HAITI The Elite's Revenge
Slavin, J. P.
For many Haitians, the presidency of Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide marked a joyous new beginning, a "second independence." The first occurred on New Year's Day, 1804, when Haiti separated...
...The first occurred on New Year's Day, 1804, when Haiti separated from France...
...The first test of the breadth of Aristide's support came in January, a month before his inauguration, when Duvalier's former Interior Minister Roger Lafontant, along with 21 accomplices, seized control of the national palace and declared himself provisional president...
...The Bush administration rushed 400 Marines to its Guantdnamo Navy base in Cuba...
...Aristide is fond of saying that it is better to err with the people than to be right without them...
...Scores of homes and offices of alleged coup sympathizers or suspected Aristide enemies were destroyed and more than 100 people were killed...
...A Social Revolution Aristide's populist rhetoric and planned reforms furtherdismayed powerful sectors in Haitian society...
...On July 2, he retired Haiti's top officer, Lt...
...H6rard Abraham, replacing him with Lt...
...While he was probably not involved in its planning, the career foreign service officer (who got his start as an area development officer for AID in Vietnam, 1968-1969) appears to have seized the diplomatic moment to try to rein Aristide in, to turn him into a president "he could control," in the words of one Aristide supporter...
...Trained by advisers from the United States, France and Switzerland, the exact size of the SSP is unknown...
...Other Aristide defenders claim the president's words were misinterpreted, that he was speaking metaphorically...
...In their stead, he promoted officers who were viewed as either non-political or pro-Aristide...
...In less than an hour, thousands of Aristide supporters, alerted by conch-shell horn blasts and the clanging of machetes on iron gates, streamed into the streets...
...For the first time, the military controlled information," said former planning minister Renaud Bernadin, now in hiding in Port-au-Prince...
...If we don't do that, the political revolution will not go anywhere...
...Now we feel hungry after we've eaten, because we've lost him...
...Ambassador Alvin P. Adams, Jr...
...He's violently dedicated to the promotion of certain values, one of which is to respect the will of the majority...
...Political parties here cannot be compared with political parties in the United States," he said...
...Furious army officers likened the SSP to Duvalier's ferocious Tontons Macoutes, an untrained private militia some have numbered at 300,000, that was loyal only to the president and effectively blocked the army from the political arena...
...As many as 500 people may have been killed by the Haitian army in the first few weeks after the coup...
...Using the broad constitutional powers granted the president to clean up government in the first six months of his term, Aristide gave scant deference to the "advise and consent" role of the legislative branch...
...The army was vicious in establishing control...
...His vocal opposition to Durvalierisme, capitalism and the United States (for its support of the 29-year-long Duvalier dictatorship) made him a popular public figure among Haiti's poor, especially in the sprawling slums of Port-au-Prince...
...When a 30-member OAS delegation arrived in Haiti on October 4 to negotiate the return of Aristide, the diplomats met once with four Aristide cabinet ministers...
...As a prophet I wanted to be a sign in the eyes of Haitians," Aristide said before the coup...
...Before he became a last-minute candidate for president in the December 16, 1990 elections, Aristide was a leader of"Ti Legliz," or little church, a movement of fervent liberation theologians that helped mobilize the country to oust President-for-Life Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalierin 1986...
...Fundamentally, he's a non-violent person and he won't tell people to give someone a Pbre Lebrun...
...Aristide won a landslide victory in the freelycontested elections, in which Haitians were able to vote without intimidation for the first time...
...Then I realized I had to follow them...
...to 6 a.m...
...Aristide paid a high price for trying to serve the will of his people...
...The popular rebellion in defense of Aristide never got off the ground...
...His coup lasted only ten hours...
...Gunmen riding in unmarked cars enforced a 6 p.m...
...Secretary of State James Baker called the junta "illegal" and said the regime was "without aid, without friends, and without a future...
...That's against his nature...
...But even if he intended to advocate the use of P&re Lebrun, they argue, his stance reflected his commitment to social justice, which he considered more important than any "law...
...But the majority of the OAS meetings were held with Aristide's political enemies who complained pointedly about Aristide's human rights record...
...In his February 7 inaugural speech, the president retired six of the seven officers who made up the army general staff...
...Not only did Aristide not cooperate with the legislature, his critics accused him of condoning vigilante violence and "Pbre Lebrun," the Creole nickVOLUME XXV, NUMBER 3 (DECEMBER 1991) name for necklacing, or killing by placing a burning tire around the head of the victim...
