Freedom in the World 1998 - Haiti

1998 Scores

Status: Partly Free
Freedom Rating: 5.0
Civil Liberties: 5
Political Rights: 5

Ratings Change

Haiti's political rights rating changed from 4 to 5 due to a lack of a prime minister for 18 months and an undercount of representatives in both houses of parliament.

Overview

President Rene Preval's inability to reach agreement with the opposition, after more than a year and a half, on the appointment of a new prime minister is emblematic of a government that seems to exist in name only. The lack of a prime minister and a full Cabinet is exacerbated by a Senate with only 17 serving members of 27, and 78 parliamentary deputies serving in the 83-seat lower chamber. In November, 1998, the Senate extended its term, from January 1999 to October of that year, citing the extended power vacuum as the cause.

Since gaining independence from France in 1804 following a slave revolt, the Republic of Haiti has endured a history of poverty, violence, instability, and dictatorship. A 1986 military coup ended 29 years of rule by the Duvalier family, and the army ruled for most of the next eight years.

Under international pressure, the military permitted the implementation of a French-style constitution in 1987. It provides for a president elected for five years, an elected parliament composed of a 27-member Senate, an 83-member House of Representatives, and a prime minister appointed by the president.

In the 1990 elections, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a charismatic left-wing priest, won in a landslide over conservative Marc Bazin. Aristide sought to establish civilian authority over the military; he also railed against corruption. Haiti's mostly mulatto elites and the military then conspired to overthrow him. In response, he overstepped the constitution by calling upon supporters to defend the government by violent means.

Aristide was overthrown in September 1991. Haiti came under the ruthless control of the military triumvirate of General Raoul Cedras, General Philippe Biamby, and Colonel Michel Francois. Tens of thousands of paramilitary thugs reigned terror on the populace, and the regime was steeped in narcotics trafficking. The U.S. and the UN imposed a trade and oil embargo.

In September 1994, facing an imminent U.S. invasion, Cedras and Biamby agreed to step down. U.S. troops took control of the country, and Aristide was reinstated. His security, as well as that of average Haitians, now depended upon the U.S. and UN forces.

Aristide dismantled the military before the June 1995 parliamentary elections got underway. International observers questioned the legitimacy of the June election, and Aristide's supporters fell out among themselves. The more militant Lavalas movement remained firmly behind him. But the National Front for Change and Democracy (FNCD), a leftist coalition that had backed him in 1990, claimed fraud and boycotted the runoff elections. In the end, the Lavalas won an overwhelming parliamentary majority.

In the fall, the Lavalas nominated Preval, Aristide's prime minister in 1991, as its presidential candidate. With Aristide backing him and the FNCD and most other major opposition parties boycotting, the result of the December 17 election, which opposition politicians claimed marred by serious irregularities and fraud, was a forgone conclusion. Preval won about 89 percent of a turnout of less than one third of those eligible.

Preval took office February 7, 1996. The UN had planned to withdraw its troops by the end of the month. The new U.S.-trained Haitian National Police, however, clearly lacked the competence to fill the void. At Preval's urging, the UN extended its stay, but by June, it cut its presence to 1,300. The final U.S. combat force had withdrawn two months earlier.

In September 1996, Preval purged much of his security force which, according to American officials, was involved a month earlier with the murders of two politicians from the rightwing Mobilization for National Development (MDN) party, which counted heavily on support from former soldiers.

Senate elections held in April 1997 were fraught with irregularities, and the resulting on-going election dispute meant that parliament would not approve a new prime minister to replace Rosny Smarth, who resigned in June following growing criticism of the government's economic policies. In September, Aristide announced an alliance with other congressional groups to oppose Preval's economic reform plans.

The continuing impasse of the appointment of a prime minister has prevented passage of two government budgets, scared off foreign investment, and put millions of dollars of desperately needed foreign aid on the shelf. In October 1998, U.S. drugs czar Barry McCaffrey, said that 50 percent of the Colombian drug trade which was smuggled through the Caribbean passed through Haiti.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Overseen by a politicized and incompetent electoral commission, the April 6, 1997 elections for one-third of the Senate and 565 local councils were characterized by fraud, significant violations of law, and a five percent turnout of eligible voters. In July 1998, the Provisional Electoral Council shut its doors after its remaining two members resigned. The virtual government shut-down indefinitely postponed the legislative and municipal elections scheduled for November 1998.

The constitution guarantees a full range of political rights and civil liberties. The protection of such rights in 1998, however, remained precarious, as the rule of law is tenuous at best and is aggravated by a yawning security vacuum. Several people were killed in on-going subterranean political warfare involving the former military, Aristide supporters, and others.

The judicial system remains corrupt, inefficient, and essentially dysfunctional, particularly in rural areas, and U.S. reform efforts have been tainted by allegations of corruption involving contractors and others. Prison conditions are grim, and a severe backlog of cases means that hundreds suffer lengthy pre-trial detention periods.

The new 5,200-member Haitian National Police is inexperienced and lacking in resources. Human rights groups say the police frequently use excessive force and mistreat detainees, and several unarmed civilians have been murdered. Accusations of corruption have also grown more frequent; in 1998, the United Nations mission in Haiti said that an increasing number of police were involved in drug smuggling. Although efforts by police authorities to sanction misdeeds have met with mixed success, there is no evidence that the grave violations of human rights by the police form part of official policy. The police have been increasingly called upon to put down protests against the government's economic austerity program.

Mob violence and armed gangs posed severe security threats in urban areas. Former soldiers, others linked to the former military regime, and common criminals were responsible for much of the violence, including political assassinations. Haitian officials also say that the rise in crime is due to convicted criminals who have been repatriated from other countries, particularly the U.S. Turf wars between rival drug gangs have resulted in the killing of scores of people, including several policemen. Private security forces that carryout extra-legal search and seizures are illegal but flourishing.

A number of independent newspapers and radio stations exist. Outlets critical of the government remain targets of official intimidation, including mob attacks. Television is state-run and strongly-biased toward the government. In October 1998, a former Haitian judge was arrested in connection with the 1982 murder of a well-known journalist.

Labor rights, as with all other legally-sanctioned guarantees, remain essentially unenforced. Unions are generally too weak to engage in collective bargaining, and their organization efforts are undermined by the high unemployment rate.