Waiting for Aristide

Port-au-Prince

THE DAY my wife and I returned to Haiti—where we had lived off and on for 17 years—a bomb exploded near the International Airport, killing 23 Haitians. There was no mention of it in the press, TV, or radio. No local police reports. Who set it off? “Drug profiteers,” an armed guard at the Hotel Montana confided. “The hotels are not affected.” Both parts of his response were accurate. Drugs have indeed become the main business in Haiti. With American connivance, in a sense, for our Coast Guard cutters that ring Haiti’s long coastline have one purpose only: to keep Haiti’s ever-hopeful poor from entering the Promised Land illegally.

SR

About the Author

Selden Rodman

Port-au-Prince

THE DAY my wife and I returned to Haiti—where we had lived off and on for 17 years—a bomb exploded near the International Airport, killing 23 Haitians. There was no mention of it in the press, TV, or radio. No local police reports. Who set it off? “Drug profiteers,” an armed guard at the Hotel Montana confided. “The hotels are not affected.” Both parts of his response were accurate. Drugs have indeed become the main business in Haiti. With American connivance, in a sense, for our Coast Guard cutters that ring Haiti’s long coastline have one purpose only: to keep Haiti’s ever-hopeful poor from entering the Promised Land illegally.