13732: This Week in Haiti 20:36 11/20/02 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
newsweekly. For the complete edition with other news in French
and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100,
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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                      November 20 -26, 2002
                          Vol. 20, No. 36

OPPOSITION DEMONSTRATION AND OAS PUSH ARISTIDE'S BACK TO THE WALL

Some 8,000 demonstrators led by right-wing politicians and former
soldiers marched in the northern city of Cap Haïtien on Nov. 17
to call for the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and
the formation of a provisional government to hold new elections.

Heavily promoted for over a week by powerful conservative radio
stations in Port-au-Prince and Cap Haïtien, the march was the
culmination of a "Unity Weekend" organized by the Citizens
Initiative (IC), a hodge-podge of opposition politicians,
traditional power brokers, right-wing organizers, Lavalas
defectors, and former military officers.

Held ostensibly to commemorate the 199th anniversary of the
independence war's final battle at Vertières, located just
outside the city, the two day event drew complete coverage not
only from Haiti's capital-based press corps, but even a
television crew from North American media giant CNN, whose
interest in the event was noted by Haitians of all political
persuasions. The network even reported the crowd to be 70 to
80,000, surpassing the euphoric estimates of 50,000 by de facto
IC media-sponsor Radio Métropole.

"This event was financed and supported by the commercial sector
of Cap Haïtien," explained IC spokesman Denis Julien, "and they
were there to say no to the Lavalas."

Lavalas authorities in the North contributed to the hype around
the event. Deputy James Derosin said that a "military parade" to
Vertières was "unthinkable," while Moïse Jean-Charles, mayor of
the northern town of Milot, said he would pay $1000 to every
organizer who dared to take part in the IC event. Such
declarations provoked charges of intimidation, forcing Bell
Angelot, the region's Interior Ministry representative, to
publicly assure that the "Unity Weekend" would be given full
police security.

Indeed, the event took place under massive protection by the
government's heavily armed and armored anti-riot police and SWAT
teams, even while IC speakers hurled charges of "dictatorship" at
Aristide.

A Nov. 16 IC rally of several hundred people was not able to meet
at the Brothers of Christian Instruction school as originally
planned, but instead took place under tents in a street outside a
nightclub. Among the speakers were leaders from the U.S.-
Republican-backed Democratic Convergence opposition front, like
former Port-au-Prince mayor Evans Paul, KONAKOM's Micha Gaillard,
OPL's Paul Denis, Génération 2004's Claude Roumain and MPSN's
Hubert Deronceray; long dormant politicians like MRN's René
Théodore and PNDPH's Turneb Delpé; and leaders from the newly
formed maximalist Patriotic Union front like PADEHM's Claire
Lydie Parent and RANFO's Jean Nazaire Thidé.

However, the rising star of the event was former Haitian Army
colonel Himmler Rébu, who led a failed coup in 1989 by the
Haitian Army's elite Leopard counter-insurgency force. He held
center stage at both the rally and the march, generating the most
applause and media excitement.

In speech after speech, the IC leaders lambasted Aristide and his
Fanmi Lavalas party (FL) for the corruption, inflation,
unemployment, crime, political stalemate, and other ills which
plague the country.

The tirades often lapsed into hyperbole and base vulgarity. Jean-
Robert Lalanne, director of Cap's Radio Maxima, another IC
booster which broadcast the proceedings live, led a chant:
"Aristide, it's your latrine. Eat shit however you want."

The IC's march started at 9 a.m. the next day in front of the
Sacred Heart church with a few hundred demonstrators. As it
marched south out of the city to the Vertières monument a few
miles away, it picked up people along the way.

In response to the march, local Lavalas authorities sought to
organize impromptu counter-demonstrations. That same afternoon
around 3 p.m., several hundred pro-government demonstrators
marched to Vertières to "clean it up" after the IC rally there,
denouncing what they called a right-wing and foreign-backed
campaign to spoil Haiti's upcoming bicentennial celebrations in
2004. Later that evening, a few hundred Lavalas marchers held a
candle-light march through the city.

The next morning, Nov. 18, several hundred mostly school children
marched to Vertières, where speakers denounced foreign plots and
praised President Aristide.

But the foreign intrigues seem to continue apace. The Nov. 16
edition of Listin Diario reported that U.S. Gen. Alfred
Valenzuela of the Pentagon's Southern Command visited the
Dominican Republic last week to propose a military aid and
training package ostensibly to beef up security along the 375 km
border between the two countries. The package includes night
vision goggles, walkie-talkies, and 20,000 M-16 assault rifles.

