Haiti Takes a Step Forward

...Avril's conciliatory steps eased tensions somewhat, but they could not mask the economy's rapid deterioration...

...On February 7, the national holiday that commemorates the departure of the Duvaliers, a general amnesty was announced...

...It was a dramatic moment...

...Birds had filled several large cavities downtown with nests, prompting the daily Le Nouvelliste to comment archly that this was "better than nothing at all...

...The next day, Haiti's Ambassador to Washington, Pierre François Benoit, resigned...

...In December Alvin Adams, the new American Ambassador, stepped off his plane and greeted Haitians with a Creole proverb: "Bourik chagépa kanpé" (An overloaded donkey can't stand still...

...She grew up in the affluent suburb of Petionville, where on August 13,1943, she was the ninth of 10 children born to an iron-worker and a seamstress...

...The Haitian people were charmed...

...For 72 hours following the forced resignation of Lieutenant General Prosper Avril, Abraham had taken over...

...It was widely assumed here that foreign diplomats had applied strong pressure...

...As the Army Chief of Staff, Major General Hérard Abraham, declared that his troops would remain in their barracks and act only on orders from the new head of state, the thousands assembled before the National Palace exploded into joyous applause...

...Within hours of Pascal-Trouillot's inauguration later that day, representatives of 19 major groups—peasants, professionals, Catholics, Protestants, journalists, businessmen, women, and others—were busily forming a Council of State that could aid the President, but also veto her decisions...

...There is concern, too, that people who have never experienced democracy will equate freedom with license...

...In 1971, a few months after completing her law studies in the Northern city of Gonaive and being admitted to the bar, shemarried Ernest Trouillot, hermentorandformerteacher, who was 20 years her senior...

...Prices of necessary commodities, up 30 per cent in 1989, had increased an additional 15 per cent in January alone...

...General Abraham ordered his soldiers to maintain neutrality in all land disputes...

...Politicians who had been proscribed suddenly began to reappear...

...Although the reason behind the murders remained mysterious, the General used them as an excuse to impose a state of siege January 20...

...On November 2, All Souls' Day, another sergeant and palace attaché, Etienne Martineau, was arrested with two of his friends, Evans Paul and JeanAuguste Mesyeux, while parked in front of yet another sergeant's home...

...Finally, at 6:15 a.m., the General and his family boarded an American C-141—the same plane that had whisked off the Duvaliers— and headed for Florida...

...The airport was disrupted by strikers trying to oust supporters of the Duvalier dynasty still in important positions there...

...Finally, though, with Haiti locked in turmoil, Pascal-Trouillot bowed to the civilian leaders' appeals and broke ranks...

...In 1989 the sole aid from the U.S...

...But Haitian history is filled with once-promising moments...

...Even in the days of Papa Doc such actions were kept secret...

...Avril, who had originally announced the state of siege would last 30 days, lifted it in 10 without explanation...

...At last the military, in control since the fall of the 30-year Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, was willingly subordinating itself to civilian rule...

...Meanwhile, leaders of 12 political parties meeting in a Holiday Inn were deadlocked over the choice of a new president...

...Thus Haitians who greeted the fall of the Duvaliers with overwhelming joy, and the downfall of General Namphy with renewed hope, view Avril's toppling with cautious optimism...

...Many here wonder if honest and fair elections can be held, and if any government, even one that represents the people, will be able to solve Haiti's desperate economic problems...

...During the next few days Jean Wilfred "Ti Wil" Destin, a Radio Cacique announcer, and Lieutenant Colonel André Neptune, his wife and their maid were assassinated...

...The Army had been attempting to disperse protestors in that Southern town when stray bullets killed the little girl and wounded several other people...

...Avril immediately promised that he would be guided by the wishes of the rank and file and would confer regularly with their representative, Sergeant Joseph Hébreux...

...Those who had been exiled were allowed to return as well...

...Each transition has been provoked by violence, except for the sham election of Leslie Manigat in January 1988...

...Electricity was a problem, too...

...Since U.S...

...They began on September 17, 1988, when Prosper Avril's accession to power was greeted with the same enthusiasm his ouster would later provoke...

...Students would not go to school and businesses were shuttered...

...The black middle class, whose numbers increased substantially during the noirist social revolution pushed by the Duvaliers, is nervous about a possible resurgence of the wealthy mulatto elite...

...The most critical failure, though, was the bankruptcy of the Minoterie, the mill that produces the majority of the country's flour...

...Neither the presence of foreign observers nor the planeloads of international print and electronic journalists were a deterrent...

