24258: (reply) Chamberlain: 24254: De Verteuil (reply) 24163 Joseph (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

> Patrick de Verteuil <pdeverteuil@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I would refer you to two, to my mind decisive, events of 1986.
1) The writing of a new (non presidential) constitution which, to the great
surprise of the military government which had after all nominated half of
the constituent assembly members, included provisions for a strong
independent electoral council. This constitution was ratified, in a
referendum, by an enormous majority.

It was indeed overwhelmingly approved (in 1987, by 99.8% on a 50% turnout),
but there was much concern in the "democratic" camp at the time because
there was no public discussion of it and voters knew little or nothing
about its content except for Article 291, which barred unnamed "architects"
of the Duvalier dictatorship and those who had significantly supported it
between 1957-86 from holding public office for 10 years.  This was what
people turned out so enthusiastically to vote for, quite understandably at
the time.  There seemed no interest in or knowledge of the rest of the
document.

The Stalinist left (Haiti Progrès) sneered at the constitution as "a
ruling-class trick" while other politicians were dubious about the chances
of imposing a non-presidential system in a country with two-century habit
of strong leaders/dictator-presidents.  The document was a brave aspiration
which has only partly been followed and been freely violated by most rulers
since then, including Aristide.



> I trace the eventual collapse of the democratic opposition to this point.
Largely at the behest of Haiti's most left leaning bishop (Ligondé of the
Grand'Anse)

That was Willy Romélus.  Ligondé was the Duvalierist archbishop of PauP.


> an attempt was made to keep the strike going in order to force
the resignation of the military government. This failed because:
1) The strike had already lasted much longer than could be expected from a
population largely living from day to day with no savings to fall back on.
2) There was no visible viable alternative (without elections) to the MG.
3) Faced with intransigent demands the MG had no choice but to fight and,
as
a result, discovered that it was a lot less weak than had appeared.
I believe that the united democratic movement never recovered from this
failure.

It was indeed a big blow, but the opposition was less united than it looks
with hindsight.  Thousands in the streets unfortunately didn't mean the
non-streets leadership was significantly united.  An old Haitian problem.

Let's not forget the other high-point, in early 1990, when Fr Antoine
Adrien, at the head of an opposition committee, engineered the collapse of
Gen. Prosper Avril's crumbling regime.  It was at this moment that Haiti
Progrès boss Ben Dupuy suggested Aristide as president, only to be
denounced as a tireless divider of the country's political movements and an
agent of the CIA.   Dupuy simply saw Aristide as his best chance to get a
political leg-up for his faction.

Aristide, despite having denounced elections as "a bourgeois trick" in
early 1990, was persuaded to run for president at the end of the year by an
opposition desperate for a saviour figure.  He won, and the gravy train was
on its way for Ben Dupuy, while the other left politicians, such as Evans
Paul, who founded and ran Aristide's campaign, were abruptly
cold-shouldered by Aristide.


        Greg Chamberlain