21683: (Chamberlain) Danger Island (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

(Jack magazine, UK, May 2004)


Danger Island:  Our man in Haiti reports on a land torn apart by political
unrest.  The scariest place in the world in the middle of paradise.

By Mike Power



Four bumpy hours south of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, we brake sharply when we
see the gunmen blocking the road. Our friend Bobby Duval, who runs the
country's only football school, turns to us in the back of the jeep and
asks: "What shall we do? Head back or go ahead?"

It's an easy decision to turn back. The tiny Caribbean state is descending
into total anarchy. Today is February 11; a week earlier,  anti-government
militia had burnt down the police comissariat in Gonaives, to the north of
the capital. They released all the prisoners, gave them guns and rum, and
welcomed them to the firm. Up to 20 cops were mutilated, slaughtered and
burnt. Other insurgents have taken 12 Haitian cities in the last week,
including Petit-Goave, where the wheels of our 4x4 are now spinning as we
try to flee.

Three vast Nissan SUVs, gleaming with slick menace,  pull alongside and hem
us in. There are eight angry young men in the back of one. They're in
civilian dress and each has a shiny new gun.

"Descendez, tou moun. Descendez," barks a glowering youth.

We obey as eight guns cock in a simultaneous flurry. I'm averting my eyes
as a scared and scary 19-year-old thrusts a revolver in my face, ranting in
Creole. His mate is at my side aiming a shotgun at my stomach. There are
two guns on each of us.

"Who are you and what are you doing?" asks one, hair-trigger twitchy.

"My name is Robert Duval, and these are my friends. We are going to Les
Cayes for a holiday," says Duval, ice-cool. The panic level surges.

"Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! STOP! NOW! I SAID STOP!". The screamed order comes
from behind us. Eight guns uncock. The gunmen are chimeres, Aristide's
private enforcers recruited from Haiti's slums, and Duval's training school
is right next to Cite Soleil, a horrorshow seaside slum of overwhelming,
almost psychedelic poverty. But Haitians adore football, Duval's school
gives slum kids the chance to become soccer stars. Over 25% of Haiti's
first division trained there. So for today, we're safe.

The chimeres, who look like the Ton Ton Macoutes with a gangsta rap
makeover, are making sure the armed rebels that captured the north of the
country earlier in the week don't extend their reach south.

We drive away, stirred and shaken and silent for half an hour as the sun
sinks a little deeper behind the bald mountains. The coconut trees on this
eerie stretch of road are all still, and are shrouded in grey dust, and
cast long shadows.

"Shit," says Duval. "I'm sorry guys. Things are getting kind of crazy here.
I wouldn't want to be involved in Haitian politics right now."

This charismatic, passionate, teddy bear of a man has survived Baby Doc,
was arrested in the middle of the night by the Tonton Macoutes, and was
thrown in jail to die for his beliefs in the 70s. Here are some numbers: he
spent 18 months with 40 prisoners, naked, in a cell 13 feet by 14 feet. He
is six foot four inches. He went down to 90lbs. He saw 180 men die of
starvation. He saw 200 men clubbed to death. He knows what time it is, and
says things are more uncertain now than at any time in Haiti's history.

I came to Haiti this year because 2004 marks the country's 200th
anniversary of independence, and Carnival promised to be the party of the
century. Haiti became the world's first black republic when thousands of
slaves revolted and forced out the French, the Spanish, and the English. In
his book, The Black Jacobins, the Caribbean historian and cricket
commentator CLR James wrote: "The transformation of slaves, trembling in
hundreds before a single white man, into a people able to organise
themselves and defeat the most powerful nations of their day, is one of the
great epics of revolutionary struggle and achievement."

Can you imagine the party to celebrate that? A party thrown in a city of
apocalyptic poverty where the inhabitants, who toil under a scalding sun
for a dollar a day, let loose just once a year anyway? I had to see it, and
Haiti stole a bit of my soul on my first visit last year. But politics
stalks Haiti like an assassin, and no one could have guessed the month
would end with US marines and French soldiers patrolling the streets after
Aristide resigned on February 29 following an armed uprising.

