Taking Charge on the Ground

By Kevin Fedarko

The thousands of Haitians who flocked to Port-au-Prince airport last Monday afternoon had come to cheer, applaud or just stare at the newly arrived U.S. troops. Once there, they could not resist the exhilarating urge to shout their joy at the imminent return of the man whose name could not be spoken and whose picture could not be displayed for the past three years. "Vive Titid!" they cried, invoking their affectionate sobriquet for exiled President Jean- Bertrand Aristide. "Down with Cedras!" Suddenly, two Haitian army officers appeared, dragging a skinny young man who was moaning pitifully. His face was bloody. His feet were bare. His pants had nearly been ripped off.

Unsure of what to do, a small group of American soldiers, who had landed only hours before, stood aside to let the trio pass. Once inside the terminal, the Haitian officers began methodically beating their silent and defenseless prisoner. Listening to the sickening thud of fists on flesh, one of the U.S. soldiers turned his face away and exclaimed, "They're really messing him up. And we can't do anything."

The violence in the streets only worsened the next day. Hampered by strict rules of nonengagement, hundreds of American soldiers found themselves watching helplessly as Haiti's blue-uniformed police and khaki-clad army troops waded into the capital's crowds, swinging metal nightsticks and indiscriminately firing tear-gas canisters. In front of the harbor, the Haitian authorities conducted brief sorties, beating anyone who fell or faltered. They broke up a demonstration by hurtling through the middle of the crowd in a van. One police officer attacked bystanders with a yard-long crowbar, using the tool's hook to gouge the flesh of his targets. Another slammed his truncheon onto the unprotected skull of a house painter, killing him. "This is not Europe, my friend," said a Haitian to a nearby journalist. "This is hell."

For Haitians, such abuses under the nose of the Americans who had come to rescue them were a shocking dose of the treatment they have endured ever since the 1991 coup forced Aristide from power. As the U.S. soldiers watched and did nothing, Haitian onlookers became increasingly perplexed and hostile. "I know you guys are working hard," shouted one man to troops sitting on a wall. "But people here are suffering." The inaction only heightened the suspicion of collusion. "How could the United States be so stupid?" another demanded. "For months you call these men thugs, murderers, thieves and drug dealers, and then Colin Powell comes down and treats them with honor. Where are your brains?"

For the young men who serve in the Army's 10th Mountain Division, the brutality offered a firsthand glimpse of the raw intimidation that passes for civic order in this country. "We were taught to defend these people," said Private First Class Doug Johler. "Now, to see what's going on and not be able to do anything, it tears you up inside."

In a swift pirouette, the U.S. promised to intervene to quell any violence. More than 1,000 U.S. military police were sent into the capital, while G.I.s riding aboard machine gun-equipped humvees patrolled the streets. However, on Saturday Port-au-Prince police broke up a pro-Aristide demonstration using tear gas and metal nightsticks on crowds that converged on army and police headquarters chanting, "Handcuff Cedras." An American military spokesman said U.S. troops did not intervene because they had not seen the clashes.

U.S. Marines drew Haitian blood at dusk on Saturday. An evening patrol in Cap Haitien stopped across the street from a local police station. "Four guys came out from the front desk, saw us and got spooked and lit up their weapons," Corporal Mike Arnett told the Associated Press. "We returned fire." At least nine Haitians were reportedly killed in the brief gunfight; two took refuge in the police station, which the Marines besieged. One U.S. Marine was injured. U.S. forces sealed off a section of Cap Haitien, a major drug-transshipment point in the Caribbean. It was not known whether the Marines had engaged policemen or the civilian militia. Ugly shadows were being cast over an occupation that had begun so benignly.

Earlier, on Tuesday morning, when the Marines of Fox Company secured a perimeter of barbed wire around the airport at Cap Haitien, scores of delighted Haitians had gathered on the other side. They had never seen anything like this display of military might, but they sensed it was a good thing for them. They smiled, clapped at strangers and responded with generous humor to the appalling high school French of reporters. "Do you think they came for you?" shouted a gaunt, smiling man into the window of a wealthy Haitian's jeep. "You are wrong. They came for me."

The previous morning, 170 miles to the south in Port-au-Prince, thousands of Haitians converged on the airport. They were lured by the spectacle of 51 Black Hawks touching down on the boiling tarmac in tight formation, dropping troops from the 10th Mountain Division. Civilians were everywhere: standing on roofs; perched atop cars; clinging to the sides of billboards. The crowd watched, convinced that an army of wonder workers had arrived to restore the President they had elected, redress the injustices they had suffered, give back the future that had been stolen from them. "The American people are coming to fix up everything," gushed Claude Pierre, a portrait photographer.

Not everyone shared his delight. While the poor cavorted in the sweltering sun, wealthy residents of the capital -- the class whom Americans have taken to calling MREs, short for "morally repugnant elites" -- drove by in air- conditioned Isuzu Troopers and Cherokee Pioneers, their camcorders trained on the action. Although many wealthy Haitians welcomed the U.S. troops for the protection they provided, some were openly hostile. They predicted that the supporters of Aristide would soon turn on the aristocracy in the age-old tradition of dechoukage, or "uprooting," in which the poor destroy the homes, property and lives of the rich. "It will get out of hand," predicted one man who sported an expensive gold necklace that marked him as a member of the army's feared paramilitary attaches. "The poor will go after everything other people have."

Among the Haitian military men who have been brusquely muscled to the sidelines, many now bear the added insult of sharing their accommodations with U.S. soldiers. On Friday, while Haitian troopers played dominoes on one end of their balcony at the capital's general quarters, G.I.s on the other end snoozed in the afternoon heat. "How do I feel?" asked a member of the Haitian high command. "That's a delicate question." He glanced away for a long time, then simply looked back at his guest. The silence underscored his humiliation.

Such feelings seemed to matter little to the U.S. soldiers, who were preoccupied with the open-arm reception coming from the poor. "They know we're here to help," said Specialist Hugh Sullivan, manning his machine gun from the top of a humvee. In fact, he added ruefully, "they think we're here to solve all their problems."

A sobering thought, considering the disappointment such wide-eyed anticipation could quickly lead to. Still, the eager welcome came as a relief to Sergeant Erik Bartkowiak. He recalled his last experience administering U.S. foreign policy -- one he doesn't care to repeat -- in Somalia. There, the first words Bartkowiak heard, shouted by a Somali child, were "F--- you, American." Confused, ambiguous, frustrating though it was, the first week of Clinton's Haiti policy was at least better than that.

With reporting by Sam Allis, Cathy Booth, Nina Burleigh and Bernard Diederich/Port-au-Prince and Edward Barnes/Cap Haitien