A view from inside
"The negotiations to arrive at a political formula acceptable the majority of the democratic forces will no doubt be difficult. Nonetheless, they should be successful. And the United States, as indicated by the seem to favor such outcome." This is what Serge in a well-documented article in the last issue of le Monde Diplomatique (February 1986, p. 10.)
Unfortunately, the United States is in fact hostile to any genuinely democratic solution in Haiti. To the contrary, it is for maintaining the social and economic system that it consolidated through 19 years of military occupation (1915-34) and 29 years of the Duvalier regime (19571986). The military junta with which it replaced Jean-Claude Duvalier does not in any way represent "an acceptable formula for the majority of the democratic forces."
The new junta members were all high up in the Duvalier regime and up to their necks in crime, with the exception of one stray - Gerard
Gourgue. To give just one example of the new crimes already committed by the government of General
Namphy, in the week after he took 6 according to Radio Soleil, the Catholic Church station, more than 200 persons were murdered in the small city of Cayes alone. [This report is unconfirmed. Follow-
Duvalier's flight, has been marked by continuing clashes and disturbing rumors. other reports of the army opening fire, but the casualties are unknown.]
The Country is still under striet surveillance by the army trained by Washington to track down and eliminate supporters of democracy. The "Leopards," an elite unit originally recruited among the Tonton Macoutes, the latter. Better and armed Macoutes and with officers trained in the United States they can be a will be a more selective and orderly one.
The 25 demands made public in Gonaives and given massive support throughout the country take account demands for "de-Macoutization. States and those who live in its shadow are trying to impose is nothing but "Duvalierism without Duvalier." This term is already becoming popular labor of Haitians to the multinationals (in particular in the so-called export assembly industries) or to the foreign bank accounts of the Haitian bourgeoisie. And there are, of course, many other tasks before us in educa tion, revival of the national culture, health, housing, and so forth that have never been taken up by any government that has ruled in this country.
Obviously, only a government coming out of the mass struggles underway would be prepared to set about making such a change.
The drama in the coming months and perhaps years is that the establishment of such a new economic and social order is exactly what the United States wants to avert at all costs. Our road to democracy is still being blocked by an enormous obstacle the United States. The time, however, may not be too long before we have the lever for tipping this obstacle over a cliff, the massive mobilization of the cities and countryside leading to an armed insurrection, not against the symbols of the social system but against the social system itself. The time is perhaps not too far off when we will have the underpinning necessary for this lever, the revolt of enough peoples to disperse the forces of foreign aggression.
1. The peasants poverty has forc them back on gathered food to meet al their energy needs. The result has that in the last 30 years, about half forests have been destroyed, leadin disastrous soil erosion. - IV.
International Viewpoint 10 March 1986
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