Haitian politics is a gruesome saga of kleptocratic, winner-takes-all
dictatorships and coups d'etat. Aristide, who headed the Lavalas party, was
Haiti's first democratically elected leader. He was meant to change all
that. He was originally a radical Salesian priest at St Jean Bosco's parish
church, an inspiring preacher in the school of liberation theology, a
branch of Christianity that grafts Jesus onto Marx. The Whitehouse and the
Vatican have called it "class war".

Aristide won Haiti's first democratic election in 1990. For the first time
in Haitian history, someone cared about the welfare of the ti neg,
[literally 'little blacks', or ordinary people]. "Tou moun se moun," -
"Everyone is someone," he preached. Ordinary Haitians loved and trusted
this odd-looking little man, with his clever Creole riddles and priestly
demeanour, and with a potent cocktail of religious faith and socialism, he
won the Haitian masses' hearts, minds and souls. His popularity made him
seem mystically appointed   for a while - he has survived repeated
assassination attempts.

It wasn't to last: he was overthrown in a 1991 coup that was funded by
Haiti's elite, light-skinned class. Bill Clinton reinstated him with the
help of the marines in 1994. (The irony of  a Bush-assisted ousting of him
10 years later is not lost on anyone).
On his return, Aristide disbanded the army, and covertly armed some members
of local 'Popular Organisations'. Now known as chimeres, or 'angry young
men', he bought this slum militia's loyalty with guns, influence, and
legislative impunity. On the street, they run things.

But in Gonaives, on February 5th, things changed - Aristide's gang there,
the Cannibal Army, turned against their paymaster. On September 22, 2003
their leader, Amiot Metayer, was executed in a gangland-style killing -
both his eyes were shot out, signifying that he had seen too much. The
government was widely suspected of ordering his death to prevent him
revealing their patronage of his cocaine and murder franchise.

Step up Butteur Metayer, Amiot's brother, a man with a vendetta to avenge
his brother's death. He pretended to have made peace with Aristide, and
visited the Palace to cut a deal. He took the $6,000 offered, and went
away. State TV showed the meeting on loop to reassure the population of the
truce. But then Metayer and the Cannibal Army rebranded as the Artibonite
Resistance Front and ran amok in Gonaives, demanding Aristide's
resignation.

This last demand was the only principle uniting the so-called 'Group of
184', which consists of that number of trade unions, business associations,
members of civil society and political parties. It's an innocuous and
worthy-sounding coalition, but mainly they want an end to state opression
and corruption global trade to run more smoothly in Haiti.

Their nominal leader is André Apaid, a Haitian of Lebanese descent who runs
textile plants in the capital. In 2000, he is alleged to have pulled a gun
on union reps who were trying to recruit workers outside one of his
factories. The militant workers' rights group, Batay Ouvriye, described the
government and the Group of 184 succinctly: "Two rotten buttocks in the
same pair of ripped trousers."

Now it's February 15. We're in Jacmel for the small, artist-occupied town's
small, neo-medieval Carnival, where papier-mache face-mask anarchy and
rum-drenched surrealist street theatre are the gravest dangers facing the
population. Well, that and a mobile, two-storey soundsystem cranking out
the watts, and the little boys dressed as lions and alligators who chase
you down sidestreets, where you face a flock of angry bat-dragons that try
to batter you with their clanking metal wings. This bizarre performance is
a brief but welcome interlude from the genuine insanity that is raging all
around the country.

"Jacmel is not so beautiful this year," says Mimi, a stallholder selling
fried pork. "It's the situation. No one wants to dance."

The situation is grave.  Twelve days after the Gonaives uprising, on
February 17, comes the re-emergence of three men: Guy Philippe, Louis Jodel
Chamblain and Jean Tatoune. Philippe and Chamblain crossed the border from
the Dominican Republic, where they had been in exile. They are set on
taking Hinche, in the centre of the country, and Cap Haitien, the second
largest-city, in the north. When they do, it'll be game over for Aristide.

Jean Pierre Baptiste escaped from Gonaives prison in 2002, where he was
serving a life sentence for his part in an anti-Aristide massacre in 1994.
He's holding fort in Gonaives with the Cannibal Army deserters. Chamblain
was  second in command in  the FRAPH death squad (The Revolutionary Front
For The Advancement and Progress of Haiti) which killed 3,000 Aristide
supporters between 91-94. Baptiste also belonged to that squad. Guy
Phillipe was a major police chief  until he was accused of coup plots in
2000, and is heavily implicated in the coke trade.

