On October 11, the United States
carrier ship USS Harlan County W ha
arrived in the bay of Port-au-Prince with
a cargo of 200 “combat engineers and Ha
military trainers.” But after a day-long Hait
stand-off at the docks with a small
gang of military attaches who bran- W ant
dished clubs and guns, and screamed,
“No U.S. intervention!,” the troop carri-
er beat an ignominious retreat. Perhaps the
the course of events should have been
foreseen, given the inconsistency of the
troops’ mission-to restore democra-
cy-and their instructions to “run the
other way” if they encountered opposi- by Catherini
tion. With the departure of the USS
Harlan County and the pull-out of the UN observer mis-
sion shortly thereafter, the United States called on the
remaining thousand or so Americans still in Haiti to reg-
ister with the embassy in the event of an emergency
evacuation.
This sequence of events provided a unique opportuni-
ty to observe the different Haitian views of what role the
international community and the United States should
play in their country. From the wharves, through the
sea-side slums, up the road past the attaches’ hang-out
La Normandie, up past the Army headquarters, up, up
past the mounds of trash into the wealthy hills of
Petionville, and over the seas, to the suites of Washing-
ton, Haitians of every status were calculating the mean-
ing of the most recent international maneuver. Some
were gratified to see the ships and planes, filled with
foreigners, depart. Some were wary of what might
replace them. Others saw their last hopes retreating on
the horizon.
On the docks, the rabble-rousers celebrated their victo-
ry, howling with glee at the boat’s departure. The sight
was sweetened by the memory of 1915, when U.S. ships
had last come to Haiti and stayed for 20 years. Waving a
gun in the air with one hand and a bottle in the other,
the attaches pounded on the car of a journalist not wise
enough to stay away: “Blan! Blan al0!”–whites! whites
go away! Most attaches are members of right-wing
political organizations that have recently sprung up, pro-
ponents of an extreme nationalism.
the departure of C6dras and before his own return,
leaving the putschists fully capable of sinking the
process whenever they saw fit. The result: C6dras was
legitimized and Aristide’s own return was rendered
improbable. This was clear enough to the Duvalierists.
When C6dras and his delegation returned to Haiti on
July 3, he received a hero’s welcome from cheering
crowds of soldiers and coup supporters at the airport.
“This is not an accord between the military delega-
tion and the constitutional government,” said Cha-
t
J
ec
One group, the Front for the Advance-
Do ment and Progress of Haiti, has taken de facto control of the streets. The group’s
acronym, FRAPH, sounds like “strike” in ins French and the hand signal-fist clapped
in fist over the head-is Nazi-esque. When
Trom joining, a member is given an identity card and the option to buy a gun. Although
there is no formal link, FRAPH is said to
.S. work in close cooperation with, or as a
front for, the Army. They sometimes have
rallies outside the Palace of Justice, near La
Normandie, where they march waving the
Haitian blue-and-red flag, the revived
Orenstein black-and-red flag of Duvalier, and the U.S. stars and stripes. At one such rally, a
group of men cluster around me, chanting “-“America, yes! Intervention, no!” One of them, wear-
ing dark glasses and a baseball cap, sports a rifle over
his shoulder and two hand grenades on his belt. “Pssst,
blan! Pssst,” he says, juggling his hand grenades for me.
“If Aristide returns, I will eat him-EAT him!” he growls.
“Americans, yes! Intervention, no!” At his home, FRAPH’s Secretary General Emmanuel
“Toto” Constant sits on his balcony overlooking an
empty pool, the butt of a guard’s gun visible over the
wall. “President Aristide is welcome back in my coun-
try,” he says. “As a citizen. He cannot be president
because, you know, he is unstable, as a CIA file has
said.” Earlier that week at a press conference, Constant proclaimed, “Governor’s Island is dead…. The interna-
tional community must lift the embargo, because it is unimaginable and criminal to keep six million people
hostage for one person…and we must have new elec-
tions according to Article 149 of the Constitution.”
Constant would like to see UN envoy Dante Caputo
replaced by a U.S. mediator-“maybe Colin Powell.”
FRAPH’s affinity for the United States indicates some- thing about U.S. policy with Haiti-they know what is in
their own interest. The popular movement leaders would also have been glad to see the USS Harlan County sail away with its anchor between its legs, so to speak, but for the fact that many of them were hiding out in the United States.
The popular movement, which also has strong nationalist
roots, opposes any form of foreign intervention, be it
military troops or UN observers. It sees the solution to
26 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
Catherine Orenstein is a NACLA staff member.
