Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Haiti: Government and Politics
international cocaine trafficking, and the late 1999 resignation,
following months of pressure from FL partisans, of Robert
Manuel, secretary of state for public security and close ally of
President Preval. The severe and continuing lack of progress in
judicial reform also continued to plague the PNH's ability to
conduct its mission. An additional challenge facing the PNH
was that of providing security for upcoming elections. Undermanned,
thinly spread, and confronting an increasingly armed
society, the spectre of isolated or general election-related violence—and
the PNH's ability to face it—loomed as a large
question mark on the horizon.
Concurrently, as Haiti continued to strain under the enormity
of the tasks before it, international presence continued to
taper off. In August 1999, Washington announced the early
2000 withdrawal of the United States Support Group, a 500-soldier
training mission remnant of the 20,000 strong MNF force
sent to Haiti in 1994. In December the United Nations
announced a final extension of its 280-member Civilian Police
Mission in Haiti and the eighty-member International Civilian
Mission to March 2000. A new, smaller, and entirely civilian UN
umbrella mission with a year-long mandate to cover civilian
police, human rights, and judicial reform, functioning in tandem
with the UN development mission and under the auspices
of the UN General Assembly, however, would follow. In all,
Haiti's political landscape at the dawn of the new century could
best be described as "fluid and fragile."
Toward Municipal, Parliamentary, and Presidential Elections
As debilitating as the political crisis that prevailed in Haiti
following the April 1997 elections was, it can be viewed as an
indicator of considerable progress toward the reform of Haiti's
system of government and politics, particularly in the use—or
lack thereof—of power or force to resolve a political crisis.
Indeed, the absence of the army as the traditional means to
resolve political problems has given birth in Haiti to the phenomenon
of political gridlock. Unfortunately, however, the
ability of Haiti's political leaders to dialogue and use political
compromise as a non-violent, democratic means to resolve disputes
remains underdeveloped. Nevertheless, the fact that disputes
were confronted, if not resolved, by debate and political
maneuvering, not by violence or weapons, is a positive change
in Haiti's political culture.
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