14139: This Week in Haiti 20:39 12/11/2002 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                        Vol. 20, No. 39
    December 11 - 17, 2002

OPPOSITION DEMONSTRATION AND STRIKE FIZZLE, FOLLOWED BY TARGETED
ATTACKS

Opposition leaders had predicted that tens of thousands would follow
them on a march through Port-au-Prince on Dec. 3 to call for President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's resignation. Instead, they had to beat a
hasty retreat when faced with an angry multitude of
counter-demonstrators which dwarfed their show of force. Sixteen
people were hurt in scattered skirmishes between the two groups of
demonstrators.

Furious at this setback, the ad hoc opposition «Committee for the Cry
of Vertières 2002», an alliance of politicians, businessmen and former
Duvalierists, called for a general strike on Dec. 4. Haiti's business
associations, led by  the Association of Haiti's Industries (ADIH) and
the Chamber of Commerce and of Industry in Haiti (CCIH), also issued a
call for a Dec. 4 "warning strike," supposedly after an extraordinary
session convened by the private sector in order «to say no to the
intolerable, to the unacceptable, and to the blood bath,» according to
a note issued by the groups.

On Dec. 3 Haiti's bourgeoisie issued a declaration denouncing Aristide
's government. «The employer associations ask the international
community to take note of the growing, institutionalized insecurity
set in place by the government and to recognize that the democratic
process is seriously in danger,» the note read. Ironically, Haiti's
bourgeoisie proposes saving the "democratic process" by dispensing
with it; they want Aristide to step down.

Despite the joint call and massive radio play, the general strike was
a failure. Only large stores, gas stations, and banks closed.
Otherwise, in Port-au-Prince and the surrounding region, activity was
normal for public transport, government offices, and the "informal"
sector's small merchants and hawkers. This was also the situation in
provincial cities such as Jacmel, Miragoâne, Cayes and Gonaïves. Some
schools had to send their students home due to absent professors.

Marie Claude Bayard, ADIH's president, tried to give the defeat an
upbeat spin. «The strike was positive because our whole sector replied
with a united voice to this call," she said. "The formal sector was
paralyzed this Dec. 4 and, believe me, the cost is very hard for the
sector and for the country.» She assured that the bourgeoisie's «fire
still burns» and that "consultations will continue to see in what
measure we can arrive at defining a common strategy for a vast
national consensus on how to get the country out of chaos and
anarchy.»

After laying low for years, former Communist Party leader René
Théodore, now head of the Movement for National Reconstruction (MRN)
and a leader in the Vertières Committee, has been resurrected.  On the
day of the strike he went on the radio to warn store-owners: "Anybody
who doesn't close their doors, you will be considered as Lavalas."

Théodore also chastised the "OAS and American Ambassador" for being
"dilatory" in taking action against Aristide, a virtual call for
intervention. The Haitian opposition, mostly grouped in the
Washington-backed Democratic Convergence front, has remained mum about
Washington's troop deployment and massive military aid package to the
Dominican Republic (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 36, 11/20/2002),
which has been widely interpreted in Haiti as preparation for a new
military intervention.

One party which sees it this way is the National Popular Party (PPN),
which has been sharply critical of the policies and direction of
Aristide's Lavalas Family party. But on the eve of the opposition's
Dec. 3 demonstration, the PPN issued a declaration calling on people
to boycott the action of the "macouto-bourgeois coalition which has
the support of the new 'loaded mule,'" a reference to current U.S.
Ambassador Brian Dean Curran. "Bourik chaje" was the nickname of a
predecessor, Alvin Adams, who held the post at the time of the Sep.
30, 1991 coup, the last "macouto-bourgeois" dictatorship. The Tonton
Macoutes were the repressive corps which served the 29-year Duvalier
dictatorship, overthrown in 1986.

"A number of organizations have involved themselves with Macoute
politicians and Dominican soldiers so as to make little fires burn
until [President] Bush has a road to send in U.S. Marines to come
humiliate the Haitian people," the PPN's declaration read. "It is a
big plot by former Haitian army officers mixed with Macoutes and
opportunist Convergence politicians, with the support of certain
reactionary media, so that they can return to power... No matter what
problems we have with how the Lavalas is leading the ship of state, we
will not return to a macouto-bourgeois dictatorship again."

On Dec. 5, René Civil, the leader of Popular Power Youth (JPP) charged
there was a concrete opposition plot to destabilize the country. Civil
said that Patrick Raymond, son of the late General Claude Raymond who
masterminded massacres around the capital during the elections of Nov.
29, 1987, had drawn up a hit-list of people deemed close to the
Lavalas. "We denounce the meeting held by Patrick Raymond where a list
was distributed to the Macoutes and to former soldiers to murder
persons defending the masses," Civil said. "This plan also aims to
attack the residence of President Aristide and the National Palace.»

Civil also condemned «this plot aimed at placing Himmler Rébu at the
head of the Haitian army and to put Convergence people, like [former
mayor Evans Paul alias] K-Plim, in place as president to continue to
perpetrate massacres."

The next day, a Convergence leader, Victor Benoît of Konakom, also
revealed a «gruesome plan», formulated, according to him, by Lavalas
authorities to attack different personalities while Aristide visited
Havana for a one-day CARICOM summit. "In his absence, the 'chimères'
[aggressive pro-Lavalas demonstrators] and thugs have received
instructions to sow fire and blood, that is to provoke a massacre,"
Benoît charged. "The targeted persons are leaders of the society, some
bishops of the Protestant and Catholic churches, militants of women's
organizations, and young leaders of the university movement. They also
have a mission to burn gas pumps and stores. To fully carry out the
plan, Mr. Aristide will extend his stay to Cuba.»

Aristide did not extend his stay in Cuba, but there were a spate of
attacks in the capital which immediately followed the declarations of
Civil and Benoît.

First, individuals on motorcycles shot in the head and killed the
wealthy merchant Gérald Khawly at his ELF gas station near the Sylvio
Cator stadium. The gunmen also wounded Khawly's son-in-law Joel
Edouard Vorbes in the neck. He was flown to a hospital in Miami.

Lavalas partisans noted that Khawly had kept open his gas pumps open
on Dec. 4, in defiance of the opposition's strike. René Civil also
said that Vorbes was on the Patrick Raymond's hit-list. «Joel Edouard
Vorbes was on the list because he did not observe the Dec. 4 strike
call,» Civil claimed.

On the evening of Dec. 6, there was an assassination attempt at
Pélerin 5 on Lavalas Senator Dany Toussaint, according to the senator.
He said that masked gunmen in a white Montero jeep opened fire on his
vehicle while he was returning home. He fired back, possibly wounding
one of the assailants, Toussaint said.  The attack took place after
the Haitian National Police (PNH) decided, the same day and without
notification, to remove the policemen that had assured his protection
for more than eight years, according to Toussaint.  He said that this
sudden decision of the police was very suspicious.  «I think that
there are people that do not like my way of thinking, and they are
taking advantage of these troubled times to try to eliminate me,»
Toussaint said.

Finally, a fire broke out at the headquarters of the Mobilization for
National Development (MDN) of neo-Duvalierist politician Hubert
DeRonceray on Rue Bonne Foi in the capital. Although DeRonceray
accused the government of setting the blaze, Haitian authorities said
that the fire started in a merchandise warehouse below MDN's office.

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