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 26REPORT ON HAITI
vannes Jean-Baptiste, who was part of the govern-
ment’s delegation at Governors Island. “This is an
accord between the UN, the OAS, and the ‘friends of
the Secretary General,”‘ as the United States, France,
Canada, and Venezuela came to be dubbed during the
Governors Island talks. 1 9 Although the Aristide dele-
gation had stayed up all night on July 2 composing a
counter-proposal to what Caputo offered, they were
given an “ultimatum” the next day, according to Cha-
vannes, to “take it or leave it.”
Haiti’s crisis as a radical democratic
change that must come from within.
Within the Lavalas coalition that
brought Aristide to power, the pop-
ular movement has been at odds with the more liberal bourgeois sec-
tor on the issue of international
intervention, both diplomatic and
military. The bourgeois sector sees
the international community as a
medium for resolving Haiti’s crisis, reconciliation as necessary, and inter-
vention as a possibility. “Everyone
who knows Aristide is absolutely
amazed at the maturation that has
occurred in the past two years,” said
Father Antoine Adrien, a close presi-
dential advisor from the bourgeois
sector. “His capacity for compromise
has greatly expanded. He under-
stands, in the transition from priest
to president, it takes more patience, more willingness to compromise” An attache (enter) (Los Angeles Times October 27, frontof FRAPH head 1993). Adrien-like others in the
reformist camp- is also less adamant on the issue of
intervention. When the USS Harlan County turned
around and sailed off last month, Adrien said, “the U.S.
troops aboard.. should have been ordered to land.
Nothing would have happened because the vast majori-
ty of Haitians would have welcomed them…” (Sacra-
mento Bee, October 13, 1993).
The majority of Haitians-the peasants who make up
90% of Haiti’s population-have been excluded from
diplomatic dialogue since the coup, and cut off even
from Aristide who speaks only infrequently over the
radio. But the hammer of diplomatic decisions hits them
the hardest. In Cite Soleil, the poorest of the sprawling
slums of Port-au-Prince, the empty streets offer up a
daily quota of bloody bodies left for days as a warning
of the penalty for hope. On November 4, the silence
belies the continuing intensity of oppression, even as
media attention dwindles. A group of boys play soccer
in the empty street, with deflated rubber balls.
“We know America is not afraid of the Haitian army.
They could come in and shoot those guys,” says Li-bon, whose name means “he’s good” in Haitian Creole. He
qn Jqu
The bourgeoisie, counting on U.S. good will and
support, expressed guarded satisfaction with the
accord. “The accord contains the elements of democ-
racy, the return of the truly elected president of the
Republic and the relinquishing of their command posts
by the leaders of the coup,” declared Ambassador
Casimir. 2 0
But an open letter to President Aristide from ten of
the most established popular organizations called the
accord “an affront to the heroic struggle of the Haitian
shows me his back, which is bruised.
“When the military attaches came
through the streets they were look-
ing for someone, a Lavalas man, but
then they found me instead. So they beat me”-he demonstrates-” beat
me. We hoped the Americans would
come. They will get rid of the
attaches. Everyone will be happy when they come.” “What about 1915?” I ask. “What
about independence?” “We are not independent,” Li-bon
says. “We cannot work, we cannot
speak, we cannot live. We are in a
moral prison. Nou pa independan.”
Farther on in Cite Carton, so
named because the huts are con-
structed from cardboard and old
U.S.AID food cartons, Dieudonne sits
on the ground with the metal bowls
he makes and says, “I am for the
a soldier (right) in embargo, because we have to get artersAristide back…. But the U.S. made a
lot of promises, and where are they
now? I believed them, and all I got was beatings. We are
dying alone in the streets.”
As I walk back, a woman I don’t know offers me her
baby. “Would you take her to America with you? .. I had
four babies, but two are dead already.”
“What next?” I ask Li-bon. He says, “October 30 was
only one date. We are in the middle of a long struggle.”
How Haitians see the role of the international commu-
nity in the Haitian struggle is determined by what they
perceive to be the goal. Some ask for peace, others
demand power, and some call for democracy. The mili-
tary junta and its Duvalierist allies seek to maintain and
consolidate their control, seeing in the United States an
ally to prevent Aristide’s return. For the popular move-
ment, the “solution” is radical democratic change-a
social revolution with no room for compromise with the
“U.S. imperialists or Macoutes.” The bourgeois sector of
Lavalas, on the other hand, sees diplomatic dialogue, reconciliation, and integration of the opposition as com-
ponents of a new democracy. Meanwhile, among the
poor masses who don’t have the luxury of idealism, many hope for peace at almost any cost.
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