14589: This Week in Haiti 20:45 1/22/2003 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                       January 22 - 28, 2003
                          Vol. 20, No. 45


"184 INSTITUTIONS":
THE MACOUTO-BOURGEOISIE'S NEW OFFENSIVE

There is a striking similarity between the destabilization campaigns
taking place today in Haiti and Venezuela. This is not altogether
surprising since both Haiti's Democratic Convergence opposition front
and its Venezuelan counterpart, the Democratic Coordination, have
Washington as a coach.

Last April, Venezuela's bourgeoisie, with thinly-veiled support from
the Bush administration, attempted a coup d'état against President
Hugo Chavez, but it was thwarted by a mass mobilization and a cunning
maneuver by the Presidential Guard (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 5,
4/17/2002).

In response, the bourgeoisie increased its economic sabotage of the
Venezuelan economy, particularly in the vital petroleum-producing
sector, broadening hardship and thereby recruiting confederates from
labor hierarchy and the middle-class calling for Chavez's overthrow.

In Haiti, the bourgeoisie, in alliance with former soldiers
represented by ex-Col. Himmler Rébu and the partisans of former
dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, suffered a similar setback in early
December when a "mass" march and a general strike both failed
miserably (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 39, 12/11/2002).

The leaders of this "Macouto-bourgeois" alliance (the Tonton Macoutes
were Duvalier's infamous henchmen), probably with input from their
handlers in Washington's International Republican Instituted (IRI)
with whom they met for three days in mid-December in the Dominican
Republic, went back to the drawing board. On Dec. 26, a new enlarged
front was unveiled, claiming to have "184 institutions" representing
"12 key sectors of Haitian society": the private sector, unions,
socio-professionals, teachers, students, media, writers and artists,
the peasantry, the "urban popular sector," "women's associations,"
human rights, and medicine.

The 184 institutions include the bourgeoisie's trade associations like
the National Association of Petroleum Product Distributors (ANADIPP)
and the Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce (HAMCHAM); yellow unions
like the Federation of Unionized Workers (FOS) and the Confederation
of Haitian Workers (CTH); Convergence-affiliated organizations and
their spin-offs such as Chavannes Jean-Baptiste's Papaye Peasant
Movement (MPP), Suzy Castor's Center for Economic and Social Research
and Development Training (CRESFED), and Rosny Desroches' Civil Society
Initiative (ISC); and dozens of obscure "popular organizations" whose
authenticity merits investigation.

The 184 front outlined seven demands such as: the "dismantling and
disarming of various well-known armed criminal gangs," a reference to
pro-government popular organizations active in Haiti's shanty towns;
the "firing and the prosecution of policemen and other authorities"
implicated in "sowing terror around the country,"although most
policemen are being terrorized by deadly attacks against their
stations by roving commando units of former Haitian soldiers; and "the
immediate implementation of international cooperation in security
matters," code for the deployment of foreign troops in Haiti.

These "184 institutions" warned ominously that if the government did
not meet their demands by Jan. 15, they would "draw, with the Haitian
people, the necessary conclusions."

In response, Secretary of State for Communications Mario Dupuy said:
«I personally think that their position would have had a lot more
weight if they had also demanded the lifting of economic sanctions
imposed unfairly against Haïti,» a reference to $500 million in
international assistance whose release is being blocked by the Bush
Administration.

Needless to say, the new "reinforced" front, like the Convergence over
the past two years, was not satisfied, despite the government's
relentless concessions, and on Jan. 20 issued "Communique #2."

It called the current situation "unacceptable" and deemed it
"impossible, at this juncture, to put in place the structures and
mechanism that are necessary for free, transparent and credible
elections," the path out of the crisis which President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide has proposed repeatedly. The 184 promised to present soon "a
proposal for solving the on-going crisis, together with a Plan of
Action" and "the main elements for the implementation of a new social
pact."

The front called for a general strike on Friday, Jan. 24, which will
test this new configuration of the macouto-bourgeois alliance. Two
transport strikes earlier this month protesting soaring fuel costs
were successful, as transport strikes usually are (few Haitians own
cars).

