"If a light bulb burns out in the provinces, they still need permission from the capital to buy a new one."

For Nicolas, the return of Aristide meant that he could come out of hiding and begin his life again. Under the coup he had been, he said, "a marked card," hunted by the army and death squads. Yet despite his personal relief, he is not effusive about the past year.

"If every government minister and judge had the will of Aristide, my country would progress," Nicolas said. "But he has hardly made any real progress. He's only been able to put structures in place. The next government will be even more important: it will have to make the structures work."

"So far, the land reform office is just a name. They talk of decentralizing government, but it's like talking about heaven. If a light bulb burns out in the provinces, they still need permission from the capital to buy a new one."

"Titid [Aristide's nickname] has made a good start at straightening out the state, but there are still some corrupt people in high places. A rich businessman was recently busted for cocaine, but he didn't even spend one night in jail. He called a friend in the National Palace, who got him out. As long as a few people have all the money, justice can't exist."

Another scandal recently surfaced around a government official who had ordered the printing of a new phone book for Haiti (there is only one for the entire country), Nicolas said. The bureaucrat was skimming three U.S. dollars off the top for every directory printed.

Abolishing the Army

"We need to pick up all the trash out there and use it to make biogas for cooking."

Against the advice of the U.S. government, Aristide abolished the 7,000 man army and created a national police force currently numbering 1,500 in its place, Nicolas said. Four hundred of these police will be assigned to rural areas to replace the hated chefs de section (something like sheriffs), who were a law unto themselves in the countryside.

"Among the people, there's a certain amount of confidence in the new police," Nicolas said. "They're training them to be different from the old police. And they've done pretty well so far against the Red Army in Cité Soleil," one of Port-au-Prince's largest slums. The Red Army is a heavily-armed gang of drug dealers and former army and death-squad members who prey on slum dwellers.

Although Aristide has made some economic strides, Nicolas said, development should focus more on basic needs: "We don't need turkey wings or Miami [imported] rice or even electricity. We need to develop local agricultural production. We need to pick up all the trash out there and use it to make biogas for cooking."

Aristide has attracted foreign aid, he said. "But foreign aid tells us what we have to do, it puts us in a place where we have to say 'Thank you, foreigners, thank you.' It doesn't listen to people's needs. It's like the Creole proverb: I'm making a rope and I give you the other end to hold. But while I'm twisting it, you're untwisting it."

Around the Lavalas table

a vegetable vendor in Kenscoff

Nicolas counts himself among the millions of Haitians who support Lavalas, the movement that swept Aristide into power. Lavalas is the Creole word for landslide, and it suggests a purifying flood washing away the old, corrupt order.

But another image also represented Aristide's coalition in the last elections: Bò tab la, around the table, the idea that all Haitians have to sit down together to dialog and share what they have. Exactly who is to share what is a subject of fierce debate.

At the heart of the controversy is the privatization of state-owned industries, including the cement plant, the phone company and the electric company. The U.S. government and international financial institutions have pressured the Haitian government to move forward quickly with the privatizations, but Aristide and many members of Parliament have resisted.

Nicolas is bitterly opposed to privatizing public assets: "It is an impossible thing that should never be done to Haiti. The same group of people with money would like to buy up these companies and make even more money. It's something that the Parliament needs to debate openly, not a deal that you cut behind the people's backs."

Wouldn't selling off the electric company bring in competition and investment? "Right now," replies Nicolas, " the Pelig Dam produces hydroelectric power at one cent a kilowatt-hour. If the private sector buys it, they'll sell it for 30 cents a kilowatt-hour."

"Only a few towns have electricity anyway, and people have never used it for refrigeration. Electrification will come, but it's not our first priority today: first we need to take care of land issues and irrigation and roads. Maybe in the States people need electricity in every tree, but in Haiti we don't need it."

The U.S. government has withheld several million dollars in aid, apparently to pressure the Haitian government to proceed more quickly with the privatizations.

Zombis in New York

"[Aristide] should preach the good news and be a voice for those without a voice."

When Nicolas visited New York recently, what struck him most strongly was how hurried Americans seemed to be. "They run around in their cars, watch TV, eat very fast, no time to talk with each other. On the subway, they looked like zombis. I felt pity for everyone. They think all that shiny stuff is god."

He saw a TV news story on a man whose house had been destroyed by a storm. "He was guarding the ruins of his house with two big guns. What was left there to guard? That man really touched me."

But Nicolas was impressed with how good Americans are at organization and information. "Public information doesn't exist here. Information in Haiti is used as a tool for power. What I really liked in the States was the organization, not the big houses with all the appliances."

Should Aristide remain in office for three more years, as many of his supporters have suggested? Aristide has said that presidential elections scheduled for December 17 will go forward and that he will step down February 17.

Nicolas believes that the best thing Aristide can do is to become an itinerant ambassador-at-large for Haiti, explaining his country to people around the world. "He should preach the good news and be a voice for those without a voice," Nicolas said.