Haiti's Prospects Under Prosper Avril
RODMAN, SELDEN
WHAT THE GENERAL TOLD ME Haiti's Prospects Under Prosper Avril BY SELDEN RODMAN Port-au-Prince History is full of "good" men who turned "bad" (Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold, Giorgio de...
...Members of the Council, who are paid, may not be in any rush to see their task completed either...
...Aboveallwemustnot accept money or even food from abroad...
...No action," he assured me...
...He was engaged in charitable work only a few blocks from the Palace, and did not hesitate to speak his mind to us...
...Although I am optimistic about Prosper Avril, I am probably outnumbered by more skeptical (realistic...
...Her feeling is that Avril's primary goal is to protect himself and his Duvalierist friends against revenge...
...We're collecting arms that must never again be available to thugs...
...Avril was present at the climactic confrontation in the Palace between the Duvaliers and Namphy and Régala...
...It's better than nothing, of course, and we're grateful to have it, but the processing is very time-consuming...
...Cases of "bad" men who turned "good" seem much harder to come by...
...We don't have any enemies...
...The ultimate proof, of course, will be whether or not Prosper Avril soon gives the beleaguered people of Haiti the chance to finally hold truly free elections and take their destiny into their own hands...
...No more...
...That amount was immediately raised to $300,000...
...If the leopard has not in fact changed his spots, he has donned a disguise that has surely fooled me...
...Bread will cost more, if there is to be any profit at all—and we'll be blamed for that, you can be sure...
...In Jacmel, where we have our home, the tiny airport was a favorite landing strip for drugs a year ago, and today it is completely free of drug-running...
...Those who attempt coups are invited to go into exile.' What action, if any, would the President take against Jean-Baptiste Chavannes, leader of Mouvement Paysan Papay, the nationwide peasant union trying to reclaim underdeveloped land...
...Abbott believes that despite Avril's initial support of the conspiracy led by Namphy and Colonel Williams Régala to oust Baby Doc, he decided he could not trust the Army brass to protect him, given his past...
...We were getting a total of $60,000 before the Jérémie seizure," Avril explained...
...He shook his head grimly...
...Butthere's one more problem with this wheat...
...Abbott has it that when Michèle screamed at her confused husband to shoot the two Avril suddenly switched sides again, handcuffing the President and knocking Michèle out cold to prevent her from alerting loyal Macoutes just outside the door...
...I asked...
...Not long after theensuing "BloodySunday," though, he was back in the Palace heading the Presidential Guard...
...They have funds to dispense food and social services, just as Père Aristide does...
...I inquired...
...In the days prior to our talk with Avril we had heard news of a major seizure of cocaine in the Jérémie area...
...Perhaps I was mesmerized by the General's effusive charm...
...The news that the Duvaliers had not departed, as Washingon prematurely reported, ended the threat fromMontreal...
...What can the American government do to help Haiti...
...The leader of the NCOs, inexperienced 27-year-old Sergeant Joseph Hébreux, was a protégé of Avril's wife, Marie-Ange Nazon, a captain in the Army's Health Service, and is also a distant relative of the General...
...The many candidates will want time to campaign...
...One such, though it is too early to say for certain, might be the current President of Haiti, Lieutenant General Prosper Avril...
...She thinks the dispersal of armed troops to the countryside is probably an attempt to intimidate Chavannes and the peasant communes Avril promised us he would leave intact...
...In the countryside the soldiers can help with development, but money is needed to build new houses and barracks...
...I queried...
...Haitians are slaves," Aristide had told us when we talkedwithhim...
...He laughed...
...He took over the Presidency from General Henri Namphy last September 17, after a coup by noncommissioned officers furious that the Army stood by while Duvalierist Tonton Macoute thugs massacred communicants and torched the chapel of outspoken curé Jean-Bertrand Aristide...
...He has not rebuilt his chapel, however, and Carole noted that he seemed reluctant to resume the sort of public preaching he did before out of a concern for the safety of his communicants...
