Haitians resist military coup financed by the rich

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60,000 Haitians demonstrated in New York City to protest the military coup.

*By most estimates, the military has killed over a thousand people since the coup.' 14 SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1991 Over On the evening of Sept. 29, a military coup in Haiti, led by General Raoul Cedras, overthrew the government of Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The head of the first democratically-elected government in Haiti was fired upon and later seized and put on a plane to Paris.

Aristide was elected president on Dec. 16, 1990, during OAS (Organization of American States)-supervised national elections. The charismatic priest, who espouses the tenets of liberation theology, had an immense following among the poverty-stricken masses in Haiti.

He was elected by an overwhelming majority, receiving over 70 percent of the votes cast in an election that represented a new stage of the popular upsurge that led to the fall of the hated Duvalier dictatorship and continued to deepen afterward. In his campaign, Aristide had vowed, "The people is the main actor; we will do only what the people tells us to do."

But the coup has changed all that. As word of the coup spread the next day, barricades went up across Port-au-Prince, stopping all traffic, while the crowds armed themselves with stones, machetes, axes, and sticks.

icross the country, angry haitian ttacked the homes of officials and busi nessmen known for their support for the military. Crowds chanted, "If Aristide is rubber, treatment known as "necklacing" in South Africa.

The military responded with tear gas and bullets, leaving at least 140 dead in the first days alone.

By most estimates, the military has killed over a thousand people since the coup. But despite the slaughter, according to Haïti Progrès (Oct. 2-8), "The people is tar from being demobilized and is supported by some of the soldiers. In fact, in the provinces, many soldiers deserted, affirming their solidarity with the people, and in a counter-offensive against the Macoute army, at Petit Goâve, the people seized the barracks."

General strike

On Oct. 21, at Cayes and in the southern region, a general strike was 100 percent solid. Some 40 popular organizations called for a general strike on Oct. 23, demanding the return of Aristide to power. Their call stated that they should not "remain passively waiting for the OAS or the UN to offer us the return of Aristide to the presidency like a gift or as the result of negotiations with Cedras and Honorat. Our real guarantee is the mobilization of the people, mobilization to demand the respect for the Constitution and the popular will." (Haïti Progrès, Oct. 23-29)

The government, unable to stop the strike, declared a holiday that day for the funeral of Christian Democrat Sylvio Claude, who had been a rare casualty of the angry crowds. Sylvio Claude died on the evening of Sept. 29, when a crowd surrounded him and gave him the punishment of "Père Lebrun," i.e., the necklace. His body was then dragged through the streets. The crowd had found evidence on Claude that he had foreknowledge of the coup.

When the general strike proved effective, the military pretended that everyone had stayed home for his funeral. Bourgeois papers in the United States dutifully showed pictures of the funeral, not mentioning the general strike—or the number of Haitians killed by the military.

The "necklacing" of this collaborator has been singled out by the bourgeois press as evidence of Aristide's use of terror against his opponents, and dovetails with the military's claim that he exceeded his democratic mandate.

As Haïti Progrès comments (Oct. 1622): "It wasn't Aristide who created or encouraged [necklacing]. Actually, it goes back to the period that followed the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier, a time when the thirst for justice of a longrepressed people expressed itself in summary executions of well-known Macoutes and in déchouquages /uprooting] of homes and businesses belonging to Duvalierists."

In reality, it was the repeated mobilizations of the worker and peasant organizations against the military that prompted the coup.

Aristide's coalition was a combination of mass popular organizations—unions, peasant groups, neighborhood committees-and an assortment of church and other groupings.

While responding to the pressures of the mass movement against Macoutism, he hoped to steer a middle course in the inevitable conflict of the masses and their oppressors.

His electoral program stated, "The state must find an equilibrium based on respect, justice, and the law between what the workers demand and what the private sector needs to be encouraged to put money into the country and help it to progress." (International Viewpoint, July 22, 1991)

But the foundation of the army and the state is its allegiance to the bourgeoisie and its repressive apparatus. The mobilizations of the masses and their insistence on freedom of expression and organization, land reform, social benefits, and rooting out the Macoute elements, were a mortal threat to the military and to their masters in Washington.

