Haiti: Forgotten Dictatorship
ROMUALDI, SERAFINO
Duvalier rules his little country with a ruthless hand HAITI: FORGOTTEN DICTATORSHIP By Serafino Romualdi Public interest in the Caribbean area is concentrated these days on events in Cuba and...
...Duvalier does not respect the judicial principles guaranteed by the Constitution...
...Jules Larrieux, Thomas Desulme and Jean David (also former Cabinet Minister) and Emmanuel Moreau, pastor of the Episcopal Church...
...The newspapers Haiti-Miroir, Independence, and Le Patri-ote have had their printing establishments ransacked and dynamited by the secret police...
...Marines...
...He decided on this desperate move after he became convinced that his life was in real danger...
...The editors, after long months in prison, have had to go into exile to save their lives...
...Jean Philippe, another labor leader, went abroad...
...They cite, for instance, the presence of a 40-man Marine Corps training mission which is putting the Haitian Army—which had reached a state of disintegration and was no longer trusted by the dictator—into fighting trim...
...Last August, when a fire broke out in the Dessaline Army Barracks, panic and great confusion resulted...
...These Senators are Jean Belizaire, Chairman of the Legislative Judiciary Committee...
...Amand, who was a founder of the Haitian Communist party, a militant Communist in France and the author of a Communist novel published in Paris, is now a professor at the School of Advanced International Studies, an institution supported by the Haitian Government...
...Dacius Benoit, president of the Longshoremen's Union, and an old friend of mine, was in hiding, his health and mind broken after his arrest and torture by the police...
...He illegally removes or replaces judges who do not protect the interests of his friends or who refuse to condemn his enemies...
...Herve Boyer, Minister of Commerce and Industry in the Duvalier Cabinet, and his wife, who was an instructor in a Parisian Communist school, are—according to highly respected Haitian sources— both members of the French Communist party...
...Duvalier rules his little country with a ruthless hand HAITI: FORGOTTEN DICTATORSHIP By Serafino Romualdi Public interest in the Caribbean area is concentrated these days on events in Cuba and the Dominican Republic...
...The Christian religion is generally held in very low esteem by Duvalier, whose wish and intent is to establish Vaudou (voodooism) as the national religion...
...I was told that he had been doused with gasoline and then set on fire...
...Roger Gaillard and his wife, formerly university professors in Bulgaria, are now professors at the Haitian National University...
...Perhaps the assertion can be disputed somewhat, but the fact remains that this is what they believe...
...Most former members of the Haitian Communist party and the Popular Socialist party are officials, functionaries or proteges of the Government, living peacefully in Haiti, methodically pursuing their subversive activities...
...One of Duvalier's most intimate Serafino Romualdi, a regular writer for The New Leader, is the AFL-CIO's Inter-American Representative...
...He feared the mob would storm the palace, so he had it quickly surrounded for protection by tanks— manned by the U.S...
...And it will be a long time before they forget it...
...Contrary to the Constitution, he has expelled six Senators who criticized certain bills proposed by the Ministers of his Cabinet...
...They functioned primarily at night, violating the homes of the leaders of opposition political groups and their friends...
...One of these, Georges Petit, who has a background of more than 30 years of independent journalism, is presently living in Mexico City...
...In February 1959, at the request of the Inter-American Regional Organization (ORIT), I went to Haiti to investigate the trade union situation...
...Duvalier was frightened...
...In contrast democratic political groups and free organized labor organizations have been ruthlessly crushed, their leaders killed, imprisoned, or forced into exile...
...Duvalier boasts of having suppressed all opposition to his regime...
...give me help...
...The head of a well-known family, Antoine Marcel, was similarly disposed of...
...The day is now rapidly approaching when the new unions being organized by the Government will be closely allied with the Communist-dominated labor confederation of neighboring Cuba...
...On May 18, Haitian Flag Day, a student demonstration took place in Port-au-Prince...
...give Duvalier economic help...
...And if so, then why worry too much about his strong-arm methods...
...They were assassinated openly in Port-au-Prince, the capital city...
...Talk to any of the distinguished Haitian exiles now in the United States—politicians, labor leaders, former diplomats or simply professional people—and they will tell you, in anguish, that the horrible Duvalier regime is still in power because of the political support and economic help from the United States...
...Perhaps the mob and the military had no intention of storming the palace and overthrowing the Government, but the presence of the tanks, manned by U.S...
...Hasn't he requested and obtained a military training mission...
...Duvalier came to power on September 22, 1957, by fraudulent elections, and undertook to govern by terroristic methods...
...They prepare things so that when Duvalier inevitably falls—as all dictators sooner or later do—the people will give vent to their anti-American anger and put a Communist-anointed "popular democracy" a la Cubana into power...
