Sender: o-imap@webmap.missouri.edu
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 97 11:36:43 CST
From: Haiti Progres <haiticom@blythe.org>
Subject: This Week in Haiti 14:52 3/19/97
Article: 7597
To: BROWNH@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU
This Week in Haiti,, Haiti Progrès, Vol.14 no.52, 19–25 March 1997
If you don't help out our young, poorly equipped, beleaguered
police, the Tonton Macoutes will come out of the shadows and stage a
coup, the same as in 1991,
Haitian President Rene Preval pleaded
with a crowd in Mirebalais, a town on Haiti's central plateau, on
Mar. 14. For 4 days, demonstrators blocked roads through the town,
which is a regional gateway, and the town's government offices and
telephone exchange were closed.
The Army is definitively dismantled, but Mirebalais is a bastion
for the former military. We must work together with the Haitian
National Police [HNP] to impede acts of destabilization,
Preval
said, having flown in by helicopter to negotiate removal of the road
blocks.
The situation in Mirebalais reflects the deep crisis shaking every corner of the country. Lavalas government policies which have fostered complete impunity for putschist criminals and a widening gulf between the rich and poor have finally pushed Haiti to the brink of chaos. Angry people in cities and towns throughout Haiti are rising up.
But, at the same time, demobilized
soldiers, paramilitary
thugs, and former Tonton Macoutes have seized the moment to launch a
multi-faceted destabilization offensive expressed in a wave of violent
crimes, attacks on police and haphazard gunfire.
They have also sought to infiltrate the growing popular movement against foreign military occupation and the neo-liberal austerity program. Hiding behind the anti-imperialist program of the popular organizations, the Macoutes are trying to provoke street confrontations and confusion to complement their assassinations, robberies and power bid.
At least 50 people have been killed in the past four weeks in the
worst violence since U.S. troops ousted Haiti's military dictators
in 1994,
the Associated Press reported on Mar. 15.
However, the U.S. troops, which enforced the Washington-dictated
policy of reconciliation,
also prevented the judgement and
disarmament of the Macoute legions now spear-heading today's
mayhem. While some weapons have also fallen into the hands of urban
street gangs, this aspect has been overplayed by the mainstream press,
which often portrays Haitians as prone to violence and anarchy. The
most heavily armed and active trouble makers
in Haiti are the
Macoutes, who are far better equipped and organized than the HNP. In
the past 4 weeks, at least 7 policemen have been killed, and several
others wounded.
The Macoute resurgence also comes as the date of their return to
legality
approaches. The Haitian Constitution adopted on Mar.
29, 1987 barred for 10 years Duvalierists who displayed excess
zeal
from holding public office.
Furthermore, resurgent Duvalierists are being embraced by unpopular
politicians, who are willing to ally with any forces in their ambition
to return to power. Former Port-au-Prince mayor Evans Paul of the
National Front for Change and Democracy (FNCD) and Serge Gilles of the
PANPRA, among other politicians, have called repeatedly for a
national dialogue
which would be without exclusion,
code
for including the Duvalierists.
Furthermore, the Duvalierists have been waging a steady propaganda war
for months, through such media as Radio Liberte of Duvalierist
ideologue Serge Beaulieu, reminding people that conditions were not so
miserable under Duvalier and stoking popular rage with rumors and
generalized accusations of gran manje
—meaning big
eater
i.e. corrupt bureaucrat—applied to almost any Lavalas
government official. (Beaulieu, who was imprisoned in Haiti before the
Sept. 1991 coup d'etat for his involvement in the attempted coup
of Jan. 1991, continues to run and speak on his radio by telephone
from New York, where he, like other putschists and Duvalierists, has
found a safe harbor). The Duvalierists' goal is not to root out
wrong-doing but rather to equate the failings of the Lavalas
government with their 30-year reign of terror and corruption.
Moveover, the Tonton Macoutes have sought to high-light police repression, which has often been indiscriminate and savage. But the fact remains: the Macoutes have killed many policemen while the policemen have barely arrested any Macoutes, and those they have captured, are often released by Duvalierist or scared judges. And this trend is growing.
Meanwhile, the Duvalierists have tried to pin the responsibility for Haiti's growing violence on former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his party, the Fanmi Lavalas (FL). Last week, the right-wing paper Haiti Observateur focussed on a statement of Serge Pierre-Louis, Preval's spokesman, who charged an Aristide- aligned former soldier and FL candidate, Fourel Celestin, with fomenting the armed confrontations in Cite Soleil, which have left over 20 people dead and hundreds of shacks burned down in recent weeks.
Aristide placed the blame for climate of violence and terror on the high cost of living and the effects of the neo-liberal austerity and privatization being implemented by the Preval government. He made his analysis during a meeting of several hundred adherents and candidates of his party on Mar. 14-15 in Tabarre, just outside the capital.
Occupation forces have been quick to help when the Haitian police have
cracked down on popular organizations protesting the government's
neo-liberal course. But they have done little to help rein in the
Macoutes. On the contrary, they seem to be more ready to penalize the
Haitian police. If a policeman shoots at a bandit, he is liable to
end up in prison or fired,
complained one policeman on Radio
Metropole on Mar. 13. The Canadian soldiers [with the United
Nations military mission, MANUH] tell you to turn in your gun and your
badge and go home.
Furthermore, Washington seems to want the Macoutes to keep their advantage. In February, the State Department issued a memorandum imposing an arms embargo on Haiti. This translates to an arms embargo and strait-jacket on the Haitian government, since the Macoutes are already more heavily armed and are reported to have several clandestine weapons supply routes via contraband vessels coming from Miami.
Meanwhile, occupation troops have been conspicuously remiss in helping
to quell the civil strife such as that which gripped Cite Soleil in
past weeks. People expect too much from the U.N. mission,
complained the new MANUH spokesperson Patricia Tome. The mandate
is to give technical support to the police.
The technical support
provided by the 300-odd troops of the
U.S. Support Group, which is not under U.N. command, is primarily
muscle-flexing. For example, Cap Haitien was particularly agitated
with demonstrations and gunfire after 3 gunmen ambushed and wounded
one of their senators, Mehu Garcon, and killed his driver near Cite
Soleil on Mar. 11. Now American soldiers have appeared in the northern
city this week, after months of absence, with big trucks, guns, and
equipment.
Adding to the combustion, the future of Prime Minister Rosny Smarth is in doubt. He will be called before the Parliament on Mar. 26, where there is a chance, however small, that he could receive a no-confidence vote from the chambers which are dominated by members of his own party, the Lavalas Political Organization (OPL). This would bring Smarth's dismissal or resignation, which popular organizations have called for since December. But popular organizations want a change of political direction, not just a reshuffling of ministers.
Overall, the political scenario in Haiti remains very complex and
volatile. We continue to demand the removal not only of the Smarth
government, but more importantly of the neo-liberal policies,
declared Ben Dupuy, spokesman for the National Popular Assembly
(APN). At the same time, we will not tolerate the Macoutes trying
to use the people's program and demands to achieve their own
return to power. We must fight the destabilization campaign of the
Duvalierists and putschists. While they adopt nationalist rhetoric,
we know they are protected by and allied with the foreign military
occupation of Haiti.