Aristide Leaves - What Does this Mean For the Americas?

As you no doubt know by now, Haiti's President, Jean Bertrand Aristide has resigned and left Haiti. Haitian Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre has replaced Aristide for the time being as per the constitutional rules of succession.

What does this mean for Latin America? When you couple this with what happened last year in Bolivia, two years ago in Argentina, four years ago in Ecuador, what nearly happened in Venezuela almost two years ago and what is on the verge of happening in Peru, democracy is extremely fragile in Latin America right now.

Yet the White House doesn't seem to be terribly troubled by this: concerns about freedom among our closest neighbor and our biggest trading partners. Andrés Oppenheimer was right in this column when he said that this neglect will come back to haunt us, if not sooner, then most assuredly later - and it won't be pretty.

The other aspect of what has happened in Haiti that worries me is Aristide's inability to defend his government from the rebels. Aristide disbanded the Haitian army when he was restored to his elected role as president in 1994 and at the time it was probably a good thing at least on paper. The Haitian army was corrupt, had ties to drug dealers and had a human rights record that in the most charitable terms could only be described as abominable.

The question now is this one: will Latin American leaders who now feel threatened seek to make their military geared more towards defending their rule than in serving the needs of their country? Will weak leaders now feel a need to expend valuable and scant resources on strengthening the military instead of devoting these resources toward needed improvements in infrastructure, education and social needs? Is there going to be a return to Praetorianism?

Stay tuned . . .