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Why Does Hip-Hop Star Wyclef Jean Want to Run Haiti?

Media coverage of his candidacy for president is thin, so I went deeper.

Sarah Beuhler 23 Aug 2010TheTyee.ca

Sarah Beuhler is a local writer who has been observing the political process in Haiti since 1997.

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Jean: Friend of the poor or 'vulture'?

In 1997 I sat in a lecture hall and listened to a reporter who had been in Haiti during the 1991 coup against Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He recounted his story of arrest, beatings and deportation while covering the overthrow of Haiti's democratically elected government.

His message was simple: No one is reporting the truth about Haiti.

Thirteen years later not much has changed. If you've been watching the news in the past two weeks, you've seen Wyclef Jean, hip-hop artist and member of the influential group The Fugees and a Haitian expatriate, declare his candidacy for the Haitian presidency. As Jean makes the media rounds, two items have accompanied him on his tour: his membership in one of the most popular and loved hip-hop groups of the '90s and the financial irregularities of his charity Yele Haiti.

Based on the media coverage, the average news consumer might be expected to think that Wyclef Jean is a Haitian refugee made good who wants only to give back to his country.

Who is reporting the truth about Haiti?

Former bandmate's view

I spoke with Wyclef Jean's former bandmate, Pras Michel, and I asked him for some background on Jean's family in Haiti. I had read pieces suggesting Jean was somehow plugged into the elite power structure of Haiti and that his uncle was Raymond Joseph, the Haitian Ambassador to the U.S.

I asked Pras for clarification and he sounded slightly annoyed that this misinformation kept being repeated in the media. He told me that as far as he knew the two were not biologically related and at most there may have been a marriage between distant family members at one time. He also reminded me that he and Wyclef are not cousins, even though almost every piece about The Fugees says that they are.

Pras and I spoke for about an hour and I asked him about rumours that Jean, through his relationship with ambassador Raymond Joseph, was connected with the elite of Haiti -- the five percent who own 80 per cent of Haiti's wealth. He set me straight pretty quick. Haiti, according to Pras, is divided very simply down colour lines. The elite I asked him about are light-skinned, the rest of Haiti dark. "Wyclef is not part of that society -- he never was and he never will be, not if he had a billion dollars. That society... they deal with him, because he's Wyclef. I know this for a fact, they're not happy with him, and they're not happy with him running."

Pras may be right about Wyclef Jean and his family not being a part of the traditional economic elite of Haiti. Since the 2004 coup that overthrew Aristide's second government, the political power in Haiti now lies in those who are financially backed by the U.S., Canada and France. Enter Wyclef Jean. His charity, Yele Haiti, receives significant funding from USAID and is a creation of the U.N. Jean is a part of the Haitian political elite. But why is he running for president?

'Elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday'

Wyclef Jean gave little indication he would one day run for Haiti's highest office. He began his musical career in the late '80s with Lauryn Hill and Pras and transitioned to a solo career a decade later. Jean spent most of his life in the United States making music. The first indication of his political stance came in 2004 when he supported the coup publicly on MTV, calling on the members of the former death squads to hold out and be strong."

Other than that? Jean did raise money for his charity after the January earthquake, but much of it went to administration costs and there is continuing debate over its impact.

If you don't remember it from when it was released, you've probably heard the 2004 song "If I Was President" on all of the news outlets by now. Various news hosts have been excited to point out the similarity between this song and reality. With a kind of smug glee they recite the words to the chorus:

If I was president
I'd get elected on Friday
Assassinated on Saturday
And buried on Sunday

Instead of spending, billions on the war
I can use that money, so I can feed the poor
Cuz I know some so poor, when it rains that's when they shower
Screaming "Fight the power"
That's when the vulture devour

With these types of lyrics, you'd think that Jean would be firmly against any kind of political system that disadvantaged the poor of Haiti, but his actions seem to align him with the vultures.

The Clinton connection

In 2009 Jean was travelling with the man who all but destroyed Haiti's economy, Bill Clinton. Clinton forced Aristide's new government to follow the austerity and privatization measures that his electoral opponent on the right had formulated. Clinton later publicly regretted this action, admitting that the policies he forced Aristide to accept destroyed the Haitian economy and fatally crippled Aristide's administration. Jean has never acknowledged the role of the U.S. in his criticisms of the Aristide governments.

Since Aristide's violent ouster in 2004, his party, Fanmi Lavalas, has been banned from running candidates in elections. The most popular party in Haiti is prevented from participating in the electoral process. In 2009 Lavalas members refused to take part in senatorial elections in which they could not participate, resulting in an election where only eight per cent of the population cast votes. The low turnout garnered strong criticism from the international community and discredited the government of current president Rene Préval.

Independent media sources speculate that the international community is primarily concerned with breaking the Lavalas boycott. A candidate who could attract the participation of Lavalas could destroy the boycott. Many of those in the slums, the traditional power base of Lavalas, are fervent fans of Wyclef Jean, the Haitian refugee who became an American superstar. Is it possible that Wyclef Jeans' star-power could outweigh the commitment of the young people of Haiti to Lavalas and fair elections?

Whoever it is, the winner of the Nov. 28 election will have to decide how to allocate the billions promised in international aid to reconstruct a Haiti that was devastated before the earthquake even struck.  [Tyee]

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