23578: radtimes: Haiti: Rebellion in Bel Air (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Haiti: Rebellion in Bel Air

http://www.sfbayview.com/102004/rebellion102004.shtml

The Revolutionary Worker received the following correspondence from a
reader. Since the ouster of President Aristide by U.S. Marines, Haiti has
been occupied, first by U.S. and currently by UN troops.

 From a rooftop in the Bel Air neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, the capital
of Haiti, 14-year-old Gerald stood guard with two plastic buckets full of
rocks. As police, heavily armed with U.S.-supplied equipment, entered his
street, Gerald tossed rocks onto the tin roofs of his neighbors to warn
them of impending attack and then began heaving heavy rocks off the roof
onto police vehicles below.

Within minutes, residents surrounded the police cars and, in a hail of
rocks and trash, forced the Haitian National Police - now a major
instrument in the government's campaign of terror against the people - out
of the area.

Gerald is one of tens of thousands of ordinary Haitians who have joined
forces in recent days to resist the continued occupation of their country
by imperialist UN troops and the repressive policies of the U.S.-backed
Latortue regime.

"We are sick of seeing people die. The other day, police murdered Wendy and
they will kill more of us, because to the bourgeoisie our lives are
worthless," Gerald explains, referring to the killing of Wendy Manigat, 15,
murdered by police on Oct. 1. "Working within the system doesn't work for
us anymore. We are voiceless because when the Americans took away the
president we voted for, they slit our throats."

"We see now that there is no way the bourgeoisie will let us have a fair
chance to make a decent life for ourselves. My generation and the
generation of my parents is standing now and saying `no more.' We know that
working through the ballot box and diplomatic discussions between
politicians only benefits those in power and those with the wealth, so now
we are looking for a different way, one that benefits ordinary people."

In the past week, residents of Bel Air, one of the most populous
neighborhoods in the capital and a hotbed of anti-occupation sentiment,
have begun to physically resist police incursions into their neighborhood.
Haiti has been occupied by foreign troops since February. The capital's
impoverished majority have been under siege from the Haitian National
Police, many of whom are members of the death squads which murdered
thousands of peasants during the 1991 coup and then forced Aristide from
power earlier this year.

Since the U.S.-backed death squads overthrew the government of Jean
Bertrand Aristide in February, and American Ambassador Foley installed
Florida businessman Gerald Latortue as prime minister, protests against the
new government and the occupying American and UN forces have been primarily
peaceful.

However, as each march was met with swift and violent repression on the
part of both police and foreign troops, Haitians have been forced to create
a nascent organized resistance that, using any available weapon, protects
their neighborhoods from those who try to squash the popular protest. This
is a huge departure from the stance previously taken by anti-occupation
leaders who urged calm, peaceful protests.

"We can't stand by any longer and watch while our lives are destroyed.
We've come to the end of our rope. It is unethical, it is wrong, for us to
peacefully protest while the white military comes into our homes and
murders our children," said one community leader.

In the past six months foreign military troops - some American - were
responsible for the brutal murders of dozens of people, most of whom were
peaceably going about their business when they were killed. Many others
have been illegally arrested, disappeared or shot down in cold blood by
CIA-trained and funded death squads as well as the Haitian National Police.

Those killed last week include Marguerite Saint-Fils, 35, who was shot in
her home by police; high schooler Wendy Manigat; Roland Braneluce, 28, who
was shot by police during a demonstration at Rue Tiremasse; Maxo Casséus, a
leader of a grassroots organization in Cité Soleil who was killed by death
squads on Sept. 30, and Piersine Adéma, an elderly woman who was reportedly
assassinated by the same group that killed Casséus, while she was sitting
on her front porch.

The Latortue regime is falling over backwards trying to stifle popular
dissent. Hundreds of anti-occupation protesters have also been arrested
without warrants or charges, including more than 75 youth arrested in Bel
Air on Oct. 6. Radio stations have been silenced by government orders.
Dozens of journalists have been arrested, killed or disappeared.

Hundreds of leaders of popular organizations are in prison. Each day at 4
p.m., radio stations read a list of names supplied by the Ministry of
Justice, announcing that the named individuals are prohibited from leaving
the country and may be arrested. Death squads have taken the list as
permission to go after and beat or kill those named.

On Sept. 30, thousands marched through downtown Port-au-Prince to protest
brutal acts against the people committed by the Haitian National Police.
Masked members of the Unite de Securite Presidentielle (USP), a special
security unit assigned to interim President Boniface Alexandre, responded
by firing into the crowd of unarmed demonstrators, killing six. The people
then departed from their peaceful stance and fought back, arming themselves
and attacking USP cops. At that moment, an armed resistance to the
oppression was born.

