Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Volume 7, Number 2, Summer/Fall 2006

CIAO DATE: 08/07

Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

Mission Not Accomplished
Bathsheba N. Crocker

Excerpt

Bathsheba N. Crocker is deputy chief of staff in the UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery. She previously co-directed the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and she traveled to Haiti in the spring of 2005.

On 7 February 2006, Haitians went to the polls to elect a president for only the fourth time in the country’s two-hundred-year history. Rene Préval, a protégé of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was declared the winner in an election marked by high voter turnout, allegations of fraud, mass street demonstrations, and several deaths. Préval inherits serious security, economic, and political challenges, which Haiti’s interim government, supported by a UN mission, could not effectively address during its two-year lifespan.

Haiti suffers from rampant insecurity, particularly in the capital’s urban slums, where gangs and criminals are largely immune to the efforts of Haiti’s struggling police force and UN peacekeepers. Over half the population lives in extreme poverty, and government institutions are largely moribund. The interim government, which lacked credibility among Haiti’s eight million people, was beset by familiar Haitian governance problems: corruption, ineptitude, and human rights abuses.

The international community has touted elections as the key to a democratic Haiti. Without altering Haiti’s fundamental institutional dynamics, however, elections alone will do little to improve the situation or to ensure that democracy take root. Elections are a necessary but insufficient condition for positive change.

Haiti’s international friends will have to work with President Préval on three areas of critical importance: security, economic reconstruction, and governance and institutional reform. As other post-conflict situations demonstrate, all three are interlinked. Addressing them effectively will require sustained engagement by the international community on all three fronts, without which Haiti may once again be on the road to failure.

Haiti has a history of ineffective and corrupt governments and frequent but ultimately unsuccessful international interventions.1 Success in the latest intervention depends on a reinvigorated international focus and a real Haitian commitment backed by the United States as a more dedicated lead nation. The United States must actively shepherd Haiti policy from Washington, which wields considerable pressure over Haiti’s political and business elites; on the ground in Port-au-Prince, to ensure that Haiti’s leaders stick to commitments; and in New York, to keep the UN Security Council effectively engaged, ensuring the mission has a mandate that is drawn broadly, is funded adequately, and does not withdraw before the time is right.

The burden cannot rest on U.S.’s or the UN’s shoulders alone: all donors must commit to the pledges made at the donors’ conference in 2004 and speed up delivery of assistance; stakeholders must ensure that the 2004 plan for Haiti’s recovery is not an empty promise; and Haiti’s politicians and business leaders must back reforms that will rebuild institutions and tackle economic recovery. Only with sufficient commitment, resources, and buy-in from all players in Haiti’s recovery will the country start to address its security, economic, and governance ills. This article will present the recent historical context; analyze recent elections; and enumerate priorities for Haiti in achieving security, enhancing economic reconstruction, and strengthening its institutions.

Recent Historical Context

The most recent chapter of unrest in Haiti began in early 2004, when armed gangs made up largely of former members of Haiti’s now disbanded army (known as “ex-FADH”) staged a violent rebellion, seizing control of two key Haitian cities, Gonaives and Cap Haitien. Aristide resigned on 28 February 2004 and fled the country aboard a U.S.-chartered plane to exile in South Africa. For the next two years, an interim government governed Haiti, supported by a UN peacekeeping mission.

Upon Aristide’s departure, the UN Security Council authorized the deployment of a U.S.-led Multinational Interim Force, which was replaced after three months by the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), the fifth UN mission in Haiti since the early 1990s.2 MINUSTAH is mandated to assist the transitional government in three broad areas: creating a secure and stable environment, supporting the constitutional and political process, and promoting and protecting human rights.

MINUSTAH deployed slowly and has been criticized for not being aggressive enough in combating the gangs that control Port-au-Prince’s slums. The interim government is also vulnerable to criticism, having failed after two years to garner legitimacy or credibility. That Haiti is a failed state in crisis is clear, but elections alone will do little to change that reality. The efforts of Haiti’s new government and its international partners after the elections will determine whether Haiti’s transition marks a fundamental shift in the country’s history.

Elections

Elections are a procedural device that sets ground-rules for deciding who rules, but they cannot fix Haiti’s fundamental wrongs. Unless the newly elected government, working with the international community, makes a long-term commitment to address the insecurity, economic inertia, and lack of capable governing institutions, the latest round of elections will be remembered as another exercise in futility.

Efforts to hold elections were stymied by logistical and technical problems, the security situation, and a lack of political commitment by the interim government and certain factions of Haiti’s power elites. A Provisional Electoral Council (known by its French acronym CEP) was established in early 2004 to manage the electoral process. The Organization of American States (OAS) oversaw voter registration, with MINUSTAH providing technical assistance and security. Despite an international outlay of $60 million for elections preparations, one observer noted that “the best you can say is that this [electoral] process has been a political, technical, logistical, and financial fiasco.”3 Originally scheduled for 6 November 2005, elections were delayed four times.
Haiti’s interim leaders finally stuck to the February 7 date, and the elections—which saw heavy voter turnout—were generally touted as successful, despite some violence at polling stations. But their immediate aftermath was messy, plagued by allegations of fraud that resulted in violent protests by Préval’s supporters, who were concerned that the initial vote count would not reach the 50 percent Préval needed in order to avert a run-off. Eventually, prodded by strong international pressure, Haiti’s interim leaders and presidential candidates, the CEP, the UN, and the OAS brokered a deal under which Préval was declared the winner with just over 50 percent of the vote. That cooler heads prevailed was crucial, as Haiti was headed toward a worrisome spiral into further violence. But the real test will be whether Préval can sustain the spirit of negotiation and compromise that led to the smooth completion of these elections.

1 Haitian politics have been generally violent and authoritarian since it gained independence in 1804. Thirty despotic rulers led Haiti until the collapse of President Jean-Claude Duvalier’s regime in 1986. The country also has a long past with international interventions. The United States has sent military troops to Haiti three times: from 1915-1934, Haiti was under U.S. military occupation; in 1994, a U.S.-led intervention restored Aristide to power; and most recently, in 2004, U.S. troops led the Multinational Interim Force after Aristide’s departure, before the UN mission began. For more on Haiti’s history, see, e.g., Robert Maguire, “Haiti Held Hostage: International Responses to the Quest for Nationhood 1896-1996,” Occasional Paper #23, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, 1996; Robert Rotberg, “Haiti: A Case of Endemic Weakness,” in Rotberg (ed.), State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror (Brookings Institute, 2003).
2 The Security Council passed Resolution 1529 on 29 February 2005, establishing the Multinational Interim Force. See S/Res/1529, 2004 at http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/254/10/PDF/N0425410.pdf?OpenElement. This was followed by Resolution 1542, passed on 30 April 2004, which lays out MINUSTAH’s mandate. See S/Res/1542, 2004 at http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/332/98/PDF/N0433298.pdf?OpenElement.
3 Danna Harman, “Haiti’s Elusive Polls,” Christian Science Monitor, 9 January 2006, quoting Mark Schneider, senior vice president of the International Crisis Group.