In the Eye of Haiti's Hurricane

...The three frontrunners, Leslie Manigat, Marc Bazin and Tomas Désulmé, are widely viewed as intelligent, able men...

...There's no money here," a young businessman told me...

...His prudence has prevented inflation and kept the gourde pegged at the usual level of five to the dollar...

...First hit were the rice growers of the Artibonite region, who could not compete with cheaper supplies from Miami...

...An unemployed HASco worker who had not eaten for three days knifed an American woman in the U.S...

...The tourist industry, Haiti's best hope of bringing in foreign dollars, is a shambles...

...Although windows were broken, the two men were not injured...

...In mid-August all transportation was interrupted while tap-tap and truck drivers protested an increase in gasoline costs...

...As HASCO, the largest sugar concern here, was pushed toward bankruptcy, 3,500 employees lost their jobs, 40,000 cane growers and their families were directly affected, and some 300,000, all told, were impoverished...

...Except for a few journalists and businessmen who stop at the Hotel Montana and the downtown Holiday Inn in the capital, the hotels are empty...

...Now the message of the Finance Minister is clear: Compete or go under...

...Even a head of state with a clear popular mandate, the complete support of the business community and generous help from the United States would have to deal with him—and it is questionable that any new president will have that strong a base...

...Where is everybody...

...Lingering opportunities for self-enrichment amid the general destitution mean there are still advantages to be enjoyed by those who retain power...

...It is true that Washington furnishes Haiti with a crucial $100 million in aid annually, yet funds the United States might otherwise make available to Haiti for infrastructural repairs and the like are being held up because of bureaucratic disorganization in Port-au-Prince...

...On July 23 Père Vincent's Tet Ansamn peasant group precipitated a battlein the little village of Jean-Rabel that ended with more than 200 killed and countless wounded: The Catholics, attempting to set up an agrarian collective, clashed with sharecroppers who refused to give up their land...

...The companies that produce cement and metal construction rods may shortly join the list of casualties of this policy...

...It is significant, too, that in contrast to the politically motivated strikes of June and July, today's work stoppages are more often called for economic reasons...

...They were forced to close when Dominican sugar was dumped into the Haitian market...

...The U.S...

...two others, Louis Déjoie and Hubert DeRonceray, have staunch supporters as well...

...Many assert that Washington has already chosen Haiti's next president...

...Also under attack are certain Leftist Catholic priests who have been urging youths to agitate for social change...

...In the final stages of the campaign, an as yet unannounced candidate will appear: Clovis Désinor, a 71-year-old former Duvalier minister...

...In fact, Haitians shrink from all group efforts, be they the labor unions and agrarian cooperatives of the Left or the Hotel Associations and Rotary Clubs of the Right...

...For this reason, virtually everyone outside the most pessimistic thinks some sort of voting will take place...

...If not, I'mmovingto New York...

...He does not understand why " short-sighted" peasants prefer to plant légumes—a sure way to fill their stomachs whatever happens...

...I n the Duvalier days, DC-10s loaded with drugs regularly refueled at the national airport, paying the family of Baby Doc's wife a $20,000 landing fee to ensure against inspection...

...Haiti's grim economic prospects have pushed many in the commercial sector to the threshold of flight...

...With an estimated 65 per cent unemployment rate, even a make-work project would be in order, and in this case repairs are sorely needed...

...Lately all seem to be hiding, perhaps justifiably...

...Caroif Cifaver, a free-lance journalist and former ? L contributor, has had a home in Haiti for the past 15 years...

...Many who in the past drove alone have hired chauffeurs so that they can travel gun-in-hand...

...Campaigning is not supposed to begin officially until 60 days prior to the election...

...The poorest peasants rejoiced when the price of cooking oil, a necessity of life, fell drastically to one-third of what it had been...

...Wood is used domestically for charcoal, the primary cooking fuel in this poor country...

...The wife of Colonel Jean-Claude Paul, boss of the Casserne Dessalines, Haiti's most feared prison, was recently arrested in Florida on drug charges but escaped prosecution because of "insufficient evidence...

...The U.S...

...The economic policies of Finance Minister Leslie Delatour, initially greeted by the people with enthusiasm, have caused hardships and aroused the ire of the business community...

...When a 16¢ per gallon increase was announced, strikers forced the hike down to 4¢ and capitulated...

...Spanish-speaking pilots were conspicuous in the casinos and brothels, and some maintained homes here...

