Aristide and the Endless Revolution

After reading Alex Dupuy and Robert Fatton regarding the rise and fall or Aristide, the documentary Aristide and the Endless Revolution comes off as an attempt to place the blame for the 2004 coup overwhelmingly on foreign intervention and imperialism, mainly from the US. Aristide and his supporters are often interviewed and taken at face value, whereas Dupuy and Fatton have a more nuanced perspective that emphasizes internal dynamics and factors, including some of Aristide's own problematic political actions and unattractive tendencies well aligned with Duvalierist practices. This is not to say that Aristide was entirely responsible for the 2004 coup, he was, as Fatton makes clear in The Roots of Haitian Despotism, quite acquiescent to foreign demands and even willing to concede some power to the opposition in 2004 in a compromise the opposition did not have to agree to because of US backing.

So, this documentary serves the opposite function, I suppose, of placing the 2004 coup in a broader international perspective that places the emphasis on US economic crippling of Aristide and support for the Haitian opposition. Undoubtedly, the role played by the US ensured the demise of Aristide's presidency, since it certainly weakened Haitian institutions by refusing to allow any aid to Aristide's government, as well as providing funds, arms, and support to the disbanded military and Haitian elites hell-bent on imposing a coup. However, unlike Dupuy and Fatton, the documentary overlooks how Aristide lost much legitimacy with the middle-classes and poor of Haiti for escalating violence, or even Aristide turning his back on some of the more populist and left-wing social programs he favored in his first presidency. Fatton states that as soon as Aristide agreed to a US invasion to reinstall his presidency in the 90's, he basically signed on to agree to anything the US expected him to do, which meant changing his stance on sweatshops, and abandoning some of the more populist and class-infused rhetoric of his early forays into organizing and politics.

In addition, the documentary interviews US attorneys and proponents of Aristide who deny all claims that Aristide or his government funded or used urban gangs and crime to retain power, something Fatton and Dupuy argue was likely true. If not, Dupuy and Fatton seem to concur that Aristide lost legitimacy to Haitians for being allegedly involved in the gang violence, or for being unable to control it. The documentary qualifies that observation, however, by revealing how the US economic embargo to the Aristide government included a prohibition on police equipment or supplies, which would have strengthened the National Police as well as provided additional funding for civil servants, infrastructure, government departments, and social programs. Thus, part of the reason Aristide was gradually losing more and more control was due to constraints on his administration from Washington. However, I was surprised to hear some pro-Aristide commentators in the film criticize Aristide for disbanding the army, the very same institution that has weakened democracy and the development of a stronger, inclusive civil society. If by internal security, one means strengthening the police to control gang violence and to have defended the administration from the small rebels who unseated Aristide, then I suppose that makes sense.

One thing that threw me off was the mention of Aristide asking France to repay the indemnity Haiti was coerced to accept for diplomatic recognition from France in 1825 and 1838. I was not sure how relevant it was unless one takes for face value the somewhat 'conspiratorial' claims by Ira Kurzban, that France's consul stole legal documents from Aristide's government which were going to be used in a very strong case against France for repayment of the indemnity. I suppose it was huge for the time, and even I recall hearing about it in the news back in 2003, but France's role in the 2004 seems negligible, even though I am sure Chirac's government was not fond of Aristide. Anyway, bringing up the long history of debt in Haiti probably provided another opportunity to place the blame for Haitain poverty on additional foreign powers besides the US, which clearly played the largest role in the downfall of Aristide. Indeed, Roger Noriega is interviewed accusing Aristide of ruling through lawlessness, criminality, and murder, despite presenting any evidence whatsoever, just as some Haitian elites are interviewed saying Aristide was undemocratic because in the 2000 parliamentary election, some seats were given to Lavalas without proper run-off elections (despite Aristide sending a letter to the election monitoring team from OAS that he would agree to a run-off race for those contested seats).

Clearly, this documentary features extensive interviews with a wide variety of people (including Aristide, who goes so far as to label the 2004 coup and its aftermath as 'genocide' for the targeting of Lavalas supporters by the disbanded military and interim government, a claim verified by the human rights lawyers' investigations, as well as Dupuy and Fatton) who offer differing interpretations of the 2004 coup. As a documentary, the message of the film is severely limited by its medium, unlike Fatton and Dupuy, whose texts on the prebendary Haitian state or the fall of Aristide are far more detailed, likely took advantage of sources that were not available in 2005 (the year the documentary was released), as well as offer a more nuanced interpretation that certainly raises some troubling questions about Aristide's adherence to a long tradition of Haitian authoritarianism, messianic leadership, use of parastatal forces, and corruption. This is not to say the documentary does not have value, because it reveals some new facts, gives useful interviews with key players in the background to the coup, including Aristide, his lawyer, Roger Noriega, and US officials and representatives, but it lacks the requisite complexity of academic analyses and ignores local factors. In conjunction with academic literature, however, the documentary is quite useful and eye-opening. Besides, anything that sheds light on the 2004 coup goes a long way into explaining the events that led to the catastrophic earthquake of 2010 and persistent trends in US relations with the Caribbean and Latin America.