What do Haitians Want from the U.S.?
Orenstein, Catherine
On October 11, the United States carrier ship USS Harlan County W ha arrived in the bay of Port-au-Prince with a cargo of 200 "combat engineers and Ha military trainers." But after a day-long...
...We are not independent," Li-bon says...
...Haiti's crisis as a radical democratic change that must come from within...
...imperialists or Macoutes...
...The majority of Haitians-the peasants who make up 90% of Haiti's population-have been excluded from diplomatic dialogue since the coup, and cut off even from Aristide who speaks only infrequently over the radio...
...He qn Jqu The bourgeoisie, counting on U.S...
...The result: C6dras was legitimized and Aristide's own return was rendered improbable...
...On the docks, the rabble-rousers celebrated their victory, howling with glee at the boat's departure...
...When the military attaches came through the streets they were looking for someone, a Lavalas man, but then they found me instead...
...Everyone who knows Aristide is absolutely amazed at the maturation that has occurred in the past two years," said Father Antoine Adrien, a close presidential advisor from the bourgeois sector...
...whites go away...
...He cannot be president because, you know, he is unstable, as a CIA file has said...
...What about independence...
...So they beat me"-he demonstrates-" beat me...
...Perhaps the the course of events should have been foreseen, given the inconsistency of the troops' mission-to restore democracy-and their instructions to "run the other way" if they encountered opposi- by Catherini tion...
...Nou pa independan...
...Pssst," he says, juggling his hand grenades for me...
...Adrien-like others in the reformist camp- is also less adamant on the issue of intervention...
...Although there is no formal link, FRAPH is said to .S...
...Others saw their last hopes retreating on the horizon...
...They will get rid of the attaches...
...The popular movement, which also has strong nationalist roots, opposes any form of foreign intervention, be it military troops or UN observers...
...The popular movement leaders would also have been glad to see the USS Harlan County sail away with its anchor between its legs, so to speak, but for the fact that many of them were hiding out in the United States...
...Intervention, no...
...Some were wary of what might replace them...
...I had four babies, but two are dead already...
...Constant would like to see UN envoy Dante Caputo replaced by a U.S...
...should have been ordered to land...
...Everyone will be happy when they come...
...As I walk back, a woman I don't know offers me her baby...
...he growls...
...What about 1915...
...whites...
...If Aristide returns, I will eat him-EAT him...
...The group's acronym, FRAPH, sounds like "strike" in ins French and the hand signal-fist clapped in fist over the head-is Nazi-esque...
...On November 4, the silence belies the continuing intensity of oppression, even as media attention dwindles...
...I ask Li-bon...
...He understands, in the transition from priest to president, it takes more patience, more willingness to compromise" An attache (enter) (Los Angeles Times October 27, frontof FRAPH head 1993...
...From the wharves, through the sea-side slums, up the road past the attaches' hang-out La Normandie, up past the Army headquarters, up, up past the mounds of trash into the wealthy hills of Petionville, and over the seas, to the suites of Washington, Haitians of every status were calculating the meaning of the most recent international maneuver...
...Nothing would have happened because the vast majority of Haitians would have welcomed them...
...President Aristide is welcome back in my country," he says...
...policy with Haiti-they know what is in their own interest...
...intervention!," the troop carrier beat an ignominious retreat...
...the departure of C6dras and before his own return, leaving the putschists fully capable of sinking the process whenever they saw fit...
...good will and support, expressed guarded satisfaction with the accord...
...But the hammer of diplomatic decisions hits them the hardest...
...Sacramento Bee, October 13, 1993...
...For the popular movement, the "solution" is radical democratic change-a social revolution with no room for compromise with the "U.S...
...Pssst, blan...
...But the U.S...
...The sight was sweetened by the memory of 1915, when U.S...
...1 9 Although the Aristide delegation had stayed up all night on July 2 composing a counter-proposal to what Caputo offered, they were given an "ultimatum" the next day, according to Chavannes, to "take it or leave it...
...In Cite Soleil, the poorest of the sprawling slums of Port-au-Prince, the empty streets offer up a daily quota of bloody bodies left for days as a warning of the penalty for hope...
...With the departure of the USS Harlan County and the pull-out of the UN observer mission shortly thereafter, the United States called on the remaining thousand or so Americans still in Haiti to register with the embassy in the event of an emergency evacuation...
...How Haitians see the role of the international community in the Haitian struggle is determined by what they perceive to be the goal...
