HAITI Is 200th anniversary a cause for celebration?

Recent events have conflicted many about how to mark the bicentennial.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
HAITI -- Emboldened by Haiti's hard-won independence war, the feared and revered Gen. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a former slave turned revolutionary hero, addressed the first free black republic in the Western Hemisphere:
"Citizens, it is not enough to have expelled from your country the barbarians who have bloodied it for two centuries which held for so long our spirits in the most humiliating torpor. We must at last live independent or die."
The speech was delivered Jan. 1, 1804, in Gonaives, Haiti. Dessalines was the proud black warrior who tore the white out of the French flag to create a new banner representing the only successful slave uprising in history. But in the 200 years since his rousing proclamation, Haiti has barely tasted the fruits of independence.
Instead, the Haitian republic has endured decade after decade of turmoil. The world beholds a country in shambles, ravaged by AIDS and lacking even basic services such as paved roads, running water and consistent electricity. Democratic stability remains a distant dream.
On the eve of the 200th anniversary of the Haitian Revolution, many Haitians are asking themselves whether it is cause for celebration.
Complicated issue
The answer is far from simple. For some, the fact that their ancestors accomplished what no other black population has -- topple slavery from the ground up -- is worth the grand-scale celebration planned to start Jan. 1.
"This is important and we should make it as big as we can," said 21-year-old Nayeli Fanfan, who moved to Miami from Haiti three years ago. "If we don't celebrate it, how are we going to remind people of what we accomplished?"
For others, the occasion carries painful reminders of turmoil fueled by dictatorships, coups d'etat, military juntas and the undeniable casualties of black-on-black violence.
"I am happy we've been free for so long, but I am also very sad at our present state," said Jessica Dorcee, a 19-year-old Miami Lakes resident born to Haitian parents. She plans to spend Jan. 1 praying for "my Haitian people."
"When I look at the present state of Haiti, there is nothing much to celebrate," she said. "What have we gotten out of being free besides hardship, pain?"
Demonstrations
Events in Haiti over the past few days have added to the conflict many Haitians feel about how to mark the bicentennial. More than three days of student-led, antigovernment protests have crippled the capital, Port-au-Prince. On Friday, government supporters set up burning barricades around the National Palace to keep protesters away, and police fired tear gas at demonstrators.
A day earlier, about 50,000 protesters demanded the resignation of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in one of the largest protests in a decade. Dozens of people were reported injured.
In South Florida, home to 214,893 Haitians as of the 2000 Census, Haitian Americans responded with sadness and concern. In several businesses along Northeast 54th Street in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood, the response was the same: Aristide must go.
Revolt against Aristide
More than 200 years after Dessalines helped Toussaint Louverture, the leader of the revolution, empower slaves with the famous cry, "Cut off heads, burn down houses" (koupe tet, boule kay), Haitians continue to battle for the liberties the revolutionaries sought.
Haitians have to look no further than the very city where Dessalines officially declared Haiti independent. Gonaives is today the site of antigovernment demonstrations and reprisals from police that have left more than a dozen dead since an armed gang in the seaside slum of Raboteau revolted against Aristide in September.
The gang and its supporters -- whose numbers appear to be growing -- say they want Aristide to step down. On Dec. 1, assailants torched the City Hall for the second time in months. It is being renovated for the Jan. 1 celebrations, Aristide has announced.
"We believed in Aristide like Jesus Christ," Alvarez Thermitus, a Gonaives resident who has gone from dreaming about becoming a soccer star to wondering how to feed his family, said recently before joining an antigovernment protest.
"I believe in God in heaven, but he was a god for us here in Raboteau," Thermitus said of Aristide, a former priest. "But he has done too much harm. His police are worse than the army. He has forgotten the poor. He needs to go. We need a different president. We won't drink pumpkin soup the traditional New Year's Day meal with Aristide."