This week in HaitiHaïti Progrès
31 Mai au 6 Juin 2000
What's Behind the Arrests in Haiti"Haitian police have arrested dozens of opposition politicians and many others have gone into hiding" reads the lead on a May 25 Reuters dispatch. The Associated Press calls it a "new wave of harassment and violence." U.S. Ambassador Daniel Whitman says it is "a climate of intimidation." In short, the picture being beamed to the U.S. public is that the Haitian government is bullying opposition politicians and cracking down on democracy. In fact, the opposite is true.
The Haitian government is acting to preserve democracy by reining in politicians who, unhappy with the outcome of the May 21 elections, have brazenly threatened to organize a nationwide insurrection. If only those politicians had a following.
Most of them lost miserably in the polling for legislative and municipal posts. The Lavalas Family (FL), the party of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, captured 14 of the 27 Senate seats and 16 of the 83 Deputy seats in the first-round. They also swept most of the mayoral races and seats in local assemblies.
Opposition politicians, like Evans Paul of the Space for Concord (EC), have charged "massive fraud," but election observers, both national and international, disagree. "We cannot say there was a situation of massive fraud," said the head of the National Council of Electoral Observers (CNO), Léopold Berlanger, who can hardly be characterized as a Haitian government lackey. Berlanger directs the staunchly anti-Lavalas Radio Vision 2000 and has, over the past 14 years, enjoyed Washington's financial and political backing. Whatever his personal feelings, he had to admit that the CNO's "majority consensus" was that the election's scattered irregularities did not effect "the result of the vote in general."
Foreign observer delegations concurred. Orlando Marville, who headed the 200 observers under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS), called the vote "acceptable" and the Mission of Francophone States also gave its seal of approval.
Such blessings have driven the opposition to extremes, both verbally and otherwise. Gérard Pierre-Charles of the Organization of People in Struggle (OPL) declared that the May 21 polling was "worse than that of Nov. 29" 1987, when death-squads machine-gunned and macheted to death dozens of would-be voters. Why? Because according to Pierre-Charles, "armed men of the FL ambushed voters, making them run away... The presidents of the BEDs (Departmental Election Office) and BECs (Communal Election Office) were forced by the armed men to continue the voting operations." Forcing the vote to continue? Doesn't sound like much of a massacre, even if we accept the OPL's far-fetched accusations.
Furthermore, no observers witnessed anything of the kind, for which Victor Benoit of the EC had a ready explanation. The FL "didn't disrupt things in the downtown of the big towns," he said, "they let everything proceed normally." But they did create havoc in the countryside, according to Benoit, where "you didn't see any international observers" so all the trouble took place "without the knowledge of the international community." Benoit called the polling an "electoral rape."
In fact, there were some problems in the countryside, and the police made arrests. For example, the police arrested a FL Senate candidate Marcellin Casseus in the Central Plateau town of Maissade along with another FL representative for carrying weapons, which were banned during the electoral period, even if licensed. Another FL candidate was arrested in the northwestern coastal town of Anse Rouge.
But most of the trouble for authorities came from the parties now decrying trouble. In the southeastern town of Thiotte, the police had to round up 10 members of the OPL, including a mayor running for reelection and some local assemblymen, on weapons violations. In the western town of Petit Goâve, the police arrested five members of the EC, including Limongy Jean, who was running for deputy there. The men were charged with inciting violence, which from all accounts they were definitely trying to do.
The biggest stink has been made over the three-day detainment of former senator Paul Denis, a prominent OPL leader. The police claim they found illegal automatic weapons - an Uzi and an M-16 knockoff (T-65) - at his home in Cayes. Denis claims the weapons were planted. He is now free but is scheduled to be brought up on charges soon.
Opposition groups claim that 34 of their members have been arrested nationwide, a number which is likely inflated. For example, Evans Paul claimed that EC poll observers were all arrested in the Artibonite town of L'Estère. "That's not true at all," responded Charles Suffrat of the popular organization KOZEPEP, which is based in the Artibonite. "They didn't arrest any EC poll observer at all and I don't see why those guys are trying to create confusion."
Meanwhile, in the Artibonite town of Verettes, hoodlums, suspected to be from the opposition, burned down seven voting offices filled with election materials. One election worker was gravely hurt.
Indeed, police response has been sluggish in the eyes of some. "We call on the government and the police leadership to take all the necessary dispositions to apprehend all the scoundrels who are posing as political leaders and using the pretext of being militants to make meetings left and right to organize a coup d'état, to destabilize the country, and to create disorder," said Yvon Bonhomme of the popular organization Operation to Save Haiti (OSA).
"The police should disarm all the former senators who have never returned the heavy weapons which they were given and the former soldiers who have never been disarmed," said René Civil of the Popular Power Youth (JPP). "We call for a full-scale operation so these people are disarmed and judged."
The government has rejected the opposition's sinister portrayal of its attempt to beef up security around the elections. "I don't think that we can speak of a wave of repression against people in the opposition," said Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis, pointing out that members of both the opposition and the FL had been arrested. "We have to give the process care and attention so that the sore losers don't create problems."
"There is nobody who is above the law, there is nobody with immunity," said Justice Minister Camille Leblanc. "Whether you are an elected official, or a candidate, or a functionary, if you break the law, the police will apprehend you. Some people thought that since they were candidates, they had immunity. That does not exist."
On May 30, Leblanc said that the government would soon publish a summary of how many people were arrested, how many tried, and how many released.
Meanwhile, the opposition's new front, the "Convergence", is already showing signs of divergence. The OPL and the Assembly of National Progressive Democrats (RDNP) have both declared that they will boycott the second round of elections scheduled for Jun. 25. However, OPL candidates in the Grand Anse department, where elections have been postponed to a still undetermined date in June, have proposed holding an "extraordinary assembly" on whether to respect the national leadership's boycott call.
For its part, the EC has asked electoral authorities for an "evaluation" before it decides on its next move. Perhaps it should reflect on how it waged its campaign.
"The political parties which say they are in the opposition always counted on a coup d'état or foreign sponsorship instead of making a democratic opposition where they could criticize the government about its policies and present the population with an alternative national development program," opined a Haitian National Television commentator. "It seems it was this parasitic attitude of relying on others which caused the opposition's problems. Over these past years, the leaders of the opposition have always been going to Washington to meet with Republican Party members, asking for help to defeat the power in place. But who is voting for Haitian candidates in a democratic election in Haiti? Haitians or foreigners?"
From last week's column, the Assembly of Patriotic Citizens (RCP) member killed in a political street-fight was not, as we reported, the mayoral candidate, who is Jean Yves Jason. It was another party member, Jean Michel Oliphène. We also incorrectly stated that the contest on the Ile de la Gonâve was aborted for a later date. In fact, the Electoral Council has not announced which contests, if any, will be reheld.