The Other Side of Haiti
CLEAVER, CAROLE
CARNIVAL, RUM, UNEASY CALM The Other Side of Haiti BY CAROLE CLEAVER JACMEL JACMEL is calm. Superficially, little has changed in this sleepy town on Haiti's south coast since I first saw it in...
...In 1989, the International Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA) launched a five-year project to deal with this problem...
...Countrywide the government allocated about $4 million for the event, a modem equivalent of ancient Rome's "bread and circuses" prescription for keeping the masses happy...
...After several days he was told he would be allowed to leave the country...
...The police wear navy blue and the Army wears khaki, but the police are in fact a division of the Army—the most important division, because they control the streets around the National Palace.] Story Number 5: Five people have been beaten to death in the Jacmel jail...
...After discovering their mistake and buying supplies, they floated off...
...People die...
...Most plants are old, unfertilized and growing in soil that continues to erode...
...The town's main industry today is hand-painted objects—furniture, trays, vases and the like, along with papiermache sculptures and Carnival masks...
...Financed by the Organization of American States (OAS), it had distributed 1.22 million rust-resistant and rust-tolerant seedlings to 3,500 individual farmers when funding was cut off in the wake of the September 1991 military coup...
...Qualified applicants should not be hard to find at a salary of $72,000 a year...
...Francois, a Colonel in the Army, heads what is designated the Capital Police Force...
...Now they are running their old territories again, guns in hand...
...Unfortunately Jacmel has no hydrants, so the engine's hoses cannot be connected...
...Yet despite the high prices, no one seems hungry...
...Adventurous tourists began to arrive...
...Jacmel was a thriving coffee port in the 1880s, but in the early part of this century the harbor silted up...
...To make matters worse, a blight known as coffee rust, which has raised havoc in the North, is spreading to the South...
...Aristide's term runs out in February 1996, and under the Constitution he cannot seek re-election...
...Believing they were in Florida, 167 Chinese came ashore...
...Superficially, little has changed in this sleepy town on Haiti's south coast since I first saw it in 1963 and settled here 10 years later...
...Enough that borders on the bizarre has occurred here to justify the underlying skepticism of the masses...
...In the rigged election this past January 18, Baudruy was not returned to office...
...He was escorted to the bank and the airline office to arrange passage, then returned to his cell...
...Story Number 2: The exiled President is a manic-depressive...
...A red balloon was often seen bobbing on the bay...
...Coffee is grown in the shade, making it possible for farmers to raise citrus and coconuts in the same area...
...Construction is practically non-existent...
...Nevertheless, they chose a Mayor from Aristide's party, the National Front for Change and Democracy, who was relieved of his duties by the military, and an FNCD Senator, who is still serving his six-year term...
...If farmers were to abandon coffee to plant crops requiring sunshine, and cut down the big trees for charcoal, the mountains would soon be ravaged...
...Fiction...
...Le Matin, a Port-au-Prince daily, has already been critical of the first 40 observers to arrive, maintaining that few speak Creole and some do not even speak French...
...He had assured them that the Army's weapons would be filled with blanks...
...As is the case nationwide, sympathies in Jacmel actually are divided along class lines...
...The State Department and the CIA are playing chess with Haiti's future...
...Lucia understand Creole perfectly...
...When Bishop Willy Romulus (a relative of Aristide), holding a mass in Port-au-Prince to mourn those killed in the February 17 sinking of the Port-au-Prince-Jeremie ferry, turned his message political, the police did not hesitate to beat him in full view of the international diplomatic corps...
...is mouthing platitudes about restoring Aristide to power, the CIA is working actively to see that it doesn't happen...
...In Jacmel civil liberties do not exist, but they have rarely existed...
...After a brief flirtation with freedom they have returned to the habits that ensure survival...
...But should it appear that the government is succeeding in using their presence as a device for killing time, hostility could erupt...
...and Canada adopt sister cities in underdeveloped countries...
...Then the roads deteriorated in the 1950s under the long reign of terror of Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier, leaving the town virtually isolated...
...They figured that in a few months I would be either killed or expropriated and the business would be theirs...
...Governments change, but Jacmel remains the same...
...His duties are to moderate human rights abuses, keep Washington informed and, most important, impede in every possible way Aristide's return...
...Last September Geoffroi Krauchi, a Swiss who has operated a school here for 20 years and has a Haitian wife and children, was arrested...
