Washington's plans
HAITI from US surpluses. Another part will go to swell the shantytowns and try to get jobs in the industrial zones, where already some 200 assembly businesses employ 60,000 workers, mainly women, for pittance wages.
On the political level, the US plan is to establish a strong regime subordinate to it but endowed with a democratic facade. Washington will pay special attention to the Haitian
THE REVOLUTIONARY upsurge was not ended by the flight of
"Baby Doc" Duvalier. It is continuing to threaten more and more the props of bourgeois order. The most spectacular example recently is the mass mobilizations on the day of the restoration of the national colors (Duvalier changed the colors of the Haitian flag), during which a crowd prevented the new authorities from sending the former chief of the political police, Lue Desyr, safely out of the country.
According to the February 27 issue of the Paris daily Liberation, the crowds on the day of the return of the colors chanted "Duvalier is still there," and "Cineas - Macoute." Alix Cineas is a member of the new ruling junta. On February 26, the Banque National de
Credit, went on strike demanding the removal of the management linked to Duvalier.
The following article written by a representative of the Paris organization for solidarity with Grenada, was recently published in a magazine of the solidarity movement. The second article has just been received from inside Haiti. It has been somewhat shortened.
JULIEN LARIVIERE
Jean-Claude Duvalier and Somoza once told each other that they were
"inspired by the ideals of solidarity coming from a common destiny." So far this prophesy has been borne out to the letter. But the United States is going to do its utmost to assure that
Haiti does not follow the road of to what a lot of the press has suggested, the United States no more put an end to Duvalier's reign than it did to that of Somoza.
maybe the pressures brought to bear by Washington gave a final tip to the scales, but the dictator's position had become untenable in any
The whole society, including the had rejected particular, the movement of the poor masses had taken to the streets and had been growing steadily for two months. Repression had fanned spread the flames of the revolt.
The regime still had the capacity to mount a campaign of massacres and could have held on in that way some time. But it knew that in the mobilizations that were being built for the carnival time threatened to prove fatal for it. And involving the army in a fierce repression could discredit it in the eyes of the people been shouting; "Long live the army"
up till then. Baby Doe
International Viewpoint 10 March 1986 discreetly out back door, which is the solution he chose, after taking the precautions of emptying the state coffers and turning power over to a junta.
Fearing the worst (it had already prepared its troops to intervene in order to restore order), Washington could only encourage Duvalier on his
Will the United States now succeed in imposing its plan on Haiti making the country into a colony patterned after Puerto Rico?
economy, the United States has not concealed its intentions. They have been described in several documents submitted to congress. In outline, the plan has two main aspects:
- To reduce the land devoted to food crops by 30 per cent in order to expand export crops. This involves breaking down the traditional structures in production and of food products, which are to a considerable extent controlled by the peasants (unlike, for example, big merchants).
A part of the peasants driven off the lands they cultivated, by debt, poverty, or force, will go to work on road construction. They will then get not wages but food rations drawn army, many of whose elements have already been trained by the United Macoutes will be integrated into the army (the process has already begun). Other elements can be used, if necesform secret paramilitary gangs to "disappear" activists who cause too much "trouble."
For a long time, the US embassy has had a network of informers extending throughout the country. It is based on the ministers of certain established in the country during the occupation that 1915 to 1934. The CIA is no doubt going to perfect its intelligence network and focus on the left organizations that are still working underground
The concerns of the US embassy seemed to be reflected in a dispatch published in the February 13 International Herald Tribune:
"Diplomats here say they do not know who organized and led the street revolts of the past few months or who is issuing the unsigned comaround the country.
"However, the diplomats note that the documents are well-written and suggest there may be a real organiza-
For leadership appeared to street protests."
The junta has announced unions are going to be allowed to form. It is a sure thing that agents of the American Institute for Free Labor Development, the CIA's cover have their tickets for Port-
In Haiti, militant unions grew up after 1946 before being crushed by Francois Duvalier. Rebuilding them is one of the tasks of the period opening now. We might ask if unions in countries that have considerable investments in Haiti, as is true of France, could not play an important role in helping their Haitian coworkers to organize themselves freely.
More generally, opposing the interference of foreign powers, above all the United States, in the affairs of the Haitian people must now be solidarity with the peoples of Central America and the Caribbean. O
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