Open letter from jailed Haitian
ONE MONTH after the September 17 coup d'état, the international press announced that We print below excerpts from two an attempt to overthrow the new president statements written by fourteen soldiers had been defeated. currently imprisoned. They were distributed in
This was actually a total fabrication Creole by CATH, the Independent designed to justify jailing the most committed Confederation of Haitian Workers.
WERE
whose names are the following: Patrick Bochard, Timoté Jean Frank, Altinor Jean Alipson, Figaro Gentry, Oupette Casner, Vilex Saintyl, Jean Mathieux, Germain Sainthonax, Joseph Clébert, Septembre, Philémon Job, Hardrès Pierre Louis, and Delile Frico.
We were the major promoters of the September 17 coup d'état that sent General Namphy and all of his family out to pasture in Santo-Domingo.
Betrayed by the general
We put General Prosper Avril in power on the condition that he meet the demands of the people, which are much very linked to those of the rank-and-file of the army. We thought that in learning the lessons of history the general had exorcised the Duvalierist demons that danced in his head...
In what circumstances were we arrested? On Saturday, October 15, General Prosper Avril gave five of us, along with three civilians, the mission of going to motivate people in the central highlands....
On the Monday that we came back from the mission in the central highlands, all five of us were arrested and taken to prison. What are we accused of?
Of having taken part in a plot to bring down the Avril-Heubreux government! [Sergeant Hebreux was supposed to serve as permanent representative of lower officers and soldiers to Prosper Avril.] At the same time, the general was giving the order to destroy the Suggestions Office of the Enlisted Men's Secretariat set up in the National Palace. Some members were arrested and others went into hiding.
In order to blacken our reputations and our honor, the general has accused us of plotting with Samuel Jérémie, a criminal who spilled the people's blood as long as he could....
Several reasons caused the general to turn against us:
soldiers
soldiers.
• After the September 17 movement, the general promised us promotions and a lot of other advantages. We answered him by saying that we didn't need to go any higher than staff sergeant or master sergeant, because we didn't want to get out of touch with the army rank-and-file.
• In the accord that we signed with the general, we let him know that he was there to act in accordance with the will of the
• He was there to create the conditions so the demands made by the people after February 7 could be met, until they could choose their leaders through elections for all posts from the municipal districts to the
We had asked him to cleanse the country of all the gangs sowing terror, of the Macoutes, those shameless criminals who besmirch the Haitian people in the eyes of all nations. That is why in the press conference that they organized, the soldiers asked the government to restore the people's constitution and add an amendment to Article 291 excluding the Macoutes from public life for a period of thirty
We asked the general to carry out a total purge from top to bottom in all state institutions so that freedom of the press, the right to free expression, free association, and free trade unions could be guaranteed. This is the only road out of the situation that the country finds itself in.
### Workers and soldiers...
But like an old monkey trained well in the Duvalier school, the general put his neural circuits to work on how to stop all of this as quickly as possible. In fact, we do not have the same interests as the army potentates. Our interests are closer to those of the working masses, peasants, transport workers and so on.
What shook the general the most was when he noticed that soldiers had decided to invite journalists to a press conference.
HAITI In his eyes, this represented a serious danger. In the brainwashing that all soldiers have to undergo, they are always told that, apart from national radio and television, all journalists are enemies of the army, enemies of the people, that they are working to destroy the country and that many of them work for communism.
Rising up to defend our rights
When people rise up to defend the rights stolen from them, soldiers are always told that the public peace is in danger, and the country's interests threatened....That is what explains the fact that when people demonstrate, when workers strike, soldiers are sent to put them down them with truncheons, blows, teargas, and bullets. If a soldier does not want to obey orders, it is reported, and it is said that he is against the country's interests. At the first opportunity, he is made to pay.
It is because of all of these injustices that we, who are part of the rank-and-file of the army, presented a list of 19 points covering soldier's bad conditions, demands closely linked to those of the people, to the general....
Continuing our work, we began to prepare a list of all of the section chiefs and attachés who used terror under the cover of some Macoute military figure, so that they could be replaced by others chosen by the people.
But the general's new strategy is bringing Duvalierism back to life. It includes dismissals and transfers to remote areas in order to neuralize us when the situation calms down. That is what began in the military hospital, and is being prepared in other barracks, in the Cafeteria barracks, in the Aviation barracks, in the Leopards' Camp barracks and so on.
Today, we declare that, as Nelson Mandela accepted 26 years in prison for liberation, we are ready to sacrifice ourselves for the cause of the Haitian 15 people. *