...The Pascal-Trouillot government is the fifth since Jean-Claude Duvalier and his wife, Michele, fled the country on February 7, 1986...

...The day after that France, which gave Haiti $22 million in 1989, suspended all future aid...

...In a country where so many atrocities have been committed, revenge is always a danger...

...Throughout the crisis-filled weekend preceding the latest turnover at the National Palace flaming tires blocked city streets...

...What is more, upon reaching Taiwan he found that six prominent Haitians had sent the government there a telegram urging it not to negotiate with him, because he did not represent the people...

...Adding to all these troubles was the condition of the country's infrastructure...

...Subsequent shipments were changed, but by January the Minoterie was unable to come up with the $3 million it needed every month to purchase 15,000 tons of wheat...

...Sergeant Beauchard, the three All Souls' Day prisoners and the 15 people imprisoned during the repression were released...

...He had been installed as President by the Ti Soldats, the enlisted men of the Presidential Guard who had toppled Lieutenant General Henri Namphy after the Army allowed the Tontons Macoutes to burn down a crowded Catholic Church...

...On that bloody November 29, former Tontons Macoutes—the secret police force of François (Papa Doc) Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude (Baby Doc)—abetted by Army regulars, had gunned down voters as they went to cast their ballots...

...But there is no doubt that the replacement of the Duvalierist generals by a civilian president is an important step in the right direction...

...Marc Bazin, a former executive of the World Bank and a 1987 presidential contender who had been labeled "Mr...

...Foreign currency was in such short supply that merchants offered a 40-50 per cent premium to get American dollars...

...Other perceived opponents of the regime were brutally rounded up, and 15 people were thrown in jail...

...A ray of light gleamed on the economic horizon when a spokesman at the American Embassy said efforts would be made to prevent starvation by bringing down the prices of flour, sugar and cooking oil...

...The government even had difficulty paying the military, whose share of the national budget doubled last year from 15 to 30 per cent...

...He, in turn, got the other 11 justices to pledge they would not accept the presidency if it were of fered to them...

...The following day mass protests were staged in all major cities...

...Soldiers and Tontons Macoutes with legitimate fears that they might be prosecuted could use terrorist tactics to block a new election...

...But, he warned, little American aid would be forthcoming until an elected government was installed—outside of assistance to finance the election process...

...The three were accused of organizing an overthrow of thegovernment, tortured, and paraded on television with their wounds in full view...

...René Theodore, the Communist leader, was being treated with unaccustomed respect...

...The poor feared that they soon would not be able to afford bread...

...The Constitution provided that the post be given to the head of the Supreme Court, Gilbert Austin, but the group rejected him because of his close association with the disgraced Avril...

...But his troubles followed him...

...With riots swirling outside, he stayed in his heavily guarded house, refusing to take the "cowardly" route of his three predecessors— Jean-Claude Duvalier, Manigat and Namphy...

...policy...

...The humanrights organization Americas Watch characterized Avril as a "brutal dictator...

...Avril was so infuriated that for six days he refused to receive the Ambassador's credentials...

...Recalling the slaughter, some people wondered if a UN police force would eventually be necessary to ensure a safe election...

...The unsettled atmosphere revived memories of the 1987 Election Day Massacre...

...At the same time, the signers of the telegram to Taiwan were arrested, beaten and deported...

...The events of the 18 months prior to Ertha Pascal-Trouillot's inauguration were as dramatic as her sudden elevation was unexpected...

...With Avril safely out of the country, the Taiwan government promised $1 million...

...That was accepted with quiet contempt...

...aid was not forthcoming and the Taiwanese had already given Haiti $1 million, he hoped they would agree to further funding...

...In some parts of the country demonstrators started taking to the streets to express their discontent...

...Employees at Cimint d'Haiti, another government operation, also walked out, accusing their director of corruption...

...came in the form of $8 million worth of grain...

...HOWAVRL WAS TOPPLED Haiti Takes a Step Forward BY CAROLE CLEAVER Port-au-Prince Haitian hopes rose again on March 13 when Supreme Court Justice Ertha PascalTrouillot became the country's first woman President and pledged that her provisional government would devote itself to bringing about early elections...

...Only Silvio Claude, the Baptist preacher beloved of the Port-au-Prince masses, and Gérard Gourgue, who many believe would have won the aborted 1987 election, had yet to be heard from...

...Still, for all the positive developments, emotions continue to be volatile...

...En route, on January 7, his plane touched do wn briefly in Miami and a crowd of Haitian exiles threatened his life...

