Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 13, 1994 TAG: 9410130043
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANNE-MARIE O'CONNOR COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI LENGTH: Long
In the rice fields of central Haiti, a peasant woman straightens from her toil, tears off the red kerchief covering her black curls, and waves it at a passing car. ``Aristide is coming back,'' she hollers joyously, standing in ankle-deep water, the sunset at her back.
A Haitian boy, riding down the highway on his bicycle, grins delightedly at everyone he passes, brandishing the affectionate nickname for exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide as a talisman of his elation: ``Titid!''
A choir of children sing a pro-Aristide anthem outside the stone walls of the villa of Haiti's outgoing army strongman, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras: ``Oh Lord, they have taken away my only son, Our savior is gone.''
The Salesians may have expelled Aristide, a former parish priest, from the order, but in his three-year absence Haitians have beatified him.
The terror suffered since the bloody September 1991 coup that sent Aristide into exile has only strengthened him as the living symbol of the aspirations of the impoverished majority.
Haitians who have been the captive audience to rigged elections, presidents-for-life and military rulers now excitedly await the return of the first leader they truly consider their own.
``He's become the symbol of change, of hope, of all the dreams that Haitians have locked away,'' said Colin Granderson, the recently head of the United Nations observer group expelled by the army-installed government. ``Now, they feel these dreams may become reality.''
Aristide, 41, is scheduled to return to Haiti from the United States on Saturday.
Granderson said the open hostility directed at Aristide by the army, the wealthy elite, and the CIA has only deepened the stubborn loyalty of the long-ignored masses in the hemisphere's poorest nation.
``Aristide has been a victim of the army, of the wealthy elite, expelled from his church, his presidency,'' Granderson said. ``They are also victims. That solidifies their identification.''
Aristide, in fact, is one of them. He was born poor and dark-skinned. Though he learned to speak Spanish, Italian, English and Hebrew, he always spoke to the people in their own parable-laden Creole, not the French used by the Haitian upper classes.
To many Haitians, Aristide is democracy, and something more.
``Haitians are profoundly religious,'' said the Rev. Antoine Adrien, Aristide's mentor as a young priest. ``They really think God cares about them and sent Father Aristide to help Haitian people get out of this terrible situation. For them, he is a messenger of God.''
The same qualities that endeared Aristide to the poor earned the hatred of the army and conservative members of the wealthy elite. His leftist sympathies earned the distrust of the CIA and the U.S. government.
As a fiery young parish priest of the Ti Legliz, the Little Church movement, Aristide railed against political violence by the army and the feared Ton-tons Macoutes militia. They repaid him with assassination attempts, killing parishioners but never him.
``He stirs up strong sentiments for or against,'' Granderson said. ``In the Haitian context, advocating a more fair society was a radical proposal.''
The Salesian order, concerned his gospel was straying into politics, expelled him in 1988, and Aristide became the director of a home for street children.
Persuaded to run for president in the December 1990 elections, he won by a stunning 67 percent margin on a platform that promised a Lavalas, or deluge, would sweep away the legacy of brutality and corruption left by the 29-year Duvalier dictatorship.
``People feel genuine affection for him,'' said the Rev. Jean-Yves Urfie, a French priest who edits a pro-Aristide tabloid, Libete. ``The way he would take in children off the streets touched people's hearts. Here, people voted for someone they loved.''
Aristide's ouster and the bloody, systematic purge of his grass-roots network that followed seems, if anything, to have enhanced his popularity.
``I think it is clear that the more they make a martyr of him, the more popular he becomes,'' said Evans Paul, elected mayor of Port-au-Prince in 1990 but forced to serve most of his term in hiding from murderous gunmen.
In addition, the Aristide era was a relative respite from decades of political carnage that picked up immediately after he left.
``What came after was so terrible those seven months seemed a dream,'' Father Adrien said. ``It became some kind of legend.''
Aristide also represents the first time most Haitians were allowed to exercise their choice, and to them, his return also means the restoration of their own fragile democratic rights, Adrien said.
``This little man, this little president we voted for, he's the only one I recognize,'' said Louis Fontaine, 76, wearing a straw hat to fend off the scorching tropical sun, at a recent Mass. ``We don't want this army, not at all.''
At a tiny church in the Port-au-Prince slum of Martissant, the parishioners have spelled out Aristide's name in the sun-splashed churchyard in giant letters made of conch shells and stones.
``We have prayed for so long for Titid to come back, and God finally heard us,'' said Pierre Jean-Baptiste, 53, pulling a photo of Aristide the size of a baseball card out of his pocket.
``They say we Haitians are ignorant, but we are not,'' said Coichy Hermann, 38, a leader of a local democracy group in Martissant. ``We know what we're doing. We chose Aristide because we want to take the path of victory. Aristide represents a victory for all of us.''
by CNB