February 26, 2005, Haiti – If Haitians were to acknowledge every governmental transition since the country's independence, there would be lots of holidays. In just the last two decades there have been more than 10 governments, some lasting days, others years. As we approach, the one-year anniversary of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide's Feb. 29 departure, it seems that a sad pattern of Haiti's history has repeated itself.

Instead of bringing positive change, as many had hoped, Aristide's exit has instead left the vast majority of the population just as unemployed, uneducated, exploited and invisible as before.

Aristide's exile was the culmination of months of unrest, protests and violence, propelled by a gang of Haitian armed rebels from the Dominican Republic and what some said was a push -- others a snatch -- by the U.S. government. Those of us who witnessed the chaos, fear and turmoil that precipitated his departure knew just how fractured, unwieldy and frightening Haiti had become. So it was no surprise, except perhaps to the United States, that today Haiti is as dangerous, unruly and ungovernable as ever. As has been the case with international interference in Haitian affairs, there was no thoughtful game plan for its future, just a knee-jerk reaction to a very dicey situation.

As with everything that happens in Haiti, there is no shortage of theories, conspiracies and rumors to explain why things aren't going well. And in Haiti, which is truly a confusing country, things are never as they seem. There are the obvious factors that have contributed to the country's current state -- illiteracy, poverty, drug-trafficking, corruption and a lack of infrastructure from which to work.

But scratch below the surface and things become more complicated because, despite the laundry list of negatives, the majority of the population somehow manages to survive another day with no reliable resources even as the changes in government come and go.

`The Turtle'

The current prime minister, a Haitian technocrat plucked from the States, has lots of connections to the international community but none to the Haitian people. Gerald Latortue, ''The Turtle,'' made costly errors early on. He embraced thugs whom he thought he could control, while actively targeting former Aristide supporters.

High-profile prisoners, such as Aristide's former prime minister and his former interior minister have been in jail for nearly a year with no trial date in sight. A well-organized jailbreak on Feb. 19 freed about 500 of the 1,257 prisoners in the National Penitentiary, 95 percent of whom have been neither tried nor sentenced. If this incident is handled like other lawless acts, it will receive media attention for a nanosecond and then be tucked away until it becomes politically advantageous to be exploited again.

U.S. leaders had hoped that a strong international presence, from which they lobbied to be excluded almost completely, could keep things in order. That hasn't worked, either. More than 250 people have been killed in the last few months despite the presence of 6,000 blue-bereted peacekeepers from the United Nations and 1,400 international police.

The problem is that there are as many guns as there are flies on the street. Those least equipped are the paltry Haitian police, an under-staffed, under-trained, corruptible and frightened group of several thousand.

Then there are the former Haitian soldiers, whose demands to be reinstated in the defunct Haitian army have won them 10 years in back pay and increasing visibility. Renegades from the police have joined up with armed supporters of Aristide who seek his return, and they have launched ''Operation Baghdad,'' engaging in a gruesome series of beheadings. Nearly a dozen neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince are under control of these rebel factions, and at least five towns across the country are under control of the former military.

It's alleged that drug money helps fuel the rebel factions. Meanwhile, the government has received only 10 percent of the $1.4 billion pledged by the international community shortly after Aristide's departure. The international community wants to see stability before it invests in Haiti, but the government argues that without adequate funds stability is impossible.

Coincidentally, this argument parrots Aristide's denunciation of the international community, which he blamed for strangling his efforts to ensure Haiti's stability and progress.

Do elections, scheduled for this winter, have any chance of success? Some 100 candidates hope to be inaugurated as president on Feb. 7, 2006, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship.

I'm sure that few, if any of them, have a blueprint for how to fix the mess that Haiti has become. Unless there's an incentive to bring together the fractured power-driven groups in Haiti and an unwavering financial and moral commitment from the international community, it's safe to say that with just a few editorial adjustments, this column could run again next year, same time, same place.

Kathie Klarreich, author of a forthcoming memoir on Haiti, Madame Dread, has lived in and covered Haiti for nearly 20 years.