...A few, nonetheless, are making a killing...

...On June 22, when the interim government headed by Lieutenant General Henri Namphy attempted to wrest control of forthcoming local and presidential elections from the constitutionallymandated Provisional Electoral Council, it lost the confidence of the people and pushed the country to the edge of anarchy...

...If forced to the ballot box, they are expected to make a last ditch stand according to the following scenario...

...The American ambassador, Bronson McKinley, sits locked within an almost empty embassy that is isolated by heavy security against attack...

...Protected from foreign competition, they previously had little incentive to be efficient, and many developed sloppy habits...

...Cocaine is readily available and is popular with the young and wealthy...

...The Haitian peasant will again live as he always has— jobless, hungry, docile, deprived of education and medical care, fearful of the voodoo gods, the police and the local chef—his life in perpetual peril...

...Ironically, it was François "Papa Doc" Duvalier who maneuvered the departure of the foreign clergy and had them replaced with Haitians...

...While the Peace Corps and other international groups carefully plant seedlings on denuded and eroding hills, the pine forest on the Dominican border and the jungle near the almost inaccessible tip of the southern peninsula are being cut down—some say with the Army's collusion...

...Yet drug trafficking persists, if on a smaller and less visible scale...

...The military believed it could conduct a free election more efficiently...

...Rice growers therefore see no reason to replant...

...Anti-Americanism, never strong in the past, is growing...

...But the Duvalierists will not give up without a fight...

...The whole farcical affair will be carefully orchestrated to convince naive Americans that democracy is in place...

...But it miscalculated the reaction of the people...

...Next hit were the sugar mills...

...There are some who dream that international capitalists will set up factories here to take advantage of the cheap and able labor, and thus turn Haiti into the Taiwan of the Caribbean...

...Since the June-July riots that left more than 20 dead and 100 wounded, and kept businesses closed two-thirds of the time, no one ventures out unless he has to...

...The world-famous Hotel Oloffson is closed for repairs...

...There are strikes and rumors of strikes, acts of random violence, and unexpected barricades...

...Small busts have made American officials aware of the Haitian connection, and the Ambassador told me that the United States will open a narcotics office here this fall...

...Should a new president not be inaugurated on February 7,1988, as the Constitution adopted last March 29 decrees, the patient, long-suffering Haitian people could throw the country into agenuinecivil war...

...This, together with the availability of rice and sugar, has produced a better-fed population...

...From the pulpit and via the Catholic-operated Radio Soleil, the native clerics then coalesced the discontent that ultimately forced Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier and his wife, Michèle Bennett, to flee the country on February 7, 1986...

...The bankrupted businesses will be reopened by "the right people,' tariffs will be reimposed, prices will rise, and new fortunes will be made...

...But the vast majority of natives are as independent and prideful as their forebears— who threw out the French in 1805 and then split the land into minifundia, making each peasant master of his domain...

...No one knows what will happen in the next half-hour or around the next corner...

...But soon the influx of foreign goods that followed the lifting of tariffs began to put people out of work...

...The rampant lawlessness is quite a departure from the days of the old Duvalier police state, when Haitians were horrified to hear of an isolated rape or robbery...

...And as the jobless rate grows, lower prices become increasingly irrelevant to Haitians without money...

...Several weeks later, as Père Vincent and Père Aristide rode together on Route 1, north of the capital, their car was stoned...

...A Peace Corps volunteer in the southern town of Marigot was recently raped by three youths who announced that they were going to do to her what her country was doing to theirs...

...Already there are hundreds of presidential aspirants and 57 organized political groups impatiently waiting for the race to start...

...While the Americans await the appearance of a bookkeeper, the workers starve, steal, and throw rocks...

...Reporters brought to the scene by helicopter were unable to determine if either side had won...

...Staged riots and random violence will keep the country in a state of chaos until election day...

...I'll wait for the election, and if it goes well, I'll try again...

...Numerous firms in Haiti, as in most small countries, have long enjoyed monopoly privileges...

...None of them, however, has so far presented a platform that goes beyond generalities, or has displayed a charismatic personality capable of arousing mass enthusiasm...

...Perceiving this to be the June coup forecast last winter in the foreign press, the masses rose in protest...

...moreover, CARE is handing out free rice to all who need it...

...No subsidies, no restrictions on imports, no relief from local taxes...

...Accustomed to being trapped bumper-tobumper and three abreast among trucks, limousines and the overflowing, brightly painled buses known as lap-taps, 1 was initially relieved, then uneasy...

