Americas Quarterly

Welcome back. President Clinton with then-President Jean Bertrand Aristide shortly before his return to Haiti.

refugees held at Guantánamo in the early 1990s and against the interdiction program; Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff; and Eric Schwartz, head of the refugee bureau, who was a key player on Haitian affairs at the National Security Council during the

1991-1994 period.

National Palace. Many Haitians and liberals in the U. S. believed that Clinton’s subsequent abandonment of Aristide left the Haitian leader with no real allies—and ended up reversing the gains achieved by pushing the army regime from power.

Bank President Robert Zoellick called “flag-draped, feel-good projects.”

Most encouraging of all, the notorious “Haiti fatigue” of the international community following a decade of frustrated hopes for change has apparently disappeared (for the moment anyway). “On this side of the equation the stars are aligned, and that is a good thing,” McCalla said.

The Haitian diaspora in the U.S. will play a key role in Haiti’s road to recovery. Haitians living and working abroad are actively engaged in various education and health initiatives. They prop up the Haitian economy with $1.2 billion in annual remittances. But for too long, the diaspora lacked coherent leadership.

For Haiti to do more than tread water, aid must be coordinated to become more effective. What this means, according to Jocelyn McCalla, president of JMC Strategies in New Jersey, is that Clinton can play a catalytic role in this effort. “[He can] move the ball a bit farther down the line, “ he said, “But he won’t be able to perform miracles, because the Haitians today lack the capacity to properly manage whatever capital is made available to them.”

“In order for the diaspora to come together, we need unity of purpose— a collective agenda,” said Manolia Charlotin, co-founder of Haiti 2015, a U.S.-based initiative for systemic change in Haiti. “For us to get there, we need leadership, selfless leaders who don’t seek glory and inspire others. It’s an enormously difficult challenge.”

The U.S. government will also be crucial to Clinton’s success. The widespread optimism in Washington about his appointment may lead to synergy between U.S. policies and programs and those of other international actors. An inter-agency review of Haiti policies and programs, led by the Department of State, is currently underway.

Nevertheless, for many in Haiti, particularly the desperately poor, the most significant measure of success for Clinton’s mission will be the restoration of Aristide to power a second time. Haiti’s poverty-stricken majority continue to have a visceral connection with the soft-spoken former priest, whose charisma still looms large even though he has been away for five years. Yet Aristide’s popularity continues to puzzle outsiders. By most measures, his presidency was a failure.

At Aristide’s former home in Tabarre, a banner celebrating the former president’s birthday hangs over the black gate. Graffiti scrawled on the fading walls of the building proclaim, “Aristide has to return soon.” For the moment at least, Bill Clinton, who is no stranger to the art of charismatic leadership, will have to do.

A REPUBLIC
OF NGOs

Garry Pierre-Pierre is the editor and publisher of Brooklyn-based weekly newspaper the

Haiti has come to resemble a “Republicof NGOs,” withsome 3,000 organizations—large and small—undertaking what World

Perhaps not coincidentally, Clinton’s wife, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, has surrounded herself with people who have long been identified with the goals of democracy, prosperity and human rights in Haiti. These include Harold Koh, State Department General Counsel, who litigated on behalf of Haitian