This week in HaitiHaïti Progrès
October 18 - 24 2000
Is a Coup d'État Looming?
Six years after the end of one coup d’état, Haiti today finds itself threatened with another.
Ironically, signs of a new mutiny came on the Oct. 15 anniversary of the 1994 return to Haiti of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide, who spent three years in exile after a Sep. 30