Haitians press fight to complete revolution

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20 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 1987 One year after President-for-Life JeanClaude Duvalier was driven from Haiti, workers and peasants are still mobilizing and organizing to complete the revolution.

The ruling junta, selected by Duvalier and the U.S. Embassy, hopes to maintain the system of profit making and privilege-with only a few cosmetic changes. But the desperately poor Haitian masses are determined to totally change their lives by any means necessary.

The revolution that sent Duvalier fleeing on Feb. 7, 1986, was a spontaneous out -burst by students, youth, and the poor. No political parties existed to give direction or support.

In 28 years of murderous rule, the Duvaliers had repressed parties, practically wiped out the trade unions, and murdered or exiled every potential opponent.

For over a quarter of a century there was not a crevice in Haitian society where an opposition movement could take root and grow. Then, in the 1980s, the situation changed.

Young Catholic priests embraced liberation theology, opposed the church's support of the wealthy, and began to confront the immediate material problems of the poor.

Young Haitians, seeing a ray of hope in their desperate circumstances, joined over 2000 grassroots church-sponsored groups that studied the Bible, worked on projects to improve their community, and pondered the future of Haitian society.

It was not so easy for Duvalier to strike at church committees that were engaged in improving farming practices or obtaining clean water. But confrontation was inevitable. In January 1986, Baby Doc shut down the Catholic station, Radio Soleil.

Students demonstrated in support of the station. Some were killed by soldiers. They demonstrated again in greater numbers, bringing the desperate poor of the shantytowns with them. In the classic pattern of mass action that has toppled dictators from Teheran to Manila, more and more people demonstrated in more and more towns throughout Haiti.

Duvalier's killer squads, the Tonton Macoutes, had no strategy to confront 50,000 enraged demonstrators who engulfed them. These killers now thought only of their own safety, leaving Duvalier alone and defenseless.

Washington observed all this, and thought only of the danger of instability in this impoverished country. Duvalier had to go, not because he was a dictator, but because he could no longer preserve order.

The U.S. government found Baby Doc's replacement right in the National Palace. General Henri Namphy, chief of staff of the Haitian Army, and two other army officers formed a Governing National Committee (CNG).

Three civilians were added for window dressing. Only one, Gerald Gourgue, head of the Haitian League for Human Rights, had ever opposed Duvalier. He quit in a few weeks.

Namphy uses tear gas The new ruling junta has not even begun to confront Haiti's horrendous problems. Preserving their privileges and repressing "outbursts of the populace" have been their main concerns.

Washington came to the junta's aid with a $400,000 consignment of riot-control equipment, night sticks, tear gas, and two-way radios. But the masses stayed in the streets, determined to physically uproot all vestiges of Duvalierism. When the army shot at demonstrators in April 1986, the workers moved into the wealthiest suburo of Port-au-Prince and erected barricades.

Alarmed, Washington saw it was time for concessions. The Tonton Macoutes were officially disbanded. Three of the most tainted CNG ministers were forced to resign. Some political prisoners were released, and political exiles were allowed to return.

But no concessions touched on Haiti's problems of poverty, illiteracy, and malnutrition. For 135 years a thin layer of light-skinned professionals and small businessmen have grown rich by appropriating the surplus of the vast mass of Haitians who are farmers.

Politics have consisted in coups and countercoups that have shifted control among various segments of the elite. The vast majority of the Haitians have been excluded. They speak Creole, rather than French, the language of the educated elite.

Haitian peasants have subsisted on tiny individual plots that are losing their fertility year by year. Absolutely nothing effective has been done to stop the deforestation and erosion that has turned much of this once fertile country into semidesert.

The small farmers live so close to the edge of starvation that thousands had to quit the land when their hogs were slaughtered in 1982, at U.S. insistence, when a swineHaiti: A country oppressed by U.S. domination. flu epidemic threatened American hog raisers.

