Préval Goes it Alone, But What About Aristide?
Haiti: Revisiting the Aristide debate – To Our Readers
There has been an intense dispute on the part of outside critics regarding COHA's piece on Haiti – which was issued on September 14, 2007. Its author, Michael Glenwick stands behind his article and the sharp criticism of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which has now been moved from COHA's website and can be found in COHA's Forum. After closely reviewing the Glenwick piece, COHA's senior officials regretfully concluded that much of the criticism of it – notably the September 21, 2007 critique of COHA's Haiti piece by Joe Emersberger for the Narco News Bulletin – was well-founded. It should also be noted that most of the contributions we received on the subject were opposed to our point of view; this is why we decided to submit the Glenwick article to a protracted review. Today we are replacing the Glenwick piece with a substantially revised version which was authored by COHA Director Larry Birns. This is now COHA's official position on the relative roles of Presidents Aristide and Préval and contains some glimpses of the former president's strengths and weaknesses, including his invaluable contribution to Haitian democracy.
Ever since he came into prominence in 1989, COHA has devoted much of its effort to spotlighting the life and times of President Aristide, stressing Washington's persistently radical and hostile rightwing attitude towards him under both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. From 2002-2004, COHA issued scores of analytical pieces on U.S.-Haitian relations written by Larry Birns, often in conjunction with COHA Research Fellow Jessica Leight. This included a co-authored contribution to Dr. Paul Farmer's "The Uses of Haiti" written in 2003: Mr. Emersberger was good enough to take note and praise this long association.
Please feel free to to read Glenwick's original article, and Emersberger's hard-hitting analysis of Glenwick's piece.
- Foreign resources scheduled to flood Haiti
- Préval cooperates with opposition which essentially has gotten what it wanted
- Will Préval be able to maintain his integrity under pressure from Washington, or will the Bush administration insist that he implements a neutered platform?
More than 18 months have passed since René Préval was decisively elected president of Haiti in what many regional analysts considered one of the country's most crucial elections. Within scarcely a handful of years, Haitians had experienced a number of tumultuous events. It started with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's chaotic second term, in which the international community cancelled its aid to the country based on a pretext elaborated by Washington, involving exaggerated accusations of election fraud on Aristide's part involving his party's 2000 victory in legislative and presidential ballots.
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