Haiti. Mobilizations have been stepped unarmed up, especially in the high schools and universities, while week under the theme "University, crossroads of resistance?"
On May 18, a lightning action was greeted with enthusiasm by the people and gave the mobilizations a new impetus. On that day, a small plane, which had come from another country, scatterepression has reached new heights. The ruling putschists, who came to power via a coup against elected president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in September 1991, have nominated
Marc Bazin as premier. Meanwhile, the United States is engaged in intensive behind-the-scenes manouevring to arrive at a solution which would put Haiti firmly under its thumb.
ARTHUR MAHON
WOMAN from Raboteau, a
A shantytown of the city of
Gonaïves, told a French journalist earlier this year:
"Two weeks ago tyres were set on fire here in the middle of the night, I don't know who by. From time to time you find leaflets in the street. The population has shown that it has not fallen asleep.
At any moment something could break out". For the time being people are resisting silently, but at the same time there is tension and frustration. The army is well aware that at any moment it could face sudden explosions.
The embargo decreed by the Organization of American States (OAS) has little substance. The trucks which bring all kinds of goods to Haiti (especially weapons for the army) gather on the frontier posts of the Dominican Republic. The army has been assured of a lavish supply of fuel from this source for a long time. However the prices for the poorest have risen catastrophically.
The prices of basic necessities, which are not covered by the embargo, have risen by at least 20%, and often much more. Since the coup the economy has collapsed.
The repression suffered by the peasants in the countryside is worse than ever. After the coup, hundreds of thousands of people fled from the repression raging in the towns to take refuge in the countryside. But the situation there has become intolerable. The system of army-appointed civilian section chiefs has been restored in the interests of maintaining order. These chiefs have set about rebuilding and arming their networks of agents. In the South-East department, where there are only 300 soldiers, 17 truck loads of Brazilian and
12 Israeli arms arrived this January.
The repression in the countryside has two objectives: to break the fighting spirit of the peasants and to squeeze money out of them. Peasants are arrested and beaten until they part with their money. Some have to sell all their belongings, and, at the risk of their lives, try to get the USA by boat. Many more take to the forests and mountains. They come back to their homes from time to time to get what they need, but they can no longer cultivate their land.
### Forms of resistance
Resistance has had to take the form of graffiti, leaflets and lightning demonstrations. Some twenty small bulletins (some produced in tens of thousand of copies) are distributed in the country. The best known are Kawoutchou (Tyre), Mawon, Kokoriko and Pikon Wouj (Spicy Red). Some of them call for the formation of committees of resistance.
At the start of April, demonstrations took place in the capital Port-au-Prince and elsewhere. On April 29, thousands of inhabitants of the capital demanded the return of Aristide. On May 2, two hundred priests and nuns held a procession in the streets of Port-au-Prince. They were demanding the release of a Venezuelan nun found in possession of a calendar carrying Aristide's photo. Their demonstration was also a way of expressing their feelings about the new papal Nuncio, who had the day before presented his credentials to the putschist president, making the Vatican the first state to give him official recognition.
The first mobilizations this year were of students. Despite beatings, arrests and teargas they courageously organized demonstrations on school premises and defied the army when they arrived.
red leaflets over several neighbourhoods in Port-au-Prince and other cities. On one side was a portrait of Aristide with the national flag and on the other an appeal to "a sustained mobilization", "total and absolute resistance" and to "make the pot boil even more strongly with orderly, disciplined and united mobilizations".
It also called on people to listen to Radio-16 décembre, a short wave station broadcasting to Haiti from the United States. This station aims to some extent to replace Radio Enriquillo, a progressive Catholic station transmitting from the Dominican Republican, whose Creole language broadcasts have recently been forbidden by that country's president (despite this it continues to provide information in Creole in the form of songs.)
Unable to stop the May 18 action, the army responded with repression. This was all the more furious owing to a number of attacks on army personnel, which had gone as high as the army no. 3. It is known that in one case a soldier's gun and his uniform were stolen, suggesting an action by a resistance group; at the same time in another case three soldiers were killed by their own comrades-in-arms.