...policy, one suspects he receives most of his information from Washington...

...the imports for $ 14...

...They rebel at the idea of becoming wageslaves to Americans or other foreigners...

...Potential visitors have over the years been put off by fear of the Duvalier's thuggish tontons macoutes, then of AIDS—and the summer violence has brought their numbers to an all-time low...

...With the other candidates afraid to speak and the people afraid to vote, the solid bloc of Duvalier faithful—receiving a little help from the ballot-counters— will be able to slip their man into office...

...All female Peace Corps members subsequently returned to the United States...

...Individuals friendly to the government—established following the collapse of the Duvalier dictatorship 19 months ago—say the plan proposed by the civilian body was rejected because it was too elaborate and costly...

...An eerie quiet prevails, like the lull in the eye of a hurricane...

...Haiti's government, which has never properly financed the promotion of tourism, has allotted nothing at all for this in its current budget...

...You'll be lynched...

...I asked Ambassador McKinley about the deplorable condition of the roads...

...Then the Army will restore order...

...It is the poor's improved diet, the rich say cynically, that has given them the strength to throw rocks...

...If demonstrations calling for its ouster have now cooled down, the reason is simply that the people realize there is no alternative: Only the military is capable of maintaining the order necessary for voting to take place...

...Although General Namphy will perhaps be truly relieved when his patriotic duties have been fulfilled and he can retire, Brigadier General Williams Regala, who controls the Army and hence has the real muscle, is looking forward to a long career...

...Another source of easy wealth is Haiti's dwindling supply of trees...

...The price per gallon is more than double that in the United States, thanks to a hefty government tax that costs the average tap-tap driver an estimated $12 a day...

...Still, the high hopes raised by Duvalier's departure—albeit dampened by months of malaise—remain centered on the presidential contest scheduled for November...

...Everything is deteriorating...

...The educated élite, ashamed of their country's troubles, have always found the United States a convenient scapegoat...

...WAITING FOR DEMOCRACY In the Eye of Haiti's Hurricane By Carole Cleaver Jacmel The first thing the regular traveler to Haiti notices these days upon leaving the Port-auPrince airport is the lack of traffic...

...Listening to him enunciate U.S...

...Due to the riots, fire barricades and heavy July rains they are ribbons of potholes, "corduroy" surfaces and open ditches...

...The move, though, did not restore trust in the regime...

...most planes now break their journey from South America to Miami in the Bahamas, or the Turks and Caicos Islands, rather than Haiti...

...One American woman recently told me that her rifle was not enough—she wanted a machine gun...

...One of Delatour's early moves was the elimination of import duties (imposed to line the pockets of the Duvaliers), resulting in a general drop in prices...

...McKinley speaks of the fall of international sugar prices and the need for cane growers to switch to another export crop, like oranges...

...The recent mob murder of Louis-Eugène Athis, a minor candidate accused of being a Communist despite a record of opposition to Communism, has been interpreted as a Rightist "set-up" aimed at intimidating viable contenders...

...The combined pressure of the mob and of foreign diplomats, including Americans, finally forced a return of the electoral process to civilian control...

...Their presence is no longer obvious...

...Agency for International Development apparently has allocated money for such a project, but it is sitting in bank coffers because Haitian officials cannot devise a way to audit road-repair operations...

...The best known of the "little priests" in constant conflict with the Rightist hierarchy are Père Aristide in the capital, Père Romulus in the distant southwest town of Jérémie, and Père Vincent in the North...

...Even the Haitian bureaucracy is hesitant about committing the country's future to the caprices of the world market and the unpredictable tastes of Americans...

...But of late the frustrations of the once friendly lower classes are fostering additional anti-American hostility...

...Haitian rice went for $44 a bag...

...Those who believe a 50-50 chance for a presidential contest still exists fear that it will be impossible to have the balloting on November 29 as scheduled, and that a postponement will trigger new riots...

...Indeed, local elections scheduled to be held in August had to be canceled by the Electoral Council because of the continuing political turmoil...

...An economist's economist, Delatour has commendably resisted the temptation to print extra currency and take on foreign debt...

...If you have an accident," peoplewarn, "don'tstop...

...Consulate parking lot during an attempt to take her hostage and force Delatour's resignation...

...supported the Duvaliers for years," one said to me, "helped them to escape, and set up the interim government, which is riddled with Duvalierists...