...The most detailed account appears in Reuters' correspondent Elizabeth Abbott's Haiti: The Duvaliers and Their Legacy, a book that takes us through General Namphy's overthrow of President Manigat in June 1988 and his attempts to kill Aristide...
...The wheat must be converted into flour that can be sold by the Minoterie [the mill across the bay...
...As for Namphy, he agreed with me that the exiled General was too unpopular to come back here without putting his life at risk...
...Is the U.S...
...Why not...
...Coast Guard...
...It would be hard to challenge the President's logic on that point, and he does appear determined to stop the drug traffic...
...I'll be happy to give all my time to the Army and to my friends and family," he smiled...
...Not necessarily...
...What do we really know about Prosper Avril's record in the Duvalier decades, and particularly during the coups and countercoups following JeanClaude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier's escape to France (in an American plane) on February 7, 1986...
...Avril responded, adding: "Manigat was always a minority candidate with no real popular backing, and unsure of himself while in office...
...Will the profits—assuming there are any—be available to rebuild the brokenup streets and roads, and the washedout bridges that make driving these days so difficult...
...Look at the primitive communications net inland...
...Look at the length of Haiti's coastline...
...When 1 told him it was unlikely that Congress would vote for direct financial aid until election dates are set, he said: "Local elections can be scheduled for this year, but the Electoral Council, which properly decides such questions, is never going to set a presidential race this year, or even early next year I'm afraid...
...A few days later, Paul doublecrossed Manigat and reinstalled Namphy as chief executive—the post he held until being forced into exile by the NCOs...
...But all over Haiti Macoutes were being murdered by howling mobs and Baby Doc lost the support of the three main elements propping up his rotten regime: the U.S., the Army, and the Haitian business elite...
...As long as they do, they will have followers...
...Prosper Avril is a handsome, heavyset man who wears a uniform with three stars but no decorations...
...observers...
...No," he said...
...A Haitian intellectual friend, equally dubious of Avril's goodwill, points to Aristide's "better credentials": his patent sincerity and his willingness to put his life on the line during the election violence two years ago...
...An adviser to the tyrannical 30-year Duvalier dynasty for many years, Avril was rumored to know more about the dictators' personal finances than they did...
...Above all, the jails are empty of political prisoners...
...We asked our intellectual friend: If it were to take 100 years for Haiti to pull itself out of the economic abyss by its own bootstraps, would the suffering be justified...
...I'm glad you asked me that," he replied...
...He now occupies an office adjoining the President's...
...There are no political prisoners in Haiti since I became President...
...This is not due to the fact that she is Namphy's sisterin-law—I can personally testify that her recounting of the 1987 election shoot-up is devastatingly accurate—but because she refuses to identify her sources to protect them from reprisal...
...Does this mean that a leopard can change his spots...
...Of all the Haitian Presidents I have met—Leslie Manigat, François Duvalier, Daniel Fignolé, Paul Magloire, Dumarsais Estimé—only General Magloire seemed as relaxed and jovial as Avril...
...Promoted by Manigat to Brigadier General, Avril turned against the civilian President when, with Colonel Paul's backing, he removed Namphy as Army commander and put him under house arrest...
...When I asked him if he had plans for Haiti's economic development, he dodged the question: "We're a provisional government, a caretaker government...
...What does the government do with intercepted drugs...
...With all the millions you have available to police Florida and the Gulf Coast are you stopping drugs from getting to Miami, Washington and New York...
...We're cleaning up the Army...
...We turn over whatever we seize to the U.S...
...Drugs are under as much control as Haiti's meager resources permit...
...That breaks down the insulation of this vacuum, the Palace, where I might otherwise become a bureaucrat out of touch with reality...
...Against the backdrop of 30 years of Duvalierism, two years of Namphy, a few months of Manigat, and Namphy's bloody reprise, Avril has so far performed impressively as President...
...I pressed...
...WE had vetted Aristide the week before...
...We also need to change the behavior of the police, who acted independently of government guidelines under Namphy...
...I asked...