### Army terror
For several weeks the army has been trying to terrorize the people, using the same methods as during the coup. Shots can be heard throughout the country. According to the bulletin Résistance et Démocratie, quoting a publication devoted to the defence of human rights, between May 22 and 25 some hundred people were summarily executed in the Port-au-Prince zone; sometimes the bodies were thrown into the sea. The prisons are overflowing. In the evening, children are kidnapped in the poor neighbourhoods and at night the army machine guns children in the street. The centre "La famille c'est la vie", set up by Aristide for such children, has been set on fire.
Despite the repression, students from high schools and some private colleges have taken up the flame from the university students of the capital and other cities. On May 24, the government decided to shut most classes in public high
give you a lift back to your schools and bring forward the date of the examinations. However, the pupils went to their schools, which were often surrounded by the army. New clashes took place and at least one pupil was killed in the capital. On June 1, two girl students were wounded by shots after troops had besieged their school where a banner with a portrait of Aristide had replaced the national flag. Two days later pupils tore up their examination papers and threw rocks at the soldiers
Rarely has the United States achieved a higher level of hypocrisy than in its recent dealings with Haiti. While engaging in behind the scenes manoeuvres to undermine Aristide, they periodically make gestures to give the impression that they are working for the restoration of democracy — instantaneous recall of the ambassador, occasional mild condemnations by Bush, withdrawal of visas for some notorious Haitians.
### Rejecting refugees
These gestures are aimed at international and Haitian public opinion. The hypocrisy of the Bush administration has been highlighted by the issue of the boat people. Since the start of the crisis, 38,000 refugees have been intercepted by American coastguards. Among them, 23,000 have been sent back to Haiti where the army records their identity and fingerprints. Only 10,000 have been allowed to stay in the US to apply for asylum. The rest are waiting for a decision, stuck in the naval base at Guanta-
Finally, to put an end to this problem, Bush decided on May 24 to immediately send back all refugees picked up at sea and shut the camp at Guantanamo. At the end of May, one man, who claimed he was a deserter from the Haitian police, threw himself into the sea, preferring to drown rather than return to
On a smaller scale, the French government has with equal cynicism striven to prevent Haitian asylum seekers from reaching its borders. Since most come through Switzerland, France has got the Swiss government to refuse entry to Haitians who do not have a letter of invitation. Air France, aboard whose planes most Haitians arrive in Switzerland, has interpreted these measures in the narrowest sense. Thus, on February 11, the airline — completely illegally — refused to allow 90 out of 103 Haitians to board a plane, although all had valid tickets.
The putschist government and the army fiercely opposed the ratification of the agreement made by Aristide and
MISS
LIBERTY
USA representatives of Haiti's parliament in Washington on February 23. It was made impossible for Haiti's parliament to ratify; deputies opposed to the agreement, and others paid for the job, left the chamber rendering the session inquorate. Then soldiers threatened those who remained. Soon afterwards the supreme court of appeal rejected the agreement as unconstitutional.
Putsch supporters divided
At first, such events divided those who had rallied to the side of the putschists. A sector of the bourgeoisie affected by the OAS embargo wanted the agreement ratified. This was true too of some parliamentarians who had welcomed the coup, but have now had enough of living under the shadow of the army and the Duvalierists. Thus, the Washington agreement has posed pro-
However, in the end the government, the army and the representatives of parliament managed to reach agreement on a text which, with a few amendments, was ratified by those deputies and senators who did not boycott the vote. It should be pointed out that this success for the putschists was made possible thanks to the attitude of the majority of parliamentarians from the PANPRA, a member party of the Socialist International, which is financed by the French Socialist Party.
The agreement thus reached envisages the nomination of a new prime minister to replace Jean-Jacques Honorat, the installation of a government of "consensus and public safety" which must resume negotiations and the resignation of the putschist president Nérette.
This latter will not be replaced "until an overall and definitive solution to the crisis has been found". On June 2, Marc Bazin was appointed prime minister,
HAITI No, but we'd be happy to ship! and his nomination was ratified by parliament - much to the discomfiture of PANPRA who were expecting the new premier to come from their ranks.
