jasmin Destin, a father of two who left Haiti, only to be returned by the U.S. Coast Guard. “I want my kids to grow up with decent lives.”

Didn’t the U.S. try to help?

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Yes, and it did, at least initially. The Haitian military overthrew the elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 1991, and ruled with an iron hand for three years. The U.S. and other countries imposed crippling economic sanctions, then lifted them when the Haitian army ceded power in 1994, and constitutional order was restored. Cheering crowds mobbed the National Palace when Aristide returned aboard an American helicopter after three years in exile. A former Catholic priest, Aristide was widely viewed as a champion of the poor. The U.S. spent about $100 million a year during the 1990s, and Canada, France, and other nations added tens of millions more, to help give the Haitian people a fresh start.

Did Aristide make any headway?

Some, but not much. He dismantled the army, which had jailed and shot people without cause, and the oppressive atmosphere of fear lifted. Foreign aid brought incremental improvements in health care and helped rebuild roads. But Haiti’s other problems were not so easily solved. Corruption was deeply rooted in public enterprises such as the nation’s power company; Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, continued to suffer frequent blackouts. Desperate farmers had already deforested the countryside, and their yields continued to fall. As the euphoria of Aristide’s return faded, many of the president’s former allies turned into critics, and then enemies, as he excluded them from his government.

Then what happened?

Aristide retained popular support, but the Parliament was divided into factions, and reform measures stalled amid constant political bickering. In 1995, as Aristide’s term expired, his handpicked successor, Rene Preval, was elected in a landslide. But by then the Parliament was so divided that Preval couldn’t even get a budget passed. Key government posts sat vacant, leaving Cabinet ministries unable to collect and spend hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid. “You vote, and nothing changes,” an unemployed father of four said during Preval’s presidency. “So why vote?”

Why is there so much infighting?

Like many African nations with a long history of colonial rule, Haiti has not had a smooth transition from winner-take-all politics to democracy. Autocratic rulers have governed Haiti ever since a revolt of slaves expelled the French in 1804. Aristide’s supporters believed his 1990 election was an overwhelming mandate to end the economic and political dominance of Haiti’s small aristocracy, and demanded a free hand to reshape the country. But the aristocracy did not agree, and they were soon joined by others who wanted to share in Aristide’s power. Opponents say Aristide may have meant well at the beginning, but has since become just another dictator.

Why do they say that?

Fearful of being toppled again, Aristide has taken a harsh line toward opponents. Last year, after sitting out for five years as required by Haiti’s constitution, Aristide won a new term as president. He received 90 percent of the vote, but rival political groups complain that paramilitary groups of Aristide loyalists intimidated his foes and corrupted the voting process. Opponents boycotted the election. Months later, the opposition accused election officials of rigging the parliamentary elections to give pro-Aristide candidates near total control of the legislature. With controversy swirling around him, Aristide set out to make good on his campaign promise—“Peace of mind, peace in the belly.”

Is he having any luck?

Haitians, go home