"Shit," says a friend in the capital when the news comes through. "This
means civil war for sure."

Many observers express deep suspicion at their reappearance, and credit it
to CIA intervention. The uniformed rebels crossed the US-guarded border in
a bulletproof van, carrying American-issue M16s. FRAPH has a long track
record of close CIA involvement; its founding member, Emmanuel "Toto"
Constant , lives in Queens in New York City, protected from prosecution and
deportation for his part in massacres in Haiti in the mid-90s. He has
claimed on the US news show 60 minutes that if he is guilty "so is the
CIA".

This ugly gang is matched by a Washington-based cabal: George W Bush sees
Aristide as a new Castro, as does Roger Noriega, US Assistant Secretary of
State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. National Security Council Envoy, Otto
Reich, makes up the team; he has long deplored the Aristide regime, and has
close links with parties accused of the short-lived coup/kidnapping of Hugo
Chavez, the Venezuelan president, in 2002.

Aristide has lost a lot - but not all - of his local support since 2000.
His party, Lavalas, stands accused of electoral fraud, economic
mismanagement, corruption, and the creation of a narco-state - Haiti is a
perfect transhipment point for the Colombian cartels: 8-15% of all the coke
that hits US shores lands here first. Two independent sources confirmed
that in January, Port-au-Prince police collected massive parcels of cocaine
that were dropped from a plane onto the runway at an airport in Les Cayes
in the south of the country. The cops actually lit up the runway with their
headlights, which kind of implicates them.

In Port-au-Prince later that week, a student, Jean, is sitting in a main
square, sipping beer and talking about his day. The thump-thump of the
basketball game next to us sounds like far-off gunshot. There's a corporeal
feeling of mayhem about to be unleashed as the city waits for the death
squad leaders to arrive.

News has come from the north: Hinche has been taken by the ex-FRAPH men.
Reports say they have splinter groups within 30 miles of the capital and
sleeper cells within it.

Nearby, Haitian students are sitting studying by streetlight, as the
power's down most nights. Kids play, oblivious.

"I was on a tap-tap [a local bus] tonight," says Jean, "Shit, this guy just
pulled out a nine-millimetre and shouted: 'If you don't love Aristide, eat
shit.'"

"What am I going to do, man? How can we live like this?". Jean peels the
label off his beer bottle and looks at the floor shaking his head
imperceptibly.

The next day, we walk around downtown. The closer you get to the national
palace, the edgier it gets. "Shhh," warns a passing builder. "Spies," he
mutters.

The Monument of Independence is half-finished, and welders are toiling
around the clock to complete it during Haiti's 200th year of independence
from colonial rule. It's a brutal, Babel-like neo-Stalinist ziggurat, and
its grey concrete slabs are already chipped and crumbling. Most people seem
to love it. "It's like the Eiffel Tower, isn't it," says a young guy. It
wasn't a question.

We turn a corner and there's a crackle in the air as swaggering young lads
in Lavalas T-shirts strut and throw gang-signs. Something is is in the air,
that subsonic hum that precedes all the best riots and raves.

About ten seconds later a throng of Lavalas supporters appear, waving
fronded stalks of cane sugar, dancing to rara, a bizarre Haitian folk music
made by three trumpets or drainpipes, which play a mesmerising loop of
sound made up of three differently pitched notes. The energy is intense and
when the hyped-up marchers see my microphone, dozens of them surround me
and jostle me, shouting "Five more years"; the term that Aristide was
elected to serve in 2001. "No elections," they bawl, manic.

A truck of sugar cane arrives, and in a flash is set upon as cane is thrown
to the floor and people snatch it up, strip the leaves and devour it.
Erstwhile dictator Papa Doc Duvalier used to throw  dollar  bills to the
peasants.

Strolling about the park is Emannuel Lafayette, an 18-year-old who lives in
nearby Delmas. "Everyone loves Aristide, he is like the father of the
people," he says, beaming. He's wearing a brand-new canary-yellow T-shirt
featuring Aristide smiling beatifically, hands outstretched in a 'Trust me"
gesture.

