There Is No More Haiti by Beckett Greg;

Author:Beckett, Greg;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press

PROVISIONAL ARRANGEMENTS

After

I left Haiti just before commercial flights to and from the country were canceled. I left just before the U.S. Embassy pulled out its nonessential staff. Before they suggested that all foreign nationals leave. Just before the Front pour la Libération et la Reconstruction National (FLRN), an armed group made up of ex-military personnel, paramilitaries, and gang members, began taking cities and towns across the north of the country, where they proceeded to raid police stations and round up Aristide supporters. I left before the FLRN prepared to enter the capital. Before Aristide left on a U.S. military plane, heading for exile yet again. I left before the coup.

Leaving was a luxury, and a strange relief. I knew that some of my friends would need to leave the city or go into hiding, and that there would be more violence after the coup. I knew that others would be happy, perhaps ecstatic, when the coup finally came. And I knew what would happen afterward—I could see the end of the story even as I watched it unfold from afar, as the news reports told stories of heroic rebels entering the city, of the removal of Aristide from the country, and of the formation of a new provisional government. A provisional government that would last two years, that would usher in a United Nations military intervention that would last much longer, that would unleash another terrible wave of violence and destruction in the country.

A few weeks after I left Haiti, I received a phone call from a friend. “I am sorry to tell you that Manuel is dead,” he said. I didn’t know what to say. I immediately assumed the worst, that he had been killed by gangs or paramilitaries. He had been an outspoken supporter of Aristide and the Lavalas movement, and he had been jailed and tortured before for his political activities. But his death was much more ordinary than that.

“What happened?” I said.

“He had tuberculosis,” my friend said.

I had seen him only weeks ago. He hadn’t seemed sick. He wasn’t coughing. He had energy. I can still see him smiling, even though I never saw him again.

“He didn’t tell anyone,” my friend said. There was a short pause. The phone line hummed. “They say he had AIDS,” he said, his voice quieter now.37

I asked about his family, about the funeral. I said I would try to send money soon. I asked how my friend was doing, what things were like in the city now.

“It’s bad,” he said. “The coup is coming.”

Afterward, I thought about Manuel. About what he had said to me, years earlier—that Haiti was dead. I thought about his comment that there would be crisis in Haiti forever and that even though each new event, each new blow, was a shock, it was also expected, anticipated even. You could feel the blow coming before it struck. I had been braced for the coup, but I hadn’t been braced for this. It felt so sudden, and yet it surely must have been slow and painful for Manuel.

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