Leftist demagogue watch

Amy Wilentz on the op-ed page of The New York Times today profiles Haiti's first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who is returning from exile in South Africa:

The Haitians one meets on the street or in their little shops or in the market or on the byways of the countryside and in the shantytowns of the provincial capitals are for the most part pleased at the prospect of former President Aristide’s return this week from seven years’ exile in South Africa. But when members of Haiti’s tiny elite, small middle class and growing international community here discuss Mr. Aristide, they look over their shoulders, shake their heads, raise their eyebrows. They speak in whispers or in great gulps of nervousness.

Aristide has a reputation on the Left akin to that of Salvador Allende or Patrice Lumumba - a democratically-elected Socialist leader unfairly removed from power by a conspiracy of American and business interests, and thus denied from ever bringing about the true revolution they promised. In my (inexpert) mind Aristide is more akin to Hugo Chávez - a Leftist demagogue who, if he counts as a step in the right direction, is definitely a small step. Aristide, like Chávez, in the end proved more interested in his own power than in revolution. But still a fascinating guy.