...The second ended on September 30, 1991, less than eight months after it began, when the country's traditional power brokers -the military and business elite-afraid that Haiti's first legitimately elected leader was beyond theircontrol, moved quickly, efficiently and brutally to bring him down...
...Aristide is a man of values and he won't negotiate on those values," said a Canadian Roman Catholic priest, a 10year resident of Haiti and acquaintance of the president...
...These politicians make decisions without consulting the people...
...Every so-called professional politician in Haiti creates a political party on paper, but has nothing at the grassroots...
...Ask them why not...
...Tires burn extremely slowly, and the process turns a corpse into an ash pile...
...All alternative sources of information were eliminated...
...Aristide's decision not to appoint political party leaders as cabinet ministers, Bernadin added, was a deliberate attempt to "rupture" Haiti from its corrupt political class...
...huddled with political opposition leaders before they made their presentation to the OAS delegation...
...The executive has shown no willingness to search for a solution," said centrist parliamentarian Guy Bauduy before the coup, commenting on Aristide's attitude toward the legislature...
...Indeed it aroused fears among Haiti's political,economic and military establishment that Aristide and his supporters would use any means necessary to advance his social agenda and safeguard his presidency...
...For the sea to dry up...
...With Aristide, we never felt hungry even when we were starving," summed up one resident of a Port-auPrince shantytown...
...But as the days passed, direct intervention seemed less and less likely, derailed by a carefully orchestrated attempt to portray Aristide as a dictator in the making...
...the president had learned of an imminent assassination plot and wanted to warn the conspirators that the general population would seek violent vengeance if his government was toppled...
...Relations are not as harmonious as they should be...
...The speech rattled the country's elite, stirring alarm that Aristide was leading the country to "a dictatorship of the proletariat," using presidential sermons to preach death to political enemies...
...The violent reaction of Aristide's backers to the attempted takeover did not go unnoticed by the organizers of the September coup...
...Aristide's departure has deflated Haiti...
...Whenever you feel the heat of unemployment," he said, "whenever the heat of the pavement gets to you, whenever you feel revolt inside you, turn your eyes in the direction of those with the means [money...
...IRealizing that his attempted reforms might prompt the military to try to assassinate him, Aristide created a small independent guard, the Presidential Security Force (SSP...
...Aristide also alienated members of Haiti's 108-seat parliament...
...Human rights violation significantly after the coup...
...Relying on his enormous popular support as protection from reprisals, Aristide attempted to ease the 7,000member army out of politics...
...They attacked...for the purpose of terrorizing people," said Bernadin...
...Seizes the Moment In the first week following the coup, it seemed that military intervention to restore Aristide to power was being considered...
...They built barricades of flaming tires, engulfing Port-au-Prince in a thundercloud of black smoke...
...Then it became 15...
...soldiers showed no mercy when firing into crowds...
...U.S...
...This is a political revolution, but it's not a social revolution," Aristide said in July...
...Later an army communique ordered the press not to report anything that "would incite the population...
...Former cabinet minister Bernadin argues that Aristide's fierce commitment to social change led the president to deliberately separate himself and the executive branch from politicians in the legislature who had little popular support...
...Now we are trying to achieve a social revolution...
...The people who suffered the most are from the areas where Aristide has his base of support...
...What are they waiting for...
...We had a presidential militia in 1957," said a Haitian colonel, referring to the Macoutes...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS J.P...
...The Organization of American States and the United States imposed sanctions and a trade embargo...
...They distribute jobs and money to their clients...
...Adams gave Aristide strong public support before the coup...
...Aristide used threatening language, cabinet minister Bernadin said, because Haitians in New York City lead a 60,000-strong demonstrat to protest the overthrow of Aristide...
...When the smoke cleared, Lafontant was in handcuffs...
...The day of the coup, the military moved to shut down private radio stations and take over broadcasts on the two state-owned stations...
...They cite as evidence Aristide's September27 speech in which he called on the poor to defend their rights, and referred to "a beautiful tool" they might use against Duvalieristes...
...He writes regularlyfinr National Catholic Reporter...
...Then it became 100, then 1,000, then 10,000, then 300,000....The army cannot tolerate something like that again...
...curfew...
...Raoul Cedras, the man who would later lead the successful coup against Aristide...
...estimates range from 30 to 300...
...Slavin is a freelance writer based in Haiti...
...It started with 10 people...
Vol. 25 • December 1991 • No. 3
