Haiti in turmoil as masses protest austerity and terror

Scan page 21

Newly installed Provisional President Ertha Pascal-Trouillot and Maj. Gen. Herard Abraham during swearing-in ceremonies. They have good reason to be eyeing each other warily. 20 SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL1990 On March 12, Haiti's military ruler, Lieutenant General Prosper Avril, boarded a military cargo plane bound for the U.S. Air Force Base in Homestead, Fla. His flight from Haiti followed a late night "heart-toheart" talk with U.S. Ambassador Alvin Adams.

Immediately, preparations were made for the installation on the following morning of Supreme Court Justice Ertha PascalTrouillot as "Provisional President." Her task was to organize presidential elections within three to six months.

Pascal-Trouillot had been pre-selected by the "Group of Twelve," which is composed of the nation's 12 largest traditional political parties, representing different sectors of Haiti's bourgeoisie. Any decision of the provisional president is subject to the veto of a 19-member Council of State, itself chosen by the Group of Twelve.

The husband of Pascal-Trouillot, Ernst Trouillot, had been her political mentor. He was the chief counsel of the National Bank of Haiti under Duvalier. Trouillot oversaw the funds on deposit of Haiti's rulers, sums involving hundreds of millions of dollars stolen and extorted by Hait's tiny elite.

Ex-ruler Prosper Avril, as chief of the Presidential Guard, had himself carried out the ouster of civilian President Leslie Manigat on Sept. 17, 1988. Avril was a long-time Duvalierist who had been trained at the U.S Special Forces military facilities in Quantico, Va., before going to Vietnam, where he worked with current U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Alvin Adams.

In 1988, Haiti was facing a mounting popular uprising which was fostering a rebellion among the army's rank-and-file soldiers. Avril staged a pre-emptive coup, installing himself in power. He elevated himself to the rank of lieutenant general and declared himself president.

Eighteen months after his coup, Avril received his marching orders from U.S. Ambassador Alvin Adams. How can this be explained?

1989 mass upsurge It was the events of 1989 which brought Adams to Haiti and required the removal of Avril. A new mass upsurge rocked Haiti, prompted by the struggle against the imperialist debt and the austerity imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The call for mass mobilizations issued by the Haitian Initiating Committee Against the Debt produced an unprecedented response. Two general strikes paralyzed the country. The huge support for the general strikes posed a direct threat to the regime and to the U.S. agenda for Haiti.

The U.S. rulers had urged a "transition" to elections, grooming such bourgeois aspirants as Marc Bazin, a World Bank economist and defender of the IMF schemes for Haiti.

On Nov. 1, 1989, prominent members of the Initiating Committee Against the Debt called a press conference in Port-au-Prince. Three of the committee's leaders-JeanAugust Mesyeux, Evans Paul, and Etienne Marino-announced a call for a vast national mobilization against the military regime of Prosper Avril on Nov. 29.

Immediately after the press conference, the three leaders were kidnapped and detained, to be produced days later and displayed on Haitian television. They had been savagely tortured and their appearance was shocking— a crude warning intended to intimidate the population and thwart the scheduled Nov. 29 mobilization.

But the tactic backfired. The people, undeterred, erupted in rage. Spontaneous rallies took place everywhere in the country with impromptu strikes paralyzing an economy already in ruin.

By January 1990, the mass demonstrations and street barricades had become a constant and permanent feature of Haitian life. (So too, however, had the arrest and disappearance of trade-union leaders and the drive-by machine gun shootings of children, schools, and churches by the Tonton Macoutes, the 50,000-strong death-squad force that continues to permeate all institutions of the Haitian state.)

On Jan. 20, 1990, the day after unidentified gunmen killed Colonel Paul, his wife, and housemaid, Avril declared a state of siege and sent seven opposition leaders into exile. The fact that Colonel Paul was a rival of Avril caused most Haitians to believe that in killing Paul, Avril sought to achieve two objectives simultaneously: remove a competitor and crack down on the politicians demanding elections.

Avril later arrested scores of opponents and imposed total censorship on the press.

Writing on the wall The writing was on the wall for Avril. His U.S. sponsors immediately saw that his usefulness was exhausted. They gave him a brief respite to calm things down. Avril lifted the state of siege, released a few of those recently detained, and promised, once again, to hold elections.

