New Unrest in Haiti
WHITNEY, THOMAS P.
Despite repressive measures which have restored order, President Duvalier lacks broad support New Unrest in Haiti By Thomas P Whitney PORT-AU-PRINCE is tense these days. Fantastic rumors spread...
...On the weekend of August 16-17, telejol had the capital in an uproar with successive stories that rebels had invaded the North, that they had taken Ouanaminthe on the Dominican border, and that ousted President Paul Magloire (now in the United States) had landed and been received with open arms...
...An austerity budget was pushed through and adhered to, under which expenditures are only slightly higher than revenue...
...The case has left much bad feeling on both sides...
...Ambassador tries to tell Duvalier whom to appoint to responsible posts and whom to fire...
...The President himself, a shy and suspicious person, has made little effort to do this...
...Daniel Fignole, a radical trade-union leader and master of the Port-au-Prince legions of the poor, and Clement Jumelle, Finance Minister under Magloire...
...He first became acquainted with Haiti on one of his first diplomatic assignments during the U.S...
...Cantave soon retired in favor of General Kebreau...
...Fignole lasted only 19 days...
...Many Haitians refrain from attacking the Government because they recognize this danger...
...Duvalier, the only man palatable to the Army in an election run by the Army, was elected...
...The incident took place before Duvalier was officially installed as President, so he could not be held accountable...
...For Haiti provides a great opportunity and also a great challenge...
...Government cut off all economic aid to Haiti and used other strong pressures to get compensation for Talamas's widow and infant—and finally secured $100,000...
...Embassy fervently denies that it took sides in the election...
...The hostility has several roots: 1. Many Haitians (including President Duvalier himself and his closest associates) are convinced that the U.S...
...Kebreau then organized the election which took place last September...
...Embassy sided with Dejoie during the election campaign...
...The positive efforts of the Duvalier Government, small though they be, can easily be obliterated by continued hostility between the U.S...
...citizen...
...Behind this troubled atmosphere are two facts...
...Two things seem clear: 1. Duvalier's overthrow could result in a long, bloody period of political strife surpassing that of early 1957...
...Dejoie then tried to oust Army chief General Cantave, but Cantave refused to quit...
...On July 29, there actually was an invasion of Haiti by one of the strangest crews in history...
...Embassy in Port-au-Prince and the Government...
...The group around him, instead of trying to win over opposition people who might be willing to join the Government, has been insisting that they come crawling for forgiveness...
...In that time he has failed to lay even the groundwork for a permanent democratic government...
...Dejoie found himself deserted and isolated...
...Thus, Duvalier has been getting rough treatment all around...
...At this point, the other two candidates, Duvalier and Jumelle, approached Cantave...
...The interregnum began when strongman Magloire tried to stay in power unconstitutionally...
...In fact, he has resorted to extensive political repression...
...A fourth is under detention on the flimsy pretext of an "investigation" of the bombing of his own printing plant...
...He has failed to make himself popular, but his opponents who are still at liberty are reluctant to come out into the open...
...In Port-au-Prince, a visitor immediately notices that a portion of the stinking slum of Lasaline has been cleared...
...The election had been preceded by the three-month rule of an Army junta, which had followed some six months of near anarchy as the four leading Presidential candidates jockeyed for position...
...citizen...
...A credit of $4 million was secured from the Batista regime in Cuba...
...Point Four program, was elected in September 1957...
...One interesting deal has been concluded with the Japanese which gives them a fishing base in the Western Hemisphere in return for their efforts to develop the Haitian fishing industry...
...The U.S...
...2. Many Haitians think that the U.S...
...Eight men — three exiled Haitian Army officers and five North Americans, including two deputy sheriffs of Dade County (Miami), Florida—disembarked from a small fishing boat, drove into Port-au-Prince, took the Dessalines barracks and held it till all eight were killed in a Government assault the next morning...
...The four included one member of Haiti's French-speaking social aristocracy, agronomist and fiery politician Senator Louis Dejoie, and three Negroes—Dr...
...On the other hand, the Duvalier Government has managed to keep some kind of order in a country in which, little more than a year ago, total anarchy seemed on the way...
...Something is going to happen on Tuesday," comes the whisper in soft French or harsher Creole...
...and that there is any effort to dictate to the Haitian Government...
...Haitian animosity centers not on Ambassador Drew but on the former Embassy Counselor who has now been reassigned to another post—at Haitian request, according to Haitian sources...
...On May 25, 1957 the country was in a slate of virtual civil war...
...aid to Haiti amounts to roughly $3 million a year...
...The dead were never counted, but order was restored...
...Francois Duvalier and a decree which threatens rumor-spreaders with indefinite prison terms...
...Some members of the Embassy staff, however, appear to look down on the Haitians as annoying, needy cousins who should be more appreciative of the crumbs thrown their way by Uncle Sam...
...The U.S...
...Dejoie, Fignole and a number of other opposition leaders are in exile...
...Duvalier has made a start on the problem of illiteracy by passing a law requiring that every literate Haitian teach one other Haitian to read...
...supporters of Duvalier claim the dismissal came after heavy U.S...