...Another brother, Clement, former Cabinet Minister and Presidential candidate, and leader of the National party, died in asylum in a foreign embassy, where he was carried unconscious and gravely ill from his underground hiding...
...These three now lead the National Union of Haitian Workers in Exile, with headquarters in New York and a delegation in Caracas, which has been recognized by the ORIT-In-ternational Confederation of Free Trade Unions...
...Rodolphe Moise, a member of the Haitian Communist party, and his Hungarian wife received personal letters of invitation from Duvalier to come to Haiti...
...Previously, in July 1958, I was denied permission to enter Haiti by the police, who put me back into the plane...
...Among Haiti's honored citizens who were murdered were Ducasse Jumelle, a former Senator and Minister of the Interior and of Justice, and his brother, Charles Jumelle, an outstanding Haitian...
...But the trouble with this kind of reasoning is that Duvalier, while getting help from the United States, is actually in the hands of a gang of pro-Communist advisors who are pushing him closer and closer to the Communist line...
...People rushed to the scene of the fire in the same square the Presidential Palace is located...
...The decoy is—"The people are starving...
...I found the National Union of Haitian Workers (UNOH) taken over by stooges of the Government, the legitimate leaders in hiding or asylum in some foreign embassy...
...They are now in charge of a school in the Kenscoff area where they instruct Haitian peasants in Communist doctrine...
...What better proof of his 'friendship' for the United States...
...Last year some priests of the Roman Catholic church were expelled from Haiti and the Archbishop of Port-au-Prince was threatened with arrest...
...Signatory to a Communist manifesto in Mexico City during World War II, Duvalier openly defended and collaborated with Communists in Haiti...
...The bloody dictatorship of Francois Duvalier in Haiti, the little country sandwiched in between, has faded into the background and in many circles has been forgotten altogether...
...No sooner had he come to power than Duvalier began to persecute the labor unions and to force their leaders on the road to exile...
...He had sought asylum after another man, Dieudonne John, was mistaken for him and murdered on the night of January 25...
...Luc Stephen, Chairman of the Legislative Committee for Foreign Relations and official guest of the American Government in 1958...
...advisors is Felix Dorleans Juste, president and founder of the Haitian Communist party...
...Freedom of the press, guaranteed by the Constitution, has been suppressed...
...Marines, made sure that no such attempt was made...
...After all—many of his apologists proclaim—"Doesn't the U.S...
...To the Haitian people that gesture was dramatic "proof" of the United States' identification with the Duvalier regime...
...The present regime also carries out its tyrannies against religion...
...Still worse, some people still regard Duvalier's proclaimed "democratic" aspirations as genuine...
...Five of these Senators are now living in exile in the United States, Canada and Mexico...
...None is in exile...
...Duvalier has recalled to Haiti all the young Communists living in France or in the Iron Curtain countries who, prior to his assuming the Presidency, had been denied entry into Haiti...
...Ex-Senator Franck Legendre was whisked away and has never again been seen or found...
...The Government permitted the demonstration —indeed, actually organized it as a sort of blackmail to extract more economic help from the U.S...
...His private secretary and brother-in-law, Lucien Daumec, is a member of the Haitian Communist party and has even been refused a visa for transit through the United States...
...Jules Blanchet, personal advisor to the President, former Minister Without Portfolio in the present Government, now President of a Superior Court of Record (Cour Superieure des Comptes), is a founder and member of the Popular Socialist party, the Haitian version of the Communist Peoples Socialist party of Cuba...
...At the same time, Duvalier removed another career judge, Emile Sainclair, because he was a friend of the Chief Justice...
...Edriss St...
...The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Haiti, Theodore Nicoleau, who upheld a legal principle displeasing to the President, was removed from office the following day...
...Nathanael Michel, UNOH General Secretary, whom I tried to contact first, had sought asylum a few days earlier in the Venezuelan Embassy, together with his wife and three children...
...About 400 participated, carrying placards denouncing the "Yankee Imperialists...
...The surviving fourth Jumelle brother, Gaston, now President of the National party, managed to escape from Haiti and currently lives in New York...
...otherwise they'll go Communist...
...Duvalier's Communist advisors have managed to influence his policy in order to generate a violent dislike and hatred of Americans...
...So far he has succeeded very well indeed...
...The authorities have never been able to explain what happened to Augustin Cli-tandre, managing editor of the newspaper Le Soleil (The Sun), who was arrested in 1958 and has never been seen since...
...He has to act that way in order to keep the Communists down...
...He set up a secret police made up largely of ex-convicts and felons, known as cagou-lards—the hooded ones...
...the school is sustained by Duvalier...
...Another labor leader, Lyderic Bonaventure, head of the chauffeurs' union, was also in the Venezuelan Embassy...
Vol. 43 • July 1960 • No. 29
