a21: You call that a coup attempt? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Karioka9@cs.com

Could a commando of 30 plus men overthrow the government in place?  I don't 
think this was their actual intention.  Lavalas jubilation notwithstanding, I 
think that the commando carried out its mission most successfully.  They went 
smoothly into the palace, made whatever point they came to make, and moved 
out with relative ease.  At most, it was only a practice run.

What happened yesterday was in fact more than predictable.  I posted an 
editorial about three weeks ago on this list, which warned against this kind 
of action and correctly predicted that it would come from the Dominican 
border.  The good news is that this particular attempt only went so far.  The 
bad news is that it's only a matter of time and organization before one of 
them hits the bull's eye.  And then what?  Another cycle of chaos in what Big 
Leslie (Manigat) calls Haiti's "dynamic of backwardness."

So Lavalas wins across the board this time around, but only if you actually 
believe that the Convergence people are really responsible for what happened. 
 My guess is that the people mobilized spontaneously against another coup, 
providing the cover for the Lavalas shock troops to smash the democratic 
opposition.  Titid of course did the right thing at the end of the day by 
calling for "peaceful" resistance.  But it was already too late for his 
critics.  

Some Lavalas supporters have blamed the Convergence for not issuing early 
condemnations of the so-called coup attempt.  This kind of 
condemnation/denial is standard practice for politicians in the US, and 
people generally understand that it's just posturing for the mass media.  
Haiti is a different reality.  The sad thing is that the opposition is 
apparently so convinced that Lavalas will never surrender its absolute grab 
on power, that the democratic forces are now willing to let the chips fall 
where they may.  This was not the case during the last coup, when the 
democratic opposition rallied behind Lavalas and in fact led the fight for 
Aristide's return.

Daniel Simidor