Photo by Holly Wilmeth
Pro-Aristide supporters near the presidential palace Feb. 27 await the rebel invasion of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
On the Ground in Haiti
Part I: Arrival and Aristide's Fair-Weather Fans
by Carmen Gentile
Carmen Gentile, a Latin America correspondent for United Press International, spent two weeks in Haiti covering the fall of the Jean-Bertrand Aristide regime. What follows is the first installment in a three-part series about his front-row seat to political upheaval.
The black plastic bag in the car's trunk looked harmless enough.
"Does it stink?" I asked — a reasonable question considering so much in the Haitian capital emitted a foul odor. Head-high mountains of garbage reeked of rotten melons and old feet. Black, stagnant rivers of sewer water lolled in ditches, excreting the foulness of a thousand unflushed toilets. Thick, acrid smoke wafting from burning tires left a toxic scorch mark in my nose and throat that I couldn't shake for two days after I left Port-au-Prince.
My colleagues laughed at my apprehension of encountering another olfactory offense, prodding me to open the bag. But the dicey tale of its procurement weighed heavily on my mind, keeping me from plunging my hand into the sack.
Their fixer, Ricardo, a sinewy Haitian of ill-repute and odd behavior, had asked the photographers to stop by a cemetery earlier that day so he could finish a little business. After much haggling with a crypt keeper over the price — 250 Haitian Gourdes (about $5.95) — Ricardo was given the black bag.
His motive for purchasing it was strictly resale, at a significant markup of course. An acupuncturist in Miami who practiced a blend of Eastern medicine and Haiti's own voodoo was an anxious customer.
On the surface, it all seemed logical, considering the various inexplicable and life-threatening situations I'd already experienced up to that point while reporting on Haiti's unrest. Why should a sack of dubious origins and unknown content rattle me now?
I picked loose the knot with one hand — careful to keep my head clear of any foul odors — while Hector shined a tiny flashlight into the trunk, trying not to laugh. The bag opened and the beam illuminated a white, fractured cap, giving the bag's contents a ghostly pallor.
With that, I had just learned the latest in a series of lessons about the widely misunderstood Caribbean nation: Six bucks was the going rate for a human skull.
Photo by James Heil
A pro-Aristide demonstrator wears a newspaper picture of the president as a mask.
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While attempting to hash out Haiti's ongoing political conflict and increasing death toll, I was bewitched by its ills and charms, an enchantment that had little to do with voodoo hexes. The much maligned and misunderstood religion factored little into my day-to-day. Well, as far as I could tell, it didn't. But who knew what forces were at play behind the scenes? Besides, I had enough questions that needed to be answered without concerning myself with the otherworldly.
When I arrived in late February, on the last American Airlines flight out of Miami before service was suspended, Port-au-Prince was already wracked with tension. Hoping to make sense of the ever-growing chaos in the capital, I hit the ground just as rebels threatened to storm the city and force President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office.
Roadblocks made of stones, debris and stripped-down auto chassis cut off many streets. The cab ride to my downtown hotel was a zigzagging, backtracking whirlwind of dour, old faces plodding along fractured sidewalks. Joining us on the road were fanatical young men and teenage boys packed into pickups, brandishing firearms and screaming their support for Aristide.
Known as "chimeres" after the fierce mythological creature, these militant enthusiasts for the president were the law in Port-au-Prince, as well as anywhere else the rebels hadn't already staked their claim, which, by the end of the month, was most of the country.
On Feb. 5, the rebels — mostly former members of the military Aristide disbanded in 1995 — took over the port city of Gonaives. From there, they set out on a methodical campaign to seize every city, town and hamlet. Led by former military leader Guy Philippe, the rebels entered a city and forced local authorities to step aside or face death. Many police, as well as civilians, were killed on the chimeres' march to the capital.
When I came to Port-au-Prince, the rebels were reportedly laying low just miles from the city's outskirts, hoping that the tension wrought by their presence would persuade Aristide to step down.
But the 50-year-old slum-preacher-turned-president pledged not to budge, saying he'd finish his term — set to expire in February 2006 — or die trying. His faithful supporters, chimeres and unarmed civilians alike, often echoed that sentiment. "We are not afraid to face death with Aristide," said salesman Christian Pierre, 26, outside the presidential palace, where hundreds of Haitians gathered every afternoon to watch armed guards lower the Haitian flag and their leader depart by helicopter for his residence near the airport. "We will gladly die with him in our arms."
Nods of agreement were all around. In fact, every time I asked someone a question about the rebel threat to Aristide, 50 Haitians surrounded me eager to express their loyalty. All the while, the chimeres rolled through the plaza outside the palace — arms at the ready — listening for those foolish enough to utter a disparaging word to me about the president.
Journalists and critics of Aristide widely believed the chimeres were sanctioned by the president himself, and possibly even funded with what little money remained in the country's public coffers.
In addition to being the hemisphere's poorest nation, Haiti, over the past few years, had about half a billion dollars in foreign aid withheld due to charges that Aristide rigged the 2000 election, which the political opposition boycotted. Widespread reports of corruption and human rights abuses during Aristide's tenure didn't help. Combine these factors with the fact that the country has become cocaine smugglers' jump-off point between South America and the United States, and the outlook for future cash infusions from the international community looks grim.
With the wellspring of foreign aid cut off, a bitter, starving mass emerged. Born of the chaos and despair created by Haiti's extreme poverty (most people earn less than a dollar a day) was the chimere. True to Greek mythology's unnatural births and hideous offspring came the gun-wielding, blood-thirsty gangs that roamed the streets of Port-au-Prince with impunity.
But it wasn't until Aristide reneged on his word and fled the country that I'd experience the full, mythical extent of the chimeres' wrath.
E-mail Carmen Gentile at cgentile at upi dot com.
