Getting the Hang of It

By Kevin Fedarko

As workmen scrambled last week to apply a glistening coat of white paint to the outside of police headquarters in downtown Port-au-Prince, a tax official standing on a nearby street corner summed up the skepticism that hangs over Haiti like a noxious bouquet. "It will take more than white paint to change this country," he said. "It's all just dressing on the cake."

The remark might have been uncharitably cynical were the official not standing directly across from the National Palace. While that building's facade has also been given an impressive face-lift to honor the Oct. 15 return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the state of affairs inside Haiti's house of state is considerably shabbier. The departing military-backed government ransacked the palace so thoroughly that executives at the nerve center of Haiti's government now have no vehicles, computers or typewriters, almost no pencils, only one toilet -- and just $11.5 million in the treasury on Aristide's return.

Yet Haiti today is a far better place facing a far brighter future than any it has seen in decades. Ships from U.S. ports arrive daily, and airplanes disgorge businessmen, missionaries and a small army of development experts $ who, it is hoped, will eventually disburse more than some $645 million in financial aid from international lenders. The capital's sidewalks are bristling with vendors. Mango growers have sold $600,000 worth of fruit abroad, and orange peels destined to flavor Grand Marnier are again drying in the midday sun.

That is pretty much the way things are throughout Haiti two months after 21,000 American troops arrived to shove the regime of Lieut. General Raoul Cedras into exile. It is a measure of Haiti's desperation that the country's remarkable progress has been surpassed only by the magnitude of what remains to be done. Despite achievements that exceed all but the most optimistic expectations, Haiti is still bankrupt and riven by social disarray and class distrust. Even the President, who continues to sleep on a fold-up cot in his office, seems stunned by the problems. "This country is like a battered old truck that's stuck," Aristide confided to a friend. "Pushing it will not start it. It needs technical work on the engine."

More like a complete overhaul. Even before the military grabbed power in September 1991, Haiti had the fewest telephones, least electric power and lowest gross domestic product in the western hemisphere. After three years of terrorist misrule, real GDP fell one-third, income dropped to $205 per capita, and the gourde lost half its value. The government deficit soared to 10 times its former level, while revenues dropped by half: by some estimates, only 2,500 people in a population of nearly 7 million paid income taxes.

While goods are now flowing in and the price of gasoline has dropped from $10 per gal. to $2, the economy has yet to revive. Nine thousand U.S. soldiers remain stationed in 29 cities, drawn more deeply into solving local problems with each passing week. The national airport is surrounded by concertina wire, and the industrial park nearby that once housed scores of assembly plants is occupied by American troops. Crime is up, and the population is struggling with the aftereffects of last month's tropical storm Gordon, which killed more than 1,000 people.

The bustle returning to the streets owes much of its energy to the lingering euphoria of Aristide's return. When U.S. soldiers chaperoned the President home seven weeks ago, the big question was whether he was up to the job. By most accounts, Haitian and American, Aristide appears a transformed man. Gone is the leftist firebrand who coyly refused to discipline the mob that brought him to power. Gone too is the self-righteous, mercurial contrarian of Washington exile. In their place is a man whom experience has imbued with wisdom, a newfound respect for dialogue and a deft skill for the politics of pragmatism.

The fire of the evangelist is still there, but it has been tempered with a cool willingness to compromise. The President has made conciliatory gestures to aristocrats who opposed his election. He has massaged the egos of political opponents who supported his ouster. He has acceded to the demands of church superiors who successfully pressured him to resign his priesthood in November. He has renewed his promise to step down at the end of his term in February 1996, even though he lost three years of his five-year tenure in exile. As he goes about the business of remaking the government, Aristide has never stopped preaching the gospel of reconciliation, often to the dismay of followers who want revenge for the estimated 3,000 people murdered during the military's reign of terror. American officials still express frustration that he does not always bow to U.S. wishes, but they are encouraged by his willingness to listen and talk. "He's a real politician now," says an American who met privately with Aristide. "Before, he was antagonistic. Now he's genuinely seeking out advice. People feel he's making a real effort."

That attitude has helped change the way the country is run. Aristide has fired the notorious chefs de section, the rural military strongmen who ruled vast areas of rural Haiti like medieval fiefdoms, terrorizing villagers with their raw power. Some hang on, but this is a first step toward whittling them down. Another important step was taken last week when the Senate fine-tuned a new law designed to establish a 4,000-man police force removed from army control. But Aristide has yet to reform the judiciary fully or settle on a mechanism for dealing with those responsible for the terror of the past three years.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the supportive reviews coming in from leading business magnates, who rarely missed a chance to bad-mouth Aristide. Many are now flocking to the President's side. Much of their approval comes from the promising economic team he has built around men such as Leslie Delatour, the respected World Bank economist who has helped devise a reconstruction plan that includes selling off a handful of state-owned industries and cutting the 45,000-strong bureaucracy in half. "Aristide's strategy of stitching together society is working," says Gregory Mevs, whose family is one of Haiti's richest.

The President's thorniest problem remains the military. He hopes to reduce it from 6,000 men to 1,500, but has yet to finish purging the institution of all its corrupt officers, some of whom are pro-Aristide. Another concern is Haiti's police; they are being weaned by American trainers from decades of abusive habits, but ordinary citizens continue to despise and distrust them. Despite the confusion and uncertainty, most people seem cautiously satisfied. The poor, who once huddled indoors after dark fearing attacks by government thugs, now roam the streets at all hours. "The people are amazingly patient," says a professor at the national university. "They know it's night and day from three months ago. They can breathe freely now." In Haiti, at last, the stench of evil is fading away.

With reporting by Cathy Booth and Bernard Diederich/Port-au-Prince