Meanwhile, Washington has thrown its weight behind the new formation.
"The Government of Haiti continues to show little substantive progress
in meeting its commitments under Resolution 822," said Carol Fuller,
the new U.S. representative to the Organization of American States
(OAS), at a Jan. 16 Permanent Council meeting on Haiti. (Roger
Noriega, her predecessor, was promoted to Assistant Secretary of State
for Western Hemisphere Affairs, the post previously held for a 3-month
interim by Otto Reich.) OAS Res. 822, passed last September, sets
impossible conditions for the Haitian government to meet while laying
the groundwork for foreign intervention in Haiti under the
newly-minted Inter-American Democratic Charter (see Haïti Progrès,
Vol. 20, No. 26, 9/11/2002). "There is one way, and one way only, to
break out of this impasse - President Aristide and his government must
find the courage and political will to lead Haiti toward free and fair
elections under the process laid out in Resolution 822," Fuller said.

However, all progress towards elections has been stymied by the
Washington-backed Convergence and its "civil society" allies which
have refused to participate in any Provisional Electoral Council until
there is a foreign military supervision of the process.

"We have been encouraged by the position put forward recently by a
broad-based group of 184 civil society groups which urged the
government to take short-term steps to begin the process of fully
implementing Resolution 822," Fuller continued. "Virtually all the
measures the 184 organizations are seeking reflect in whole or in part
actions to which the Government of Haiti is already committed under
Resolution 822."

As Fuller makes clear, the "184 institutions" are merely a new
internal front battling for the directives laid down by the OAS, which
Cuba aptly dubs "Washington's Ministry of Colonial Affairs."


THE LOUISGÈNE KILLING:
ONE YEAR LATER, STILL NO JUSTICE

On January 16, 2002, two New York City cops shot dead Georgy
Louisgène, 23, in the courtyard of a Brooklyn apartment building as he
begged them for help (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No.  45, 1/23/02).

To commemorate the first anniversary of his death, the Louisgène
family and the Justice Committee for Georgy Louisgène organized two
events in Brooklyn last week.

On January 15, about fifty people, among them the parents of other
young victims of the New York Police Department (NYPD), gathered in a
school in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. They viewed the new
film "Justifiable Homicide" by Jon Osman and Jonathan Stack, which
investigates how NYPD officers fatally shot Antony Rosario, 18, and
his cousin, Hilton Vega, 22, in the back as they lay face down on the
floor in a Bronx apartment on Jan. 22 1995.

Anthony's parents spoke after the moving film. "We will continue our
fight to find justice for Anthony so that other parents won't have to
endure the same pain and loss," said Margarita Rosario, the victim's
mother.

Other parents soon joined the Rosarios on stage: Juanita Young, mother
of Malcolm Ferguson, 23, shot by the cops in the Bronx on Mar. 1,
2000; Nicolas Heyward, Sr., father of Nicolas Heyward, Jr., 13, shot
by the cops in Brooklyn on Sep. 27, 1994; Milta Calderon, mother of
Anibal Carrasquillo, Jr., 21, shot by the cops in Brooklyn on Jan. 22,
1995. They all testified about their struggle to obtain justice for
the murder of their children.

Finally, it was the turn of Marie Louisgène, Georgy's mother. "On this
anniversary of my son's death, I can neither eat nor sleep," she
explained in Creole as Abellard "Abby" Louis Jeune, Georgy's older
sister, translated into English. "I feel the same pain as a year ago.
When the Dorismonds' boy was shot (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 18, No. 1,
3/22/2000), I marched to protest that killing. But I never imagined
that it would happen to me too. There's no justice in the U.S.,
especially if your son is shot by the police."

Brooklyn Councilman Charles Barron was also present. He called on
politicians, preachers, and other community leaders to be
"revolutionary" in their resistance to police brutality. "We have to
let the city and state know that we are not going to be governable
until we get justice," he said.

"We will never forget and we never will forgive until we get justice!"
said Abby Louis Jeune, who vowed to continue to fight for charges to
be brought against the two cops who killed her brother, although
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes has so far refused to
prosecute them (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 18, 7/17/2002).

The next evening, the Louisgène family and about thirty supporters
held a candlelight vigil in front of the tenement houses at 3501
Foster Avenue in Brooklyn where Georgy was shot.  With posters of
Georgy and other NYPD victims adorning the metal fence which runs
through the yard in front of the buildings, the demonstrators sang
songs, recited poems, and chanted slogans as they huddled around the
flickering warmth of several candles and a small fire. Despite bitter
cold, they held their vigil from 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. as planned. "All
of you should be out here demonstrating with us," said Abby Louis
Jeune called to the tenants of the bleak buildings with a megaphone.
"Because tomorrow it could be your husband or son who is killed. "


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