...They sometimes have rallies outside the Palace of Justice, near La Normandie, where they march waving the Haitian blue-and-red flag, the revived Orenstein black-and-red flag of Duvalier, and the U.S...
...made a lot of promises, and where are they now...
...The accord contains the elements of democracy, the return of the truly elected president of the Republic and the relinquishing of their command posts by the leaders of the coup," declared Ambassador Casimir...
...We are in the middle of a long struggle...
...ships had last come to Haiti and stayed for 20 years...
...When Trom joining, a member is given an identity card and the option to buy a gun...
...His capacity for compromise has greatly expanded...
...mediator-"maybe Colin Powell...
...What next...
...We are dying alone in the streets...
...Americans, yes...
...One of them, wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap, sports a rifle over his shoulder and two hand grenades on his belt...
...As a citizen...
...This was clear enough to the Duvalierists...
...But after a day-long Hait stand-off at the docks with a small gang of military attaches who bran- W ant dished clubs and guns, and screamed, "No U.S...
...Meanwhile, among the poor masses who don't have the luxury of idealism, many hope for peace at almost any cost...
...I believed them, and all I got was beatings...
...This is an accord between the UN, the OAS, and the 'friends of the Secretary General,"' as the United States, France, Canada, and Venezuela came to be dubbed during the Governors Island talks...
...Farther on in Cite Carton, so named because the huts are constructed from cardboard and old U.S.AID food cartons, Dieudonne sits on the ground with the metal bowls he makes and says, "I am for the a soldier (right) in embargo, because we have to get artersAristide back...
...Blan al0...
...Within the Lavalas coalition that brought Aristide to power, the popular movement has been at odds with the more liberal bourgeois sector on the issue of international intervention, both diplomatic and military...
...work in close cooperation with, or as a front for, the Army...
...The international community must lift the embargo, because it is unimaginable and criminal to keep six million people hostage for one person...and we must have new elections according to Article 149 of the Constitution...
...A group of boys play soccer in the empty street, with deflated rubber balls...
...Would you take her to America with you...
...I ask...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 26REPORT ON HAITI vannes Jean-Baptiste, who was part of the government's delegation at Governors Island...
...Intervention, no...
...When C6dras and his delegation returned to Haiti on July 3, he received a hero's welcome from cheering crowds of soldiers and coup supporters at the airport...
...The bourgeois sector of Lavalas, on the other hand, sees diplomatic dialogue, reconciliation, and integration of the opposition as components of a new democracy...
...He says, "October 30 was only one date...
...This is not an accord between the military delegation and the constitutional government," said Chat J ec One group, the Front for the AdvanceDo ment and Progress of Haiti, has taken de facto control of the streets...
...Some were gratified to see the ships and planes, filled with foreigners, depart...
...This sequence of events provided a unique opportunity to observe the different Haitian views of what role the international community and the United States should play in their country...
...Earlier that week at a press conference, Constant proclaimed, "Governor's Island is dead...
...The bourgeois sector sees the international community as a medium for resolving Haiti's crisis, reconciliation as necessary, and intervention as a possibility...
...The military junta and its Duvalierist allies seek to maintain and consolidate their control, seeing in the United States an ally to prevent Aristide's return...
...Waving a gun in the air with one hand and a bottle in the other, the attaches pounded on the car of a journalist not wise enough to stay away: "Blan...
...troops aboard...
...When the USS Harlan County turned around and sailed off last month, Adrien said, "the U.S...
...We know America is not afraid of the Haitian army...
...It sees the solution to 26 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Catherine Orenstein is a NACLA staff member...
...Some ask for peace, others demand power, and some call for democracy...
...Most attaches are members of right-wing political organizations that have recently sprung up, proponents of an extreme nationalism...
...FRAPH's affinity for the United States indicates some- thing about U.S...
...We cannot work, we cannot speak, we cannot live...
...2 0 But an open letter to President Aristide from ten of the most established popular organizations called the accord "an affront to the heroic struggle of the Haitian shows me his back, which is bruised...
...At his home, FRAPH's Secretary General Emmanuel "Toto" Constant sits on his balcony overlooking an empty pool, the butt of a guard's gun visible over the wall...
...We are in a moral prison...
...stars and stripes...
...They could come in and shoot those guys," says Li-bon, whose name means "he's good" in Haitian Creole...
...At one such rally, a group of men cluster around me, chanting "-"America, yes...
...We hoped the Americans would come...
Vol. 27 • January 1994 • No. 4