...Prime Minister Bazin initially opposed the observers as a violation of Haitian sovereignty, but finally signed an agreement allowing them to enter the country for a period of one year...
...They were to march up Port-au-Prince's main street, looting and killing, and protect him at the National Palace...
...People do not want to discuss politics...
...Although the Constitution calls for a separation of Army and police, only in Port-au-Prince has this been done, and even there it is cosmetic...
...Local growers must truck their beans to Port-au-Prince for sale...
...A few days later, again without explanation, he was released...
...No reasons were given for these actions...
...Many friendships have been disrupted by the coup...
...When Aristide was in power," Moro told me, "my workers were insolent and refused to make improvements if they turned out shoddy merchandise...
...There is music, Carnival, rum, voodoo...
...The coffee factory, once Jacmel's chief employer, is closed...
...The crowd saved the queen, carried away adjacent parked cars whose gas tanks might have caused an explosion, then stood back to watch the flames...
...All want Aristide back...
...In contrast to the North where drought has devastated the land, the South is lush with various small crops for local consumption and fruit trees...
...To pass the time people make up often revealing stories...
...Some recent samples: Story Number 1: Fearing a military coup, Aristide armed his followers in Cite Soleil with 5,000 machetes...
...While the U.S...
...A few years ago, under the regime of General Henri Namphy, drugs floated in and out of Jacmel quite openly...
...Aristide has asked for 3,000 observers...
...With each move 1,000 Haitians may die...
...By the time the one fire engine arrived, the fire had burned itself out...
...ing conditions...
...After the Duvalier dynasty fell in 1986, many Macoutes escaped across the Dominican border...
...the OAS has said it would fund 200, and the UN reportedly is willing to underwrite another 300...
...Krauchi's release may have been arranged by the Independent Senator from Jacmel, Guy Baudruy, who had visited him in jail, although probably it was the intervention of the Swiss Consulate that did the trick...
...The U.S...
...Instead, Jacmel is the "in" place to view Carnival, and celebrated it this year for two weekends...
...It was a tiny glimpse of what life is like in a nation ruled by guns, not laws, where arrests and beatings can be random, unprovoked, and without redress...
...He always has...
...A fireman was sent to New Jersey for instruction in the use of the equipment...
...His children were amazed to see him...
...Behind the scenes Francois runs the National Bank, decides who will be exempt from paying taxes, and supervises the drug trade, getting a big payoff from Colombians using Haiti to transship cocaine...
...To assure the credibility of their undertaking, therefore, the UN and the OAS must choose their personnel carefully...
...The rich are grateful that the military is protecting the status quo, while the poor want change...
...The major producer, Baruic Moro, has a U. S. license, thus the embargo has not affected him...
...Life goes on...
...No one, including officials at the American Embassy, seems to know exactly where they came from or where they ended up...
...Having voted for Louis Dejoie in the 1990 Presidential election, they claim they are not involved in the tug of war between constitutionally-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, now exiled in Washington, and the de facto military-sponsored government headed by Prime Minister Marc L. Bazin...
...Truth...
...the flowers bloom...
...Fishermen stayed clear of it, and under the cover of darkness dealers would retrieve its waterproof payload...
...On the second weekend the Sunday parade was terminated abruptly when the float bearing the Carnival queen caught fire...
...Under Aristide food prices were low, people say, whereas under Bazin (and the embargo) prices are high...
...The hotel manages to survive with two permanent residents —the Army Commandant, and the local administrator of a children's charity, Plan International—plus the weekend reservations of Haitians who come to the country to relax...
...Since the massive celebration in downtown Port-au-Prince has become commercialized, overwhelming, and even dangerous, many Haitians flock to this quieter town, where it is possible to wander through the streets en joying and photographing the costumed revelers...
...Exaggeration...
...Because Aristide has requested the observers, the masses are in general inclined to support them...
...The engine, incidentally, was donated recently by Trenton, New Jersey, under a program called Partners that has cities in the U .S...
...Story Number 3: Prime Minister Marc Bazin works for the CIA...
...Jacmel is calm...
...Colin Grandeson, the Trinidadian who heads the mission, countered that the 15 who come from St...
...In the late '70s the French constructed a new road over the mountain, reviving trade...
...Now there is no tourism...
...Coast Guard, which has surrounded the island to keep people from leaving (an assignment the Haitians have dubbed "Operation End Hope"), evidently had no more interest in the Chinese than it has in enforcing the embargo—or in confiscating the cocaine that is regularly transshipped through Haiti...
