The upshot here is that clintonista activity in Haiti was not the work of foreigners deeply committed to the well-being of a long-suffering people. Instead, it capitalized on the chance to make money using government power.
Now is time to break that habit. As one Haitian told me, if the country is ever to develop it needs “to rely less on cronyism and more on transparency and the vast resources of the Haitian expat community.” That would disqualify Bill Clinton.
From his exile perch in Georgetown, Mr. Aristide proceeded to draw on those government revenues—by some estimates $50 million—to lobby for his return to power…. A couple of years of spreading Haitian money around Washington did the trick: In 1994 Mr. Clinton called up the U.S. military to restore Mr. Aristide to the presidency….Haitians complained bitterly for years about his human rights abuses and corruption, and many of his educated supporters broke with him as his tactics became clearer. But the Clinton administration never did anything to bring him to heel.