Pitched battles continued in the streets. On the night of Oct. 1, police,
who attempted to raid several homes of anti-occupation activists,
surrounded Bel Air. When police drew their guns, the people responded,
shooting back at the Haitian National Police and, after a fierce three-hour
battle, forcing cops to withdraw.

On Oct. 2, former Deputy Roudy Hèrivaux, Sen. Yvon Feuillè, and Sen. Gerald
Gilles participated in Ranmasé, a talk show broadcast on Radio Caraibes.
All three are members of the former government and are moderates,
supporters of Aristide, who have urged Haitians to work "within the system
for a peaceful resolution." The three were on the air to decry the Sept. 30
attacks on unarmed protesters by police and to criticize the repressive
policies of the interim government.

Before the show was finished, hundreds of heavily armed CIMO riot police
surrounded the radio station. All three - and a fourth, lawyer Axène
Joseph, who arrived to defend them - were arrested on order of Minister of
Justice Bernard Gousse, who maintains that Hèrivaux and Feuillè are the
"intellectual authors" of the people's rebellion.

Radio Caraibes suspended broadcastsing in protest, but other radio stations
continue to be used as an instrument of terror by the Latortue regime. On
the morning of Oct. 2, a police spokesperson asked listeners to stations
Radio Metropole and Sweet FM to "notify us if you suspect there are chimere
living in your neighborhood. We will come and arrest them." Chimere is a
derogatory term used both to refer to unemployed young men from the slums
and to militants who either support President Aristide or protest the
occupation.

But those rebelling against the Latortue regime were undeterred. On Oct. 2
the resistance spread to Martissant, an impoverished area spanning the
western section of the capital city. At 10 a.m. the police ringed the
neighborhood, using the bogus excuse of an attack on the local police
station - which never happened - to arrest anti-occupation militants.
According to witnesses, police killed several bystanders and wounded at
least a dozen before arresting 24 men. But the people fought back, shooting
in the air and eventually at police, who were forced to withdraw.

"We're prepared. We're going to fight back now. We know there's a
possibility that the foreign military or the police could come for us at
any moment. We know that our very lives depend on fighting back and
building to a moment when we can seize power," says Margaurette, 22, who
organizes her block's supply of homemade weapons.

"The Oct. 2 arrests follow a sharp upturn in attacks against critics of the
interim government's human rights policies," reports human rights attorney
Brian Concannon from the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti,
which provides legal advocacy for anti-occupation protesters who have been
attacked by police and paramilitary forces. "On Sept. 16, police officers
raided the offices of the Confederation of Haitian Workers (CTH) labor
union and arrested nine union members, all without a warrant. Hours later,
masked men in military attire attacked the office of the Committee for the
Protection of the Rights of the Haitian People (CDPH)." Both organizations
have encouraged public resistance against the U.S.-installed regime.

There is currently no revolutionary party in Haiti, but the Haitian people
themselves are beginning to articulate a vision for something that moves
beyond the confines of bourgeois democracy which has been their focal point
since the departure of U.S.-backed Baby Doc Duvalier, a dictator who was
forced from the country under popular protest in 1986. The resulting
pro-democracy movement brought Aristide to power, but, hampered by U.S.
intervention and the limits of capitalist democracy, he was unable to bring
about lasting change for the Haitian people.

The U.S. government and the international media has tried to discredit the
resistance, portraying those protesting as few in number and describing
them as "machete-wielding Aristide supporters," who, they claim,
decapitated innocent policemen. In a country where the media has easy
access to morgues and hospitals, no decapitated bodies have been located,
and police spokespeople haven't been able to produce the names of those
supposedly killed and decapitated by the resistance.

Who are the resisters? They are men and women, some as young as 13 and as
old as 69. Most are former peasants who were forced from their land by the
economic downfall of the IMF-mandated structural adjustment programs that
drove small farmers out of business. They brought their families to the
capital in the last 10 to 20 years, desperately searching for jobs that
didn't exist. Most live in neighborhoods such as Cité Soleil and Bel Air,
where two or three families share one small room in a concrete or tin shack.

 From his perch above Bel Air, Gerald pointed out raw sewage running
through the streets between towering piles of garbage. "I'm not even an
adult yet, and even I know that I don't have anything to lose by resisting
the new government. This is no kind of life to live for, and we youth know
that it's only by fighting for a different kind of world that our lives
will be better."

This story comes from Revolutionary Worker #1255, Oct. 17, 2004,
www.rwor.org/a/1255/haiti_current_situation.htm.

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