...It is still not nearly enough...
...I am moving soldiers to the provinces to avoid the kind of concentration here that might be taken for intimidation...
...And he would leave it to the Electoral Council to decide whether ex-Duvalierists would be allowed to run this time...
...Haiti needs justice, not dollars...
...And, in fact, a spokesperson for Americas Watch (which last February issued a damaging report on the human rights situation in Haiti) has confirmed Carole's fears...
...If the Americans really want to help us they will demand immediate trials of Claude Raymond [Army commander under Papa Doc], Clovis Désinor [former Finance Minister], the remaining leaders of the Macoutes, and of General Avril himself...
...in fact, he already has...
...That was why we retired Colonel Paul from the Armed Forces just before his death...
...Would former Presidents Manigat and Namphy be allowed to return and run...
...Avril was not only among the moderates, but as the Duvaliers were about to flee he prevailed upon Baby Doc to stay put...
...Would even $ 1 million make Haiti impenetrable...
...Our job is to provide stability...
...He can do and say what he likes...
...My wife, Carole Cleaver, and I had an hour-long discussion with him last month in his office in the Presidential Palace...
...My first question was about Hébreux's role at present...
...He can speak on television...
...For the past 11 months I've had no life of my own...
...Nevertheless, according to Abbott, in November 1985 Baby Doc fired his most brutal Army officers and reintegrated many of the moderates his wife, Michèle, and former Interior Minister Roger Lafontant (then in Montreal preparing a coup) had succeeded in driving out...
...WHAT THE GENERAL TOLD ME Haiti's Prospects Under Prosper Avril BY SELDEN RODMAN Port-au-Prince History is full of "good" men who turned "bad" (Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold, Giorgio de Chirico) and "successful" men who "failed" (General Ulysses S. Grant as President, Woodrow Wilson at Versailles, General Douglas MacArthur at the Yalu River...
...giving Haiti enough help in fighting the drug lords...
...Is the $10 million in the form of wheat you recently received enough...
...We have to choose your shippers...
...So the Duvaliers finally exited, with all of their movable wealth...
...He is in charge of "many small important things," Avril replied, "and one big one: He keeps me in close touch with the thinking of his fellow noncommissioned officers, and therefore with the needs and aspirations of their peasant families...
...We don't want to take a chance that any of it will be sold on the streets, as it was when the late Colonel [JeanClaude] Paul [ex-commander of the Dessalines Battalion, stationed next to the Palace] was working with the Medellin Cartel in Miami and using Haiti as a transfer point for Colombian crack...
...We're working on that...
...As the November '87 elections approached—supposedly to appease the leading candidate, radical human rights activist Gérard Gourgue—Namphy dismissed a group of Duvalierist officers, including Colonel Avril...
...The streets of Port-au-Prince and the major provincial cities are free of the bands of armed thugs and cruising truckloads of soldiers that were omnipresent only recently...
...Carole asked him what he planned to do when he retires following the presidential elections that are supposed to be held next year, since he had already told us he would not run under any circumstances...
...Unfortunately, Abbott's report is not completely satisfactory...
...I asked Avril if he regarded the Leftist priest as a threat to the country's stability...
...Let's hope so," hesaid...
...Avril says he would "certainly" accept international supervision of the presidential elections to avoid repetition of the disaster of November 29, 1987, when Namphy's troops joined with the Tonton Macoutes to abort what were to be the first free elections in 30 years...
...He shook his head but did not answer...
...My wife left the interview unpersuaded...
...Selden Rodman, who has had a home in Haiti for the past 17 years, is the author of Haiti: The Black Republic (1954) and Where Art is Joy: Haitian Art, the First Forty Years (1988...
...Avril apparently further feared that he would be done in if Baby Doc left and in a countercoup the Tonton Macoutes linked up with Lafontant, an old enemy...
...Is the case closed...
...What's more, we have to pay the shipping costs—more than $2 million out of the $ 10 million—and we can't bargain to get the most economical carriers...
Vol. 72 • September 1989 • No. 13