...General Avril's fate was sealed, but he would not leave the country...

...The new President was often described as "fearless" during her four years as the only woman ever to sit on the High Court...

...And it seemed that every street was scarred with potholes...

...Two days later the United Democratic Confederation, headed by Sergeant Beauchard, exhorted the people of Port-au-Prince to rise in rebellion...

...The arrogant flaunting of police brutality shocked Haitians and foreigners alike...

...Throughout Sunday March 11, prominent Haitians appealed to Ambassador Adams to intercede...

...After being "rationed" for months, it was turned off most of the day by February and businesses were having difficulty functioning...

...Monday morning and talked with him for several hours...

...The entire population became aroused...

...With the supply of flour dwindling, prices kept rising...

...But as the General cemented his power, and the elections he had vowed would be held failed to materialize, public approval began to disintegrate...

...A long struggle lies ahead...

...Major Isidor dor Pognan, identified by Beauchard and the All Souls' Day prisoners as the man who directed their torture, wasarrested...

...Avril, evidently feeling invulnerable, went ahead with a week-long trip to Taiwan...

...He survived a coup attempt in April '89, then put do wn a second one on the first anniversary of his assuming power...

...But the fuse was really lit on March 5 when 11-yearold Rosaline Vaval was shot to death while sitting on her porch in Petit Goave doing her homework...

...Not since Ambassador Clayton MacMannaway arranged for the plane that rid Haiti of the Duvaliers had Washington moved directly against the oppressive rule here...

...Avril returned home January 15 empty-handed and furious...

...Clean" and the "American Candidate," called for elections in three months...

...Known as the "OP 17" plot, the latter was led by Sergeant Frantz Patrick Beauchard, whose arrest, torture and incarceration without a trial stirred national anger...

...At Electricité d'Haiti the workers now went out on strike because their salaries had not been paid...

...The shortage of current—partly caused by the silt in the lake behind the Peligré dam diminishing hydroelectric power—was made worse by the lack of money to buy fuel for other turbines...

...Angry throngs burned a plastics factory and destroyed the home of former Duvalier Finance Minister Clovis Désinor...

...Looters ransacked stores and depots containing rice and cooking oil...

...Louis Déjoie, son of the Senator defeated by Papa Doc in 1957 and himself a popular 1987 candidate, returned from Puerto Rico...

...The ghosts of recent history linger and the realities of present ills loom large...

...In all, 25 people lost their lives and more than a hundred were wounded...

...He died three years ago, and she now lives with their 15-yearold daughter, Yantha...

...Agitators were already circulating pamphlets charging links between Pascal-Trouillot and the Duvaliers—a truly preposterous suggestion, for two of her brothers were beaten by the Duvaliers' police and one of them was permanently paralyzed...

...As the price of gasoline rose 10 cents a gallon, enraging the tap-tap drivers, the question was where the government would get the necessary $6 million to pay for the next fuel shipment...

...And while every evening on Tele-Haiti they watched Sargeant Beauchard's elderly mother grow weaker as she continued a hunger strike to secure her son's release, they wondered whether Adams' arrivalsignaledachangeinU.S...

...Now he saluted the lady succeeding him...

...Officials were suspected of mismanagement, at the least, and workers were laid off...

...The resurfacing of the waterfront thoroughfare at a snail's pace was polluting the city's air with the dust of sand and gravel...

...Mobs threw rocks as soldiers fired at them...

...After receiving authorization from the State Department, he went to Avril's home at 2 a.m...

...Two major bridges were out—one on Route 1, the highway that connects the capital to the North, and the second on Lalue, a primary artery between Portau-Prince and Petionville...

...The high cost of transporting it had annoyed General Avril, who was in for a bigger shock when the first shipment arrived: It was "hard" ratherthan "soft" wheat, and the Minoterie did not have the required grinding equipment...

...Hubert de Ronceray, another former candidate back from Florida, was interviewed on television...

...Père Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the radical priest whose communicants had been massacred in 1988, appeared on television and asked the members of Tet Anselm, a nationwide peasant movement, to "stand together...

...The representatives of 12political parties, temporarily united by the national outburst, asked Avril to step down...

...Many Haitians, in short, did not appear to be responding to General Abraham's call for "lucidity and pragmatism...

...Carole Cleaver, who is now working on a novel that is set in Haiti, writesfrom there frequently for the New Leader...

...In the week after the inauguration marauding bands continued to clash with soldiers, and 10 people were killed near the town of St...

...Radio and TV news, both local and international, was put under tight censorship...