...The only access was by Jeep or similar vehicles, driven through a shallow riverbed...
...there is very little local drug trade...
...Besides Carnival, there is practically no entertainment in a town like Jacmel...
...Chickens, goats and piglets scamper about, and fishermen pull well-filled nets from the sea...
...Discos and art galleries also opened, and a luxury hotel was built on the palm-dotted beach...
...Probably a blend of all three...
...Those who welcome the Army's enforcement of order are treated with disdain by those who abhor its methods...
...Last month an additional $4 million was approved to resume the project, with the goal of distributing 1.8 million more seedlings by September 1995...
...These people can be duped by their interpreters, the paper claimed...
...Drug Enforcement Agency has only two agents in the country...
...Babies are born...
...Bazin may at the moment be designated a king, but he could still be sacrificed like any pawn...
...Amid the fuss over the exodus of the Haitian boat people last September, for example, a refugee ship arrived in Jacmel...
...One reporter asked the paid agitators what they would charge to go home...
...Under the 30-year reign of the Duvaliers and the iron fist of the Tontons Macoutes people learned to stay out of politics, maintain low profiles, and keep their mouths shut...
...A few weeks ago, as my husband and I were approaching Jacmel on the mountain road, we were harassed by two soldiers who asked to see our papers, opened our luggage and extorted $5 before allowing us to pass...
...It is hoped that the arrival of UN-OAS observers will put an end to the worst human rights abuses, but this is by no means certain...
...Throughout Haiti coffee production is down, partly because of depressed prices on the international market, but more because of poor growCarole Cleaver, a frequent contributor to these pages, is co-author of Spirits of the Night: The Vaudou Gods of Haiti...
...Everyone agrees that the present situation is terrible, that the U.S.-imposed embargo must be lifted and international relations normalized...
...General Raoul Ce-dras, the leader of the coup, and Prime Minister Bazin are merely front men...
...In any event, the probability is that the international community, having gotten Haiti to admit observers, will not put additional pressure on the de facto government until their report on human rights conditions is filed next year...
...The discos and galleries are closed...
...IICA has two nurseries, one in Beaumont near Jeremie and the other in the mountains above Jac-mel...
...The CIA, which financed his two unsuccessful campaigns for the Presidency, instructed him to join the military government...
...These days, I'm told, most drugs pass through Les Cayes, Jeremie and Miragoane...
...In the neighboring countryside the Tontons Macoutes, Duvalier's personal army of thugs as well as his chefs de section, are back in power...
...Krauchi was taken to Port-au-Prince and thrown in jail...
...Members of the Juvenceaux, the local band that accompanied her highness, leaped from the pyre, abandoning their instruments...
...Apparently Le Matin, a frequent mouthpiece for the Haitian government, was foreshadowing the Army's line should the abuses uncovered prove monstrous...
...A contractor who specialized in building houses has been reduced to putting up latrines...
...Two days earlier his school had been surrounded by soldiers who held his students hostage for 10 hours...
...One because he owned a picture of Aris-tide, one because he was gay...
...The OAS plans to dispatch its contingent in 50 vehicles, assigning four to each along with a driver and an interpreter...
...The compromise agreement strictly limits the observers, whose total number is not specified, to investigating human rights abuses...
...One shipment was dropped by mistake into the hills, where the farmers who found it repackaged it into tiny portions and reaped a small fortune...
...He must take medication every day to remain sane...
...Story Number 4: Michel Francois, Port-au-Prince's Chief of Police, is the real ruler of Haiti...
...Besides providing food, the larger trees prevent soil erosion...
...They thought he had been killed...
...Even though they were paid $240 a month, far in excess of the minimum wage, raised by Aristide from $3 to $5 a day, they did not mind being fired...
...Given that they are technically not permitted to interact with the unrecognized military government, they can expect little help from the Haitian Army...
...Since electricity is turned off most of the day, it is difficult for businesses to function...
...The surf pounds...
...Obviously thumbing its nose at world opinion, the military government was asserting it had every intention of running Haiti in its own way...
...Aristide estimates that 35 kilos a month fuels the economy with $150 million a year, yet the U.S...
...the poor so he can govern, the rich so they can kill him...
...Demonstrations against the UN-OAS special envoy, Dante Caputo, both at the airport and the Hotel Montana, were clearly government-staged...
Vol. 76 • March 1993 • No. 4
