16727: This Week in Haiti 21:26 9/10/2003 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                      Sept. 10 - 16, 2003
                         Vol. 21, No. 26

REACTIONARIES FROTH AT PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

In its closing session this week, the 47th Haitian Legislature
proposed amendments to the 1987 Haitian Constitution that would
formally abolish the Haitian Army, lift restrictions on dual
citizenship, and replace three-member mayoral cartels with a
single mayor.

Haiti's right-wing opposition, led by the Washington-supported
Democratic Convergence front, vigorously denounced the proposals.
Paul Denis, a Convergence spokesman, said that the parliament,
dominated by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas Family
party (FL), had neither the "legitimacy" nor the "technical
quality" to propose amendments to the Constitution. Denis and his
confederates argued that the FL parliamentarians made legal
missteps in proposing the amendments.

"In reality, the right-wing is hiding behind procedural questions
in their efforts to preserve the past," said Ben Dupuy of the
National Popular Party (PPN). "The 1987 Constitution, written
during a military dictatorship of Gens. Namphy and Regala, was a
social contract between the bourgeoisie and the landed oligarchy
which was foisted on the Haitian people, and the opposition is
trying to save this historic compromise."

The Haitian Army, dissolved by a presidential decree in 1995, has
never been officially disbanded by the parliament. In 2000, FL
parliamentarians universally ran on the promise that they would
start the process of abolishing the corps, which the U.S. Marines
created as the Haitian Guard in the 1930s and which carried out
numerous coups and fierce repression throughout its six-decade
existence.

According to Haiti's constitution, amendments are proposed by one
legislature, and then adopted by the next, a safeguard the
opposition has tried to obfuscate in its vitriolic attacks.

In its Sep. 3 session, the House of Deputies submitted a set of
proposed amendments prepared by a commission under the direction
of lower house president, Yves Cristalin. In addition to
abolishing the Army and several other minor law changes, the
deputies proposed repealing the law which restricts Haitian-born
naturalized citizens of the United States, Canada, and Europe
from voting in Haitian elections or holding office. Audiences
throughout Haiti's diaspora have clamored for this change since
the advent of the country's democratic governments in 1991.

The other major law change calls for a single mayor to head local
governments. The 1987 Constitution's formula of having three
mayors run towns and cities has proved a recipe for rivalries,
confusion, and gridlock.

Although these changes have been discussed by FL legislators for
years, the deputies presented the text only last week because
Art. 282-1 says that the proposals can be "made only in the
course of the last Regular Session of the Legislative period."
The deputies asked the Senate to make a declaration of
"adherence" to the proposals.

On Sep. 8, the Senate's last session, two renegade FL senators,
Prince Sonson Pierre and Dany Toussaint, refused to sit and
"adhere," leaving the Senate with only 17 senators, one short of
a two-thirds quorum.

The upper house has only 19 sitting senators, instead of the
prescribed 27. Seven senators voluntarily resigned on Jun. 13,
2001 in a futile goodwill gesture to convince Washington and the
Convergence to drop their rejection of the FL's 2000 electoral
sweep. Then Sen. Yvon Neptune resigned when appointed Prime
Minister in Nov. 2001.

Toussaint, a former colonel, said he could not support the
proposed amendments until he heard the position of "the private
sector, the opposition, the intellectual elite, and the
commercial elite." When asked if he was balking because of the
call for the army's abolition, he complained that his FL
colleagues in the Senate "have never treated me as a Senator,
they have always treated me as a soldier... So I am not a
scorpion. I am not going to sting myself."

Later, in an interview with conservative Radio M‚tropole,
Toussaint rhetorically asked "Is the institution [of the army] no
good? If so, we can go a step further. We can question all the
institutions we have in the country, and then we'll close down
everything."

Sonson also claimed there had been no debate about the proposed
amendments. He said it was not clear whether they were
"abolishing the indigenous army which made [Haiti's independence
in] 1804, who made [the battle of] VertiŠres, or the army of
occupation which made the [1991] coup d'‚tat."

But since its formation, the FL has had abolition of the army and
repeal of the restriction of dual citizenship as elements of its
core platform. As FL members, shouldn't the two senators know the
priorities of the party in whose name they were elected to their
posts? Furthermore, the debate question is diversionary. The
issues have been widely and hotly debated for years, in the FL,
in the Parliament, and in Haitian society as a whole, and they
will certainly be debated more before the next parliament is in
place.

Did the Senate have a quorum? Could the declaration of proposed
amendments legally pass with just 17 senators? Again, the 1987
Constitution is unclear. It merely states that proposed
constitutional amendments must be "supported by two-thirds of
each of the two Houses." It does not make clear if that is two-
thirds of the "ideal" Senate or of the "actual" Senate.

The 47th Legislature asked its predecessor to recognize the
exceptional nature of its functioning with only 19 Senators,
instead of 27. It passed a resolution which "recommends to the
48th legislature that it take into consideration that there were
effectively only 19 senators making up the Senate since the
resignation of seven senators... The Senatorial Assembly asks the
48th Legislature to consider the signature of 17 senators at the
bottom of the declaration of adhesion as sufficient to pursue the
process of amending the constitution begun in the 47th
legislature, according to article 282 of the 1987 Constitution."

Opposition pundits have also tried to deform the proposed
amendments, saying that they will only serve to extend Aristide's
term. However, nothing in the deputies' text deals with the term
limits of the chief of state.

"Proposing constitutional amendments is not a solution to Haiti's
structural problems, but it is a good step toward the better
functioning of our institutions," said Dupuy. "The opposition is
made up of the same bourgeois and Macoute forces which drew up
the Constitution in the first place, and that is why they oppose
any changes."

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