Aristide, who tried to balance himself between the class antagonisms of the rich and the poor, was incapable of organizing the necessary measures against the capitalist class and its military henchmen. A showdown was inevitable.

While the class instincts of the masses led them to take-overs of private property, coupled with demands that the army and the Macoutes be dismantled and abolished, Aristide demurred.

This, in the last analysis, gave the bourgeoisie and the army time to make their move.

Even the "loyal, constitutional" officers went with the coup, just as in Chile in 1973, when the "constitutional" officers led by Pinochet overthrew the elected Allende government.

Facade of military "democracy"

In the wake of the coup, the military is making a pretense of democracy to open the door for U.S. support. The Haitian Senate was "inspired" at gunpoint to "elect" a new puppet president, Joseph Nérette. Among other politicians returning to prominence is Bazin, who was overwhelmingly defeated by Aristide in the December presidential election, despite his reportedly being funded by the CIA. (Covert Action Information Bulletin #36.)

The facade of military "democracy" is strictly for foreign consumption. For the Haitian masses, there is the naked face of terror. What the coup has shown is that the two Haitis-that of the military and the bourgeoisie on the one hand, and of the workers and peasants on the other— cannot coexist. One or the other must rule.

The tremendous growth of worker, peasant and neighborhood committees and the spread of organization to the rank and file of the army points the way out of the crisis. These organizations should not just be the source of power for the government; they should be the government.

Despite the repression, the mass movement has not been broken. Important voices of the Haitian movement, such as Haïti Progrès, are opposed to armed imperialist intervention under any pretext. The direct experience of U.S intervention in the past has taught many Haitian workers that the UN and the OAS will intervene in Haiti only to protect the threatened class interests of the country's leading capitalists.

The United States has dispatched 500 troops to its Guantanamo military base in Cuba on the pretext of protecting American lives in Haiti. This is the same pretext used in 1915 when the United States invaded Haiti-beginning a 19-year occupation.

The treaty forced on Haiti at that time secured the financial and political domination of U.S. interests. Article X of the treaty was concerned with the military: "The Haitian Government obligates itself ... to create without delay an efficient constabulary, urban and rural, composed of native Haitians. This constabulary shall be organized and officered by Americans, appointed by the President of Haiti, upon nomination by the President of the United States."

The constitution, which later codified Haitian military brutality and U.S. domination, was written by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This is the origin of the brutal Haitian military and paramilitary forces that spawned Duvalierism and which today have overthrown Aristide.

Should masses come to power?

In the wake of setbacks in Central America and the diminishing of international aid, especially from the Soviet Union, many argue that the time is not right for the workers and peasants to come to power in Haiti. The international situation, they say, does not allow it.

This same argument was used to justify the Sandinistas' compromises with the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie at the expense of the workers and peasants. The Sandinistas' policy of applying the brakes on the revolutionary process was a key factor in the demoralization and reversal of the Nicaraguan revolution.

The coup has exposed the Haitian bourgeoisie as a traitor class who paid out $40 million to finance the coup. The masses know that the Haitian capitalists and their U.S. masters will stop at nothing to maintain their bloody rule. To achieve even the most basic democratic and social demands, it will be necessary for the old state apparatus to be completely dismantled and for the workers and peasants to rule through their own organizations in their own name. This would be a social revolution of tremendous consequences.

A successful revolution in Haiti would not only galvanize support from throughout the Caribbean. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the United States would carry the message to the American people. The militancy, courage, and discipline shown in the huge mobilizations in New York, Boston, Miami and elsewhere give a hint of the power of the Haitians here.

The Haitian people will find support for their efforts in the African American communities and throughout the working class in the United States. With their own strength in Haiti and with international support, they can win this struggle-for themselves and working people everywhere.

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