Haiti marks bicentennial
2003-12-31 18:49
Port-au-Prince - Long before President Jean-Bertrand Aristide won his second term three years ago, seamstresses were making sequined T-shirts that read "2004," and Haitians were planning a lavish bash for the country's bicentennial.
But on the eve of Haiti's 200th independence anniversary from France, mounting divisions over Aristide's ability to guide the country out of poverty and disorder have thrown Haitians into an existential crisis and darkened the celebratory mood.
World leaders have backed out. Entertainers are boycotting state-sponsored events. And many of the impoverished nation's eight million residents are asking how much more suffering they must endure before their ancestors' triumph on Jan. 1, 1804, can be realised.
"We come from a country with a very rich history, but we are poor in so many other ways," says Pierre Jean-Joseph, a 32-year-old artist. "Happiness is relative."
To mark the event, fireworks are set to illuminate the Champs de Mars plaza on Thursday. Foreign delegates are to dine at state galas. Drummers will bang out a dizzying rhythm for days. And a monument will be dedicated to Haiti's forefathers.
The anniversary is of particular significance to Haiti, which was born after the world's only successful slave rebellion.
Toussaint Louverture's army of former slaves crushed Napoleon's troops, making it the first black republic and the first country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery while it still flourished in parts of the United States.
The satisfaction, however, waned as a string of leaders drove the country into disarray.
In 1904, a disillusioned President Rosalvo Bobo looked to 2004's bicentennial, saying the next century might hold more promise.
But the years that followed were no less brutal: one president was blown up, another poisoned, nine fled, six were overthrown and one was dismembered.
Today's crisis would have confounded even the sharpest of Haiti's forefathers.
"Haitians have always been a little bit skeptical of their independence," says J Christopher Kovats-Bernat, a cultural anthropologist at Muhlenberg College, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and former observer in 1995 elections. "You never quite know what to expect."
One of the country's first flickers of hope came after 29 years of the Duvalier family dictatorship when Aristide, then a slum priest who made fiery promises to the poor, won by a landslide in 1990. But he was overthrown the next year in a coup.
He was restored in 1994 during a US occupation but forced to step down in 1996 due to a term limit. Since his re-election in 2000, political troubles have dogged his administration, largely stemming from 2000 legislative elections that observers said were flawed.
The disputed vote led to a strangling impasse with the opposition, which refuses to participate in new elections unless Aristide steps down - a demand he has refused.
- SAPA