...Ambassador Drew, an experienced diplomat, and a refreshing, pleasant individual, speaks both French and Creole...
...Fantastic rumors spread fast...
...The Haitian rumor-spreading system, a permanent feature of national life known as telejol, is working overtime nowadays, despite the curfew imposed by the Government of Dr...
...Marine occupation (1915-1934...
...Just before this bizarre invasion, Haitian Minister Without Portfolio Jules Blanchet, at a press conference in New York, announced that Haiti would ask the recall of U.S...
...Actually, it is difficult to predict Duvalier's chances...
...The three of them agreed to offer the provisional Presidency to Fignole, who accepted immediately...
...And the Dominican Government of dictator Trujillo across the border is injecting inflammatory broadcasts in Creole into the troubled atmosphere and may be aiding the opposition in other ways...
...Dejoie and Fignole had gained control of the Government apparatus and the streets of Port-au-Prince...
...Duvalier, a Negro physician and sociologist who once worked for the U.S...
...Duvalier's Government has been in power now for almost a year...
...While Dejoie's supporters trained ancient artillery pieces on Army headquarters, roaming mobs sacked and burned homes and enterprises belonging to Dejoie's and Fignole's enemies...
...Soccer player Andre Martine, for instance, was taken into custody arbitrarily by police and, in the course of "questioning," beaten to death...
...Though no one really believes it, many people sleep fitfully Monday night...
...2. If the Duvalier regime wants to be more than a dictatorship that maintains itself by ever-increasing repression, it must broaden its political base...
...Whitney, who has written for the New York Times Magazine, the New Republic and other journals, described the Haitian Presidential race in The New Leader of February 25, 1957...
...Eager for power, he tried to take over the Army, but Kebreau resisted and drove him out of the country...
...Also, some Embassy people seem to base their attitudes on a belief that Duvalier is not going to last much longer...
...followed one another in rapid succession...
...From his ouster in December 1956 till mid-June 1957, provisional governments Thomas P. Whitney, Associated Press foreign-news analyst and President of the Overseas Press Club, recently returned from another trip to Haiti...
...Haiti is still as poor a country as it was before, but its government is not insolvent...
...A submissive legislature has voted Duvalier broad powers for a period of six months...
...The Army, as is sometimes said, may not be wholeheartedly behind him, but he has a band of faithful followers who will fight if necessary...
...Three Haitian newspaper publishers are under sentence of five years imprisonment for alleged sedition...
...The closed-down newspapers were organs of an opposition which is probably no more democratic-minded than the Government...
...More than a hundred political opponents of Duvalier are in jail, and an even larger number, including Jumelle, are in hiding...
...case was that under Haitian law Talamas could well be considered a Haitian citizen...
...The dubious part of the U.S...
...In defense of Duvalier, it must be said there have been actual conspiracies—bomb plots, shootings of police officers and the invasion attempt of July 29...
...To silence enraged Fignole supporters in the poor districts of Belair and Leogane, Kebreau sent in his soldiers with machine guns blazing...
...The exchange rate for the gourde—unchanged vis-a-vis the dollar for 40 years—was preserved...
...3. Haitians associated with the Government claim that the U.S...
...attitude toward Duvalier has encouraged rebellion...
...The other version is that Duvalier fired Kebreau because he was jealous of his power...
...U.S...
...It is not certain that any of the other leading aspirants to the Presidency could have done this...
...A good start has been made on paying off long-accumulated obligations and bills of the Magloire regime and the provisional governments...
...Yet the U.S...
...The opportunity lies in the fact that the U.S...
...Embassy deliberately used the case of Shibley Talamas as a club to beat the Duvalier Government...
...Ambassador Gerald Drew for interfering in Haiti's internal affairs...
...This applies whether Duvalier remains in power or another government takes over...
...This might even be climaxed by a shattering revolution, for which all the ingredients are present...
...pressure...
...As for the U.S., it would do well to pay closer attention to its relations with Haiti...
...But General Kebreau was fired as Army Chief in April 1958...
...These and similar events have strained U.S.-Haitian relations and threatened the future of President Duvalier's Government...
...law he was a U.S...
...He died as the result of police brutality in September 1957 while being held for questioning following the assassination of a group of Haitian police officers...
...This situation, however, can hardly justify the well-known cases of police brutality on the part of the Duvalier regime...
...can have a strong positive influence on Haitian development...
...that its actions in the Talamas case were anything more than the legitimate defense of a U.S...
...Some efforts have been made to attract capital...
...The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions recently protested the "repressive action" of the Haitian Government against trade unions, including the arrest in January 1953 of Nathanael Michel, General Secretary of the National Union of Workers of Haiti, and his subsequent house arrest...
...The challenge lies in the fact that this requires great skill and tact...
...But he still lacked broad support both in the Port-au-Prince social aristocracy and among Haiti's impoverished masses (more than 85 per cent of them illiterate...
...The Government has undertaken serious steps to save the country from the bankruptcy which seemed imminent...
...Talamas was born in Haiti and lived there all his life, but under U.S...
Vol. 41 • October 1958 • No. 32