"I am alone in the world because my father kicked my mother in the stomach
when she was pregnant. She died. I went to tell him that I knew what he had
done. He laughed, and threw a bag of rubbish at me. I came back here and
live with friends, I have no money," he says. Then he grins. "But sometimes
the local governor comes to me and says "Look, today there is a demo, here
is 100 gourdes [about  $3US]. Go and support your president. Me, I love the
president."

We bump into Emmanuel again that weekend in Port-au-Prince. Lovers are
ambling around Champs Mar, which is filled with hawkers selling everything
from tiny chilli-goat kebabs and mini maracas to local moonshine, tafia.
The locals are warming up for the country's main Carnival by holding
massive, impromptu street parties.

Instantly, a side street explodes with a rara band. The drums call and
everyone follows. The music is sensational - bonkers basslines played on
euphoniums and drainpipes, backed by an exultant troupe of trombonists.
Most people have a maraca. It's ritualistic and liberating and brazenly
defiant. Everyone knows all the words, and whole neighbourhoods join the
snaking procession, and along the way you can buy food and drink and petrol
to set little fires on the floor to dance in.

Someone lets off a volley of industrial-strength fireworks from their hand,
they backfire and skitter across the street. The crowd screams
hysterically. The band doesn't drop a beat, and two seconds later when the
danger has passed, the party kicks, impossibly, into an even higher gear,
and it's total, total bedlam as drinks are thrown in the air and hundreds
of people scream and whoop and leap into the air as one. The atmosphere is
so intensely jubilant it's utterly terrifying. The revellers haven't had a
good time in a long time, it seems.

A battered white vintage Rolls Royce is wheeled through and even the
Haitians do a double take. And through the chaos strides a stunning
six-foot woman as graceful, elegant and self-contained as a mannequin, with
a crate of beer balanced on her head. She doesn't even blink.

Later, we hear that a fight broke out - a gun was pulled, and a young man
opposed to the government died after taking two shots to the head. The
police did nothing as the gunman disappeared into the crowd. "I'm not sure
I can even go out for Carnival now," says Jean.

By February 23, Aristide is begging the international community for
soldiers to come and help him beat the "rebels". Cap Haitien has fallen. US
marines have landed 50 men at the airport in Port-au-Prince, supposedly on
their way to the US embassy to protect staff there. Something stinks, and
it's not the open sewers. All the NGOs, foreigners, and embassy staff are
fleeing. We cross the border by bus, after a taut, sleepless night. The
Americans have a hidden agenda here.

It's all happening so quickly it's like a dream. No one will help Aristide.
France, sniffing a chance to cosy up to the US after the Iraq tiff, start
"diplomatic manoeuvres" to place themselves at the centre of a "diplomatic
solution".

The marines came for Aristide in the dead of night on February 29th, and
told him that the rebels had the city surrounded. If he did not go, it
would be a bloodbath. His caretaker has reported that he was led away onto
a plane supposedly headed for South Africa. US and French officials tricked
Aristide, and flew him to the Central African Republic instead. America and
France say he resigned, and have the letter to prove it. The chimeres
panicked, and looted and killed and hacked their way to safety.

Some of them did not escape. That day, in Petit-Goave, a young chimere
named Ti Roro was punished by vigilantes for his crimes. Tiroro had
kidnapped local Aristide opponent Junior Lysias and chopped off his hands
and feet, gouged out his eyes and then killed him.  Ti Roro was beaten
unconscious, doused in gasoline and necklaced with burning tyres by the
roadside to the cheers of a mob who stoned him as he burnt. In the crowd
was Roland Lysias, father of Junior. "I feel now that I am starting to see
justice," he said.

In Port-au-Prince by the end of February, the president has been toppled,
the French are occupying its former colony again, the US are in the
National Palace and young men are still dying in the street. The streets
are empty, and guns ring out all night to a chorus of howling dogs. A more
palatable form of dictatorship now reigns.

In its 200th year of independence, as its people lick the empty bowls in a
kitchen of sorrows, Haiti is being feasted on by rapacious businessmen;
vampiric politicians; corrupt, incompetent hypocrites that once offered
salvation, and mercenaries of every tint who wade casually through the
blood of their countrymen. There are no good guys, no solutions, and no
sense to any of it, no sense at all.