"Tens of thousands of rifles make sense for an invasion, not for
watching a border," remarked Ben Dupuy of the National Popular
Party (PPN). For months, the PPN has warned that, in the event of
a power vacuum in Haiti, the Dominican military might be used as
an initial occupying force.

Meanwhile, the Organization of American States (OAS) tightened
its noose around ever more compliant Lavalas officials. On Nov.
15, the OAS and Haitian government signed the "terms of
reference" governing OAS supervision of next year's scheduled
elections as well as a nationwide disarmament campaign. The
agreement calls for the deployment of 200 foreign election
observers and 100 foreign policemen, while OAS election
technicians will oversee the polling and OAS police trainers who
will "professionalize" and "improve the quality of the command"
of the Haitian National Police.

Two weeks ago, five "civil society" sectors refused to name
representatives to a new nine-member Provisional Electoral
Council (CEP) until these "terms of reference" were signed (see
Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 34, 11/6/02). Although not yet
officially announced, the five representatives, Radio Kiskeya
reported on Nov. 19, will be former putschist foreign minister
François Benoit representing the private sector; Freud Jean for
human rights; Roselord Julien for the Catholic Church; legal
expert Max Mathurin for the Episcopal Church; and Pastor Pauris
Jean-Baptiste for the Protestant sector.

But there's a catch. While naming representatives, the five
sectors say they cannot be sworn in until the OAS is satisfied
with the government's conduct and the two remaining CEP members -
- one for the Convergence opposition front and one for all
remaining opposition groups -- are named. But after the "Unity
weekend," this prospect appears dim.

"I think that the OAS has been completely bypassed by events,"
said the IC's Julien. "I would be very surprised to see these
five sectors appoint representatives to the CEP, after what we
had in Cap Haïtien."

In a press conference at Cap's Mont Joli Hotel on the afternoon
of Nov. 17, Himmler Rébu declared that the forces which took part
in the "Unity Weekend" were going to carry out a nationwide
mobilization to oust Aristide, block the formation of a new CEP,
and set in place a transitional government.

MOCHRENA, a Convergence member, echoed this call. "We are of the
opinion that there cannot be elections with the Lavalas," their
spokesman said. "We cannot trust the Lavalas after what we have
gone through. We will not go to elections with the Lavalas."

Such hard-line positions are buttressed by recent statements of
U.S. State Department officials like Roger Noriega, the U.S.
Ambassador to the OAS. "I think that Aristide is on the verge of
being treated as an illegitimate president and that Haiti is
going to be considered as a pariah state, if not by the OAS, at
least by the American government," he said, according to the
Agence France Presse.

"What we saw in Cap Haïtien was a coalescence of the bourgeois
sector with the Macoutes and former military, guys like Himmler
Rébu, all financed by the city's Chamber of Commerce," said the
PPN's Dupuy. "They are emboldened now and are calling more than
ever for Aristide's ouster, the famous 'zero option.'  But as OAS
control is increasingly asserted over the Haitian state, some may
backtrack and agree to take part in elections, especially since
conservative sectors would dominate the CEP."

This could lead to splits in the Convergence, between hard-liners
and soft, Dupuy said.

Meanwhile, Aristide and the FL are being forced into more and
more concessions to meet the conditions of OAS Resolution 822
(see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 26, 9/11/02), which calls on the
government to disarm and arrest its "popular organization"
partisans and pay millions of dollars from a penniless treasury
to compensate opposition leaders for damage done to their homes
and headquarters by rampaging mobs last December. The resolution
also demands elections, which will put almost all posts in the
country up for grabs.

"Aristide is giving up everything except his presidency," Dupuy
said. "It's like checkers. In the end, only the king is left on
the board."


WBAI HAITI SPECIAL ON NOV. 21

The Haitian Collective at WBAI will host a one-hour program on
Haiti on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York on Thursday, November 21  from
10 p.m. to 11 p.m.. The program will include interviews with
journalist Jane Regan about events in Haiti, and with community
activist Marlène Bastien about the fight for Haitian refugee
rights in Miami. The program can be heard on the Internet at
www.wbai.org.

All articles copyrighted Haïti Progrès, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haïti Progrès.

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