This nomination, which, according to Bazin, buries the Washington agreement, has aroused protests from the OAS, which has just resolved to step up the embargo, Washington and Paris. Even one of the ideologues of the coup, Jean-Claude Roy, joined in the chorus of indignation. According to him: "we can expect the worst, with continuous instability and increasing violence" Few Haitians still think that a negotiated settlement is possible. It is becoming clear that the organization of underground resistance and popular mobilizations are the only way to put an end to the dictatorship and impose Aristide's
New tone from Aristide
The situation has led to a change in tone from Aristide. After the coup he stressed the embargo, which he hoped would bring down the dictatorship (in fact its main achievement has been to allow a number of traffickers to get very rich) and other international pressures. At the same time he tried to maintain the spirits of his supporters in Haiti in messages broadcast on Radio Enriquillo. However he did not call for organized resistance. A speech on February 7, the anniversary of his accession to the presidency, marked a first change. Referring to the slave struggle against the French plantation owners, he issued a stirring appeal to "raise ever higher the flag of resistance".
After the signing of the Washington agreement, whose contents were a disappointment for many Haitians, Aristide continued to firmly insist that there profiting from the proposed amnesty. At July 6, 1992 # 232 International Viewpoint
International Viewpoint # 232 • July 6, 1992
HAITI / ARMENIA
T
the same time he sought to reassure the Haitian bourgeoisie and imperialism. In particular, he explained that he was the only person who could prevent the Haitian people from taking reprisals and reforge Haitian unity. He also stated that once restored to power he would have to move forward slowly "like a car in a traffic jam".
When it became clear that the Washington agreement was a dead letter, he changed his tone. On May 18, he called for resistance to "move into a higher gear". A message in the form of a poem runs:
"The light of history illuminates our memory/ The light of history warms our memory/ We must march heads held high/ Head held high in the direction of demonstrations/ In the university; demonstration/ In the school; demonstration/ In the church; demonstration/ In the street, on the mountain, in the city/ In the four corners of the country/ Call, shout, protest/ Leap, call, shout/ Repeat everywhere endlessly/ Liberty or death/ Democracy or death/ Liberty or death/ Democracy or death!"
Aristide has thus abandoned the cautious language of the first months of his exile. However, the building of a resistance movement needs a programme that draws the lessons of the past few years, particularly as concerns the need to place no confidence in the bourgeoisie and to pay attention to the details of armed confrontation.
Without doubt it is not Aristide's place to tackle such problems. He has attempted to exploit to the limit the possibilities on the diplomatic level and to split the enemy camp.
To do that a certain caution is understandable; however, this does not mean that he is justified in speaking in a way that hinders the development of the Haitian people's own awareness of what needs to be done or slows down the building of a movement of resistance that is capable of confronting the dictatorship.
Unfortunately, his months-long insistence on the "non-violent" character of the resistance and appeals for "the unity 14 of the privileged minority and the nonprivileged majority" has contributed to sowing confusion on essential ques-
Aristide's crucial strength is his rapport with the Haitian people, which is now stronger than ever. In the collective consciousness, he has become a moral and religious figure who embodies centuries of hopes and struggles, which, since the victory over colonialism and slavery, have known nothing but
When in the presidential palace he used his rapport to stimulate popular organization and self-defence. Subsequent events have shown that this was the only realistic road. Certainly it is not an easy one, and Aristide has sometimes tried to work in this sense.
However, on the whole, he has preferred to give priority to manoeuvres in the hope of lulling his enemies and winning
In fact it has only been his own supporters who have been lulled. It seems that he believes - wrongly - that his links with the people mean that their combativity will not be affected by his manoeuvres and the hostages to fortune given to the enemy.
US steps up diplomatic
Has Bazin's appointment closed the period of diplomacy and negotiations? It seems, on the contrary, that for the US, it is only now that things are really getting going. On June 4, Bush met the heads of state of the English-speaking
One of them explained the need for a regional solution involving the US. The following day the Dominican press hinted at the efforts of that country's president, Balaguer, to bring about a BazinAristide meeting and promote "a political formula called the third option".
On June 6, the New York Times reported that the Bush administration was working on a negotiated solution whose main points would be: the return of Aristide, which must be accepted by "the opposition forces"; the sending of a multinational peace-keeping force under OAS or United Nations control; and the participation of the armed forces in the choosing of the prime minister.
In parallel, the US press has again been trying to discredit Aristide and campaigning for the lifting of the embargo. Thus all the elements are in place for pushing Aristide to accept the new prime minister and for international public opinion to accept the sending of a "peace-keeping force" to Haiti or even more direct US control, in the face of the wave of terror gripping the island.*
Economic
reform -
and war