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Carter Center Photo:  Rita Thompson

Rosalynn Carter, Colin Powell, Jimmy Carter, and Sam Nunn returned to Haiti in February to assess progress on preparations for parliamentary and municipal elections.

 
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Carter Team Visits Haiti to Assess Progress Since President Aristide's Return
12 Jun 1995


Retracing the mission that returned President Jean-Bertrand Aristide peacefully to power, former President Jimmy Carter, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell returned to Haiti in February to assess the country's progress. The team first traveled to Haiti last September to convince the country's military leaders to step down.

The team's second visit to the island nation -- and President Carter's ninth -- focused on the transfer of authority from American-led forces to the United Nations, and on Haiti's preparations for parliamentary and presidential elections. The team found signs of progress but also warned of pitfalls that could later mar June elections.

During their visit, team members met with President Aristide and his cabinet, representatives of 18 political parties, leaders of the Haitian human rights and religious communities, the American ambassador, the commander of the Multinational Force, and trainees at the new National Police Academy. The delegation included former First Lady Rosalynn Carter; Robert Pastor, director of the Center's Latin American and Carribean Program; George Price, former prime minister of Belize and member of the Center's Council of Freely Elected Heads of Government; and others.

"Continued international support will be affected by whether the elections in June and December will be fair and perceived as fair," the team reported. "At the current time, most of the parties do not believe that the electoral playing field is fair."

June 25 Vote Confirms Team's Concerns

That belief continued through the parliamentary and municipal elections, held on June 25. Dr. Pastor was an unofficial observer and confirmed the fears of many candidates and international observers. "I personally witnessed a degree of chaos that I have never seen in any previous election," Dr. Pastor said. "The counting process was seriously flawed."

Twenty-two of Haiti's 26 political parties demanded annulment of the elections, whether they won or lost, even before the outcome was announced, and both the reruns of canceled elections and scheduled runoffs had to be delayed.

"The technical and administrative problems were proof of the difficulty of conducting an election in a country so poor and uneducated," Dr. Pastor said. "However, compared to 200 years of dictatorship and repression, the election was a step out of the past. Whether it will be a step forward or sideways remains to be seen."