Haiti exists, but not happily. I have been visiting Haiti since March 23, when I went down with a delegation put together by "Haiti Reborn," an arm of The Quixote Center in Maryland. It was the first non-governmental delegation to reach Haiti since the United States forcibly removed President Aristide on Feb. 29.

Haiti has suffered a terrible humiliation at the hands of the United States. Although her poverty is bad enough, it does not wound the psyche as do recent events that amount to a kind of political/military rape of the country. The clock of Haitians' self-government has been set back at least 50 years. Awful fears and hatreds lie just underneath the surface, ready to ensnare or explode.

For example, one day a visitor cautioned that someone was watching the house where we lodged. Our visitor had brought with him two men who were prominent in President Aristide's Lavalas political party. Since Aristide's ouster, one of the men has not dared sleep in the same house two nights running. He quit our meeting early so as to stay on the move. Later that day we found out that his name was read out on the radio, which is like being marked for death.

Every day at 4 p.m., names are broadcast over the radio. Perhaps they are on a list of those whom the new government wants to arrest, or perhaps listeners call in with the name of so-and-so. All are linked with Aristide in some way. Some of those named soon disappear.

Although there is a "transitional" president in the National Palace (we met with him), the building is mostly occupied by U.S. Marines, who also patrol the streets and the airport, and fly helicopters over the poorer parts of Port-au-Prince night and day. U.S. forces have made many night-time raids into poor quarters like Belair and killed an uncertain number of people — estimates going as high as 70. Occasionally the foreign soldiers venture into middle-class neighborhoods, but never threaten the houses on the hills where the wealthy live.

We met with groups very loyal to Aristide and groups who hate him, but only one group, which is dominated by wealthy businessmen, failed to condemn in the strongest terms the

occupation of Haiti by the U.S.-led multinational force.

In the States, it seems that only the Congressional Black Caucus has been willing to speak of Aristide's removal as a coup. John Kerry did come close on CBS with Dan Rather. On Feb. 29, when Kerry rightly said to Rather that the Haiti crisis had been created by President Bush, who pressured Aristide and not his opponents. According to Kerry, Bush empowered the opposition to refuse all compromise, making a negotiated solution impossible. Although the game plan began as far back as 2000, it was Bush’s team, including Colin Powell, who pursued it to its bitter and very cynical end. I hope Kerry will stand by this analysis and continue to hold Bush accountable.

I have followed this matter from its inception. Suffice it to say that the "rebels" who came over the border from the Dominican Republic in February could not have been trained, supplied, and strategically prepared without the foreknowledge, and probably the assistance, of the United States.

There are few of the things I discovered in Haiti in the past ten days. The country is shockingly divided in its political opinions, including among people with high levels of education who are widely traveled in the world. We heard torrents of hatred and vilification, especially from Aristide's detractors, and from others we heard and saw expressions of fear.

Aristide made serious mistakes. It seems likely that his administration included unknown amounts of corruption, drug traffic involvement, and (as his hold on power grew weaker) reliance upon armed gangs from slum neighborhoods that looked upon him as a deliverer. He was, no doubt, a charismatic leader with poor administrative skills.

Even so, he was far from being the tyrant, dictator, and despot that his opponents and much of the U.S. press paint him to be. What kind of a tyrant is it whose most popular move was to disband the army?

One of Aristide's accomplishments was to establish a new school of medicine, now closed by the U.S. military and used as a barracks. This in a country in desperate need of doctors.

There is no effort by the U.S.-led multinational force or the Haitian police to arrest the known criminals among the armed "rebels" who played the key role in bringing down the government.

Not only are they insurrectionists who took up arms against a legitimate government, some of their leaders had previously been tried and convicted of politically motivated crimes. Upon entering Haiti from the Dominican Republic, they released about 2000 more criminals from jail. Staff at the U.S. Embassy told us that to capture and disarm them is not part of the mission of the U.S. forces. Meanwhile, the mission does include the use of lethal force against militants in the slums who were loyal to Aristide.

Aristide's opponents come from the left as well as the right. He tried to bring the disparate factions together, but the elite turned against him for not serving their interests. He found his base of support in the urban masses, whom he had once served as priest in the "parish of the poor," at the Church of St. Jean Bosco in Port-au-Prince. He had less support among the rural peasantry.

Although the transitional government talks of inclusiveness and power sharing, the cabinet it has appointed includes no members of Aristide's faction. The new Minister of Security is Hérard Abraham, a general in the army that Aristide disbanded in 1995. This is the clearest of several indications that the United States intends for Haiti's army to be reinstated as a proxy army trained and equipped by us for the purpose of quelling social unrest in the population.

Finally, a Catholic priest who has remained close to Aristide throughout his political career told us that Haiti "must" create and train a movement of nonviolent resistance. Although Aristide did not think along that line, the time for doing so seems to be at hand. We can help Haitians who are dreaming of a nonviolent way to renew their struggle for democracy and true independence by working to get the United States out of the business of regime change.

Tom F. Driver is a professor of theology and culture emeritus at Union Theological Seminary in New York and a volunteer with Witness for Peace.