Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

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Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
polls, and witnessed to by the huge crowd outside the palace on
inauguration day.
Aristide's skilled use of language and symbolism was evident
at his inauguration. A peasant woman helped put on the presidential
sash, and most of the speech was in Creole, the only
language of most Haitians. In his speech, Aristide noted that
there were people under the table and on top of it but that
everyone should be at the table together (the next morning,
he served breakfast to hundreds of homeless people and street
children at the palace). He called for a marriage between the
army and people to oppose the mahout and anti-democrats, and
said that since marriages require sacrifices, he would retire the
high command, reassign several top-ranking officers, and promote
and commission others. Among the promoted was Colonel
Raoul Cedras, who would lead the coup against him seven
months later. Because no party had won a majority in the
National Assembly, President Aristide selected a friend, Rene
Garcia Preval, as prime minister and minister of interior and
national defense. For the cabinet, he chose friends and allies
mostly university educated and progressive technocrats.
In lieu of a political party, President Aristide formed an organization
called Lavalas, a Creole phrase meaning "cleansing
flood" (Organisation Politique Lavalas—OPL), which drew
support from the masses, including the rural and urban poor.
OPL produced the Lavalas Development Model, which contained
Aristide's goals. The goals included "transition from misery
to poverty with dignity" and promotion of social democracy
in Haiti based on the European model. After the inauguration,
Aristide announced his priorities. They included addressing
poverty and corruption, improving the infrastructure, decentralizing
the role of Port-au-Prince, achieving food self-sufficiency,
bringing criminals to justice, collecting taxes, and
instituting essential public spending programs.
During his first seven months, President Aristide made
progress against military-related corruption, drug trafficking,
and human rights abuses. He dismantled the section chief system
found in rural areas (see Role of the Army in Law Enforcement
Prior to 1995, ch. 10) and closed Fort Dimanche. He
created a human rights commission and commissions to investigate
and bring to justice those accused of crimes between
1986 and 1990. He curbed waste and corruption by closing
offices and agencies and reducing budgets and salaries, including
his own.
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