Ninety-seven percent of the Haitians are classified as poor. Fifty percent, or 3 mil -lion, are so desperately poor they seldom eat more than once a day. Over 80 percent are illiterate. Unemployment runs over 50 percent. In the year since Baby Doc left, living standards have declined even further.

In 1977, there were only 145,000 industrial workers out of a population of 6 million. Some are sugar-refinery workers, others work in American-owned subassembly plants making toys or baseballs for $2 or $3 a day.

Duvalier permitted only an impotent AFL-CIO-sponsored union to exist. This appendage of U.S. imperialism lost all credibility when it declared its neutrality between the CNG and the masses. Now a new union, the Independent Federation of Haitian Workers (CATH), has emerged. It has demanded a doubling of wages and the ouster of pro-Duvalierist managers. The bosses are resisting the union, firing all those who sign up.

Demand end to repression With an easing of the worst Macoute terror, political parties and groups have proliferated.

The majority are ad-hoc groups formed in the midst of the recent struggles. The Committee for Democratic Initiative (KID), the Seventh of February Patriotic Club, the Haitian Liberation Party (PLH), and the Haitian Democratic Party (PDH) are some of the parties contending for support.

On Jan. 29, 1987, over 250 parties and groups met for four days to debate the future course for Haiti. Many of these parties call for elections with universal suffrage, a constituent assembly to write a new constitution, a bill of rights, and majority rule.

The CNG and Washington see that majority rule in Haiti, where over 90 percent are poor, would mean the eventual end of class privileges. However much they may give lip service to the idea, they have no intention of granting it.

The CNG has already reneged on the measures of democracy it has been forced to grant. Only parties with 2000 members are recognized. Reporters who criticize the government can be arrested. A campaign against the "menace of communism" is regularly broadcast over Radio Soleil and other media.

Elections have been put off to November 1987. The government hopes that workers by then will become weary and apathetic. Meanwhile, a new right-wing party, PREN, headed by former leaders of the Macoutes, was launched in November 1986.

The Haitian masses were far from apathetic toward this right-wing threat. Once more they came into the streets by the thousands. Once more the army was directed to shoot. This only brought on more demonstrations, this time with demands that the CNG resign.

The government was forced to retreat and announce that PREN was dissolved. But at the same time, the military junta tightened its hold on the National Palace.

Ready to fight to the end The mood of Haitians on the anniversary of Duvalier's fall was somber, in contrast to the euphoria a year ago. They have seen only a worsening of their conditions of life.

The ruling CNG used the anniversary to take the offensive against the workers. General Namphy warned against "demagogic and anarchistic forces that wish to direct the nation on a path of chaos." He backed up his warning by arresting five left-wing critics of his government at the University of Haiti and raiding dissidents' homes.

Workers stood in the streets, stones in their hands. Businessmen shuttered their stores, expecting violent confrontations to mark the anniversary.

After a year of confrontation, the Haitian masses are still mobilized and ready to fight to the bitter end.

Gaining universal suffrage and full civil rights is only the first step in the struggle to change everything. The workers are pushing demands that would end the domination of the privileged elite.

Land reform, a minimum wage, nationalization of the import-export trade, expropriation of the large corporations tied to the U.S. multinationals, a campaign against illiteracy, and increased taxation on the wealthy are among the economic demands being pressed.

Haitian women are also speaking out for themselves. Thirty thousand of them marched in Port-au-Prince last April 2. They demanded equal rights for women and an end to sexual harassment on the job.

In some towns in Haiti, the workers have ousted the Duvalier-appointed officials and have set up block committees to run community affairs.

But the greatest obstacle to the comple -tion of the Haitian revolution lies in Washington.

For nearly 20 years, from 1915 to 1936, U.S. troops occupied Haiti and ran the country. In 1965, they invaded the Dominican Republic, right next door. They are poised to execute another Grenada-style invasion whenever their grip on Haiti is endangered.

It is the duty of the American people to force the U.S. government to keep its hands off Haiti.