But the mass movement could not be deceived. On Feb. 6, the National Front Against Repression launched a nationwide call for the ouster of Avril. Huge demonstrations took place on Feb. 10 and were met by brutal police attack. Popular militancy increased, and the now unified call for the elimination of the Avril government and the Macoute terror machine caused panic in Washington.

Alvin Adams, described by the U.S. State Department as a "terrorism specialist," came to Haiti with a blueprint. He set out to urgently form a coalition of bourgeois forces that could provide a façade of civilian rule, prepare elections without diminishing the power of the Tonton Macoutes, and impose austerity measures outlined by the IMF.

The Committee Against Repression in Haiti described Alvin's role: "In the weeks preceding Avril's ouster, U.S. Ambassador Alvin Adams traversed the country meeting with leaders and groups, attempting to engineer a smooth transition from Âvril."

By March 5, Radio Metropole announced: "All the political parties agree on this point: the removal of General Avril." Events were moving swiftly, as Adams sought frantically to position the bourgeois leaders so they could head off a popular explosion.

By March 10, after daily meetings with the ambassadors of the United States, France, and the Vatican, a deal was struck.

Avril agreed to step down but maintain his position in the army. By March 12, Avril was gone and the interim president was installed. The Group of Twelve hastily assembled by Adams now attempted to take the initiative, calling for a demonstration in support of the new government.

Population not fooled

But the population was not fooled. François Pierre-Louis, a leader of the National Popular Assembly (APN), told Socialist Action over the telephone what happened at the demonstration. Only 3000 people showed up. The predominant mood, in fact, was expressed by the slogans shouted by the crowd over and over: "Dirty deal, more old tricks."

Since the installation of Ertha PascalTrouillot, leaders of the mass movement have braced themselves for savage attacks by the Tonton Macoutes and the "attaches," a new para-military terrorist group.

François Pierre-Louis recounted a series of savage killings of nuns and children. But the groundswell of mass demonstrations and strikes which have engulfed Haiti continuedespite the terror of disappearances, the public display of tortured leaders, and the murder of children deliberately targeted and gunned down by army and Macoute death squads.

The potential of the Haitian people to move beyond rage to organized political expression and for revolutionary power was articulated March 13 by Father Aristide, a popular opposition leader, on Radio Metropole:

"The chauffeur has left but the car has stayed behind with all the passengers armed in order to continue the repression and the blood bath.... If the people demobilize, we are lost."

Popular vigilance committees emerged throughout Haiti in the days after Avril's resignation. Some were organized by the popular organizations, but many were spontaneous groupings of neighbors who had erected barricades and gathered whatever arms and implements could be used for self-defense against the rampage by the and army units.

Within one week of the new government, over 30 people had been killed and 100 people injured in Port-au-Prince alone. The doctors, horrified by the nature of the injuries and the carnage, called a general strike to protest the slaughter.

The bourgeois politicians, including newly installed President Ertha PascalTrouillot, initially paid lip-service to the call for popular self-defense, but soon retreated from this position as the army reasserted its power.

On March 16, the army issued a communiqué outlawing the vigilance committees. This was only three days after acting Army Chief of Staff Major General Herard Abraham had vowed that the army would remain in the background and support the policies of the new president.

"Her [Pascal-Trouillot] role as a Duvalierist and army figure became clear in only a matter of days," reports François Pierre-Louis, "and she abandoned the very bourgeois figures who had put her in power."

U.S. troops could be sent in The response of the bourgeois politicians has been to look to direct U.S. intervention to resolve the mounting crisis. "All the bourgeois politicians want U.S. troops to come to control the Macoutes and guarantee the election outcome, as in Panama," François Pierre-Louis told Socialist Action.

It is not the first time the Bush administration would have intervened directly with troop support in Haiti.

U.S. soldiers were brought from Guantanamo just one year ago, April 1989, during a power struggle between Prosper Avril and a sector of the army which was about to erupt into armed conflict. The U.S. forces sent a clear signal to the rebellious Haitian units while instructing Avril and his Presidential Guard in methods of control.

As the invasion of Panama clearly demonstrates, the U.S. rulers are willing to send troops to replace a regime that is no longer useful containing the mass upsurge.

In the coming confrontations, the fate of Haiti will be charted. The U.S. antiwar movement must be prepared to defend the Haitian people against the continuing reign of terror and to mobilize against the projected occupation of Haiti.