Molefe Tsele
16 May 2004
column
Johannesburg — We have an obligation to take in this victim of global bullies
It is now official: Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is to make South Africa his next home of asylum. While in many countries of the world this act would have been a routine executive decision, not so for us in South Africa.
Predictably, it has become yet another issue exposing the wide chasm that still characterises our social and political fabric. To be sure, this is much more than simply a foreign policy disagreement. It shows how history becomes a victim of political debate, leading to morality taking the back seat, if not being consigned to the scrap heap. Thus, amid the political noise, the history of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and of the Republic of Haiti is rehashed and rewritten.
There is a debate about the political legacy of Aristide in the context of the history of Haiti. What is not in doubt are some facts of that history. We know for a fact that Haiti became an independent republic in 1804, being ruled since then by a series of strongmen, dictators and thugs. We cannot dispute another fact; that the first democratically elected president was a Catholic priest of the Society of Saint Francis of Sales, a liberation theologian called Jean-Bertrand Aristide who was first elected in 1990.
As a liberation theologian, Aristide followed a tradition that sought to infuse faith into the pursuit of political and social justice. His parish work in the poor slums of Port-au-Prince became the grounds for mobilising protests against the dictatorship of the Duvalier government.
But with Haiti being beset by class contradictions which continue to this day, with the upper class dominating the church and politics, the theologian of the poor of Port-au-Prince was soon expelled from his order in 1988 for organising and leading protests against Duvalierism.
In December 1990 the first ever free elections were held and Aristide won with 67% of the vote, assuming office in February 1991. But within a year he was ousted by General Raoul Cedras and was forced into a three-year exile in the US.
Aristide returned to Haiti on condition that he not stand for election in December 1995. But in the election of 2000, he was re-elected by an overwhelming majority in an election his opponents boycotted. By the time he resumed office in February 2001, his presidency was shaky.
As the bicentenary year of the Haitian Republic dawned in 2004, an armed rebellion by anti-Aristide groups began in a number of cities in early February. On February 29, Aristide went into exile for the second time. It is worth noting here that both the French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and the US Secretary of State Colin Powell began to suggest that Aristide step down, despite acknowledging that he was legitimately elected.
Much of this version is historically accepted, with disputes around whether or not the 2000 elections were fraudulent. But alongside this dispute, another charge has emerged, seeming to suggest that Aristide is in the same league as all the past dictators of Haiti, if not the worst, and that he was corrupt beyond comparison.
It is this latter version of Aristide which has evoked vociferous opposition from some South African quarters. It is also true that Human Rights Watch and other international groups have accused Aristide's supporters of violent reprisals against the opposition. But they have also recorded similar violations conducted by opposition thugs.
But which version of the Haitian leader should define our foreign policy intervention? The liberation theologian from the slums of Port-au-Prince who dared to annoy his own religious order and incite the poor against the wealthy - or the corrupt rights abuser and dictator?
Much of the political noise does not pay sufficient attention to what has been going on in Haiti, that a popular leader, who is most hated by the upper-class of society (and Washington), has been forced from an elected office he won for a second time.
South Africa will be failing in its values of solidarity and internationalism were it to refuse Aristide asylum. If any country deserves to do that more than any, it is South Africa. We should give Aristide a home, not only because we have been requested to do so by the Caribbean Economic Community but because it is morally right to do so.
The fact that some people are making this act of solidarity the subject of controversy reflects how morally bankrupt we have become. In fact, those opposing Aristide's asylum should be ashamed of themselves. The Cabinet should be congratulated for coming to the help of a leader who is the victim of global bullies. There might be some costs down the line for South Africa, but the same was the case when poor countries like Zambia and Tanzania gave our leaders asylum during the dark days of apartheid.
Like many liberation theologians who were inspired by Aristide' s courage and spirituality, I cannot wait to welcome him to South Africa. And I pray that he will continue to work for the liberation of the Haitian poor, from South Africa.
Tsele is the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches. This article was written in his personal capacity and does not reflect the position of the council
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