20622: (Hermantin)Palm Beach Post-Haitian city moves ahead from chaos (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Haitian city moves ahead from chaos

By John Lantigua, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 20, 2004



GONAIVES, Haiti -- Three weeks ago, this was the city from hell, the air
blackened by soot from burning tires, streets blocked by barricades
constructed of old car carcasses and chunks of concrete, angry young men
everywhere wearing war paint and waving weapons.

Things have changed. Gerard Latortue, the new prime minister who is expected
to visit Gonaives (pronounced goh-nah-EEV) today, probably will be
pleasantly surprised.

Today, laughing schoolgirls in bright jumpers stroll to and from classes at
the newly reopened schools. Market women, their heads wrapped in traditional
tropical bandanas, are back at their street stands, selling charcoal,
American canned goods, live chickens.

The streets of this city of roughly 200,000 people are surprisingly clean,
given their previous condition. As for weapons, they still are being wielded
in public by young men without uniforms, but they are fewer in number. And
the young men are no longer angry.

This city, where the revolt against ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide began last year, is enjoying the fact that he fled into exile Feb.
29.

"There has been a great easing of tensions," said Catholic Bishop Yves Marie
Pean, head of the Gonaives Diocese. "We had gone through a radicalization
here between the people who were for Aristide and those against him. Then
after Amiot was killed, everyone here turned against their government."

He is speaking of Amiot Metayer, the former pro-Aristide ward boss here who
had a falling out with Aristide and not long after was felled by an
assassin's bullet. His murder has never been solved, but people here are
convinced Aristide had Amiot killed.

That was in September, and it sparked the rebellion that saw all-out gun
battles between rebels and Aristide's police, the destruction of the large
downtown police station and several deaths, including bystanders caught in
the inner-city crossfire. Eventually, the rebels drove out all the Aristide
authorities and took over.

Bishop Pean said the city, in general, is better off, although a difficulty
has developed.

"We have no real government here now and no police," he said. "We have a lot
of thieves lately, and there is no one to whom you can report the crimes."

Young rebels on motor scooters carrying automatic weapons are seen
conducting informal patrols, but that was the only policing seen during a
recent visit. Pean said he hopes Prime Minister Latortue, who is a native of
Gonaives and, until recently, a suburban Boca Raton resident, will improve
security nationwide and soon.

The government must make other moves, especially the reduction of
unemployment, or the restless people of Gonaives may again lose patience,
Pean said.

"What we need now is action, not words."

Several blocks away, in the teeming neighborhood surrounding Gonaives'
central market, stands the house where Latortue grew up. It is a two-story,
nine-room wood structure, painted in bright red, green and yellow, and its
balcony looks down into the market.

Latortue's mother ran a general store and bakery on the first floor. In his
earliest years, Latortue could see the lives of many average Haitians right
before his eyes, every day.

But Latortue, now 69, wasn't average.

"He went away to study in Port-au-Prince and France, too," said Marc
Jacques, 53, who has lived in the house since he was 10 as a combination
servant and adopted son. He now takes care of the property for Latortue and
other family members who are all gone.

After studying abroad, Latortue came back to Haiti and opened a school in
the capital. That was during the frightening reign of dictator Francois
"Papa Doc" Duvalier. Latortue, who opposed the strongman, soon found himself
in trouble.

"I came home one day and found Gerard's mother and sister crying," Jacques
recalled. "I asked what was wrong, and they said they heard on the radio
that Duvalier was looking for Gerard in order to kill him. They didn't know
where Gerard was."

Latortue escaped Haiti. Trained as both an attorney and an economist, he
eventually would work for the United Nations, some of the time in Africa,
and also as an educator. He stayed out of Haiti until Papa Doc's son and
heir, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, was overthrown in 1986.

Latortue served as minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation
in the government of Leslie Manigat, one of the brief regimes that preceded
the election of Aristide in 1990. That government was overthrown by a
military coup after only four months, but in that short time, Latortue
became known as a reformer who wanted to clean up corruption.

"During that time he was in the government, he would come up here all the
time and visit his mother," Jacques said. "And he would bring medicines for
the hospital.... He did some good things here."

But just like the bishop, Jacques is not very interested either in the past
or in promises. "I hope he does some good because I have five children, and
we need a better life."

One of the problems Latortue will have to confront is the rebels who helped
liberate his native city and are still walking around with weapons.

During an interview with The Palm Beach Post March 10, the day he flew back
to Haiti, Latortue said he was grateful to the rebels of Gonaives for
helping overthrow Aristide, but that they had to lay down their arms.

"If they don't, I will go up there and disarm them myself," he said.

The local rebel leader Buteur Metayer, 33, brother of the slain Amiot
Metayer, attended Latortue's swearing-in last week in Port-au-Prince, and it
is assumed the two men will meet when Latortue arrives in Gonaives as early
as today.

Recently, Metayer was out of the city, but one of his aides, Dieujuste
Jeanty, 42, sat in an undershirt and slacks on the splintered porch of a
weathered wooden shack in a slum area called Raboteau. He fielded complaints
and requests by local citizens, and he also answered phone calls on a line
that snaked out from under the front door.

A handful of young men with old automatic weapons came and went. Such is the
seat of government in Gonaives these days.

Jeanty said the rebels were pleased by the selection of Latortue as prime
minister.

"We think he is a good choice, and we applaud the decision," he said. "We
like the fact that he attacked corruption during the government of Manigat.
Haiti needs someone who is honest."

Jeanty smiled when told that Latortue has threatened to disarm the rebels
himself. "I don't think he really means that, but we are ready to give up
our arms to a transitional government."

Other rebels have been promising to do that, but none of them have. This is
pointed out to Jeanty. He explains that is because in other parts of the
country, pro-Aristide gang members -- known as chimeres have not been
disarmed, and the rebels must still protect themselves.

"We don't have that danger because we have no chimeres left here," he said.
"But the police must disarm the chimeres in the rest of the country, and if
they can't, we will do it."

He said the Gonaives rebels would make that offer to Latortue when he visits
this weekend.

john_lantigua@pbpost.com

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