While opposition forces have taken control of as many as 11 towns, press reports indicate they do not have the forces for a frontal assault on the government in other major cities. On February 15, thousands marched in Port-au-Prince, the capital, demanding Aristide’s resignation. Two days earlier, a similar march was called off after pro-government forces erected barricades and burned tires to disrupt it.

While U.S. government officials have feigned concern over recent events that have left more than 50 dead, it is clear that Washington is seeking to take advantage of the breakdown in government authority to impose its own demands on Aristide. Some White House officials have also hinted at support for Aristide’s ouster.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said February 10 that “reaching a political settlement will require some fairly thorough changes in the way Haiti is governed, and how the security situation is maintained.” The New York Times quoted another unnamed State Department official as saying, “when we talk about undergoing change in the way Haiti is governed, I think that could indeed involve changes in Aristide’s position.”  
 
How Aristide came to power
After successive U.S. administrations backed the brutal Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti for nearly 30 years, the White House is now hypocritically charging the Aristide government with holding undemocratic elections. Washington has undermined the Haitian government by withholding aid and directing other governments and imperialist financial institutions to follow suit. Suspended aid and loan disbursements total more than $500 million.

Aristide was elected president in 1990 following a revolutionary uprising that overturned the regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier. He was overthrown himself in a military coup the following year. Aristide was returned to office in 1994 through American bayonets, after U.S. troops invaded Haiti and restored his government. Since that time he has implemented many of Washington’s demands, including the lowering of tariffs on U.S. goods, floating the gourde (Haiti’s national currency), privatizing state-owned companies, and cutting social programs. These measures have exacerbated the rampant unemployment and miserable living conditions faced by the toilers because of the imperialist domination of the nation and the effects of a deepening worldwide capitalist crisis.

Moreover, the government reliance on thug tactics to intimidate the opposition has backfired. Supporters of Famni Lavalas, Aristide’s political party, attacked rector Pierre-Marie Michel Paquiot of the State University of Haiti during a December demonstration on campus in Port-au-Prince and broke both his legs, according to the Washington Post. This action strengthened opposition to Aristide among students, the Post reported.

Jean-Claude Bajeux, a former minister of culture in Aristide’s cabinet, has added his voice to right-wing calls for the removal of the president. Bajeux, who like Aristide had spoken out against the Duvalier dictatorship, told the New York Times, “Power that has fallen into delinquency wants to have its own law. It is for this reason that Aristide lies and kills.”  
 
Origins, brutality of rebels also shine spotlight on character of government
The Gonaives Resistance Front, formerly known as the Cannibal Army and at one time allied with Aristide, took over the city on February 5. It has been joined by former soldiers and politicians who served previous military dictatorships.

The Cannibal Army turned against Aristide after the arrest of its main leader, Amiot “Cubain” Metayer, in July 2002. The next month Metayer was freed from the Gonaives prison along with 150 others in a breakout organized by his supporters. Amiot Metayer was murdered last September. His brother, Butteur Metayer, along with Jean Tatoune, former leader of the right-wing Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), have emerged as the central leaders of the armed resistance to Aristide in Gonaives. “We are fighting Aristide with the weapons he gave us,” Metayer told the New York Times. “He gave us the guns to stop the opposition, but now we oppose him.”

The United Nations World Food Program reports that Gonaives has been barricaded, preventing the arrival of food from relief agencies, and effectively blocking Haiti’s main highway, cutting off the country’s northern shore from Port-au-Prince.

Government forces have reportedly recaptured some towns. Miami Herald reporters in Haiti, however, said that an attempt by the Haitian National police to take Gonaives was repelled February 14. According to the Herald, a large number of the city’s residents surrounded the police and prevented them from retaking the city of 200,000.

The Haitian National Police was set up by the government with Washington’s guidance after U.S. troops invaded Haiti in 1994 and restored Aristide to the presidency. Washington also dissolved the Haitian Army. Aristide stepped down from the presidency in 1995 but was re-elected in 2000. Formerly a Catholic priest well-known for his opposition to Duvalier and subsequent military dictatorships in Haiti, Aristide helped lead protests that forced Duvalier to flee the country in 1986.

The current armed actions come after a yearlong campaign of mass demonstrations led by bourgeois forces such as the Group of 184 and the Washington-backed Democratic Convergence, which are demanding Aristide’s resignation. The large size of these rallies show that opponents of Aristide are winning a hearing among broader layers of the population.

One reason is a worsening economic crisis—exacerbated by the imperialist domination of the country by Washington, Paris, and other powers. Haiti has the lowest standard of living in the Americas. In some areas, some 33 percent of Haitians are malnourished. Unemployment is nearly 70 percent. These conditions have not improved under Aristide’s administration.

A second, and more important, reason is the repressive policies of the Aristide regime that are increasingly alienating the toilers from politics and pushing working people to the sidelines—like breaking the legs of the State University of Haiti official.

At demonstrations organized by Aristide supporters in defense of “constitutional rule,” participants have chanted: “Elections yes, coup d’etat no,” and “Five years”—referring to Aristide’s mandated term in office, which ends in February 2006. Some of these actions have also been very sizeable, including a February 7 demonstration in Cite Soleil on the anniversary of Aristide’s inauguration, which the government claimed was as large as 1 million.  
 
Why Washington can’t trust Aristide regime
Although Aristide has implemented many of Washington’s conditions that have reinforced imperialist domination of Haiti and have ruined the livelihoods of workers and farmers, he has also taken some measures the U.S. rulers do not like. He reestablished diplomatic relations with Cuba and has accepted the help of 800 Cuban doctors and medical personnel.

While the French, Canadian, U.S., and other governments have issued travel warnings and advised their citizens to leave Haiti, Cuban ambassador to Haiti Rolando Gómez issued a statement saying that the hundreds of Cuban medical workers in Haiti would remain at their posts and would strictly abide by the principle of noninterference in Haiti’s internal affairs.

Most importantly, Aristide has been unable to break the combativity and self-confidence that Haitian workers and farmers gained through the experience of the victorious revolt against the Duvalier regime, and their resistance to the harsh economic conditions they face.

Seeking to further squeeze the Aristide government, U.S. president George Bush met late last year in Washington with the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago and urged CARICOM, the organization of Caribbean governments, to increase pressure on Aristide and force him to grant concessions to the pro-imperialist opposition.

CARICOM responded at its January meeting by demanding the Haitian government disarm the population, “depoliticize” the police force, free political prisoners, and pledge to not seek to extend his term. A CARICOM delegation met opposition leaders and demanded that Aristide bring opposition members into the government. Aristide agreed to all these demands.

CARICOM said it would be willing to organize an international “peacekeeping” force.

So has the government of France, the former colonial power in Haiti. According to a February 17 report by BBC News, French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin said, “We have the capacity to intervene and… many friendly countries are ready to do so.”

Jamaican prime minister and CARICOM chairman Percival Patterson threatened Haiti with sanctions if Aristide doesn’t accept further opposition demands. “The consequence of a failure to respond positively to the proposals we have made would result in our considering whether Haiti is in compliance with [CARICOM’s] Charter for a Civil Society,” he said.

As in the past, when he relied on U.S. troops to return to power, Aristide has indicated again that he is open to imperialist intervention to retain his position, not on a mobilized working class and peasantry. “A group of terrorists are breaking democratic order,” he told reporters February 16. “I have already asked and I will continue to ask the international community and prime ministers of the region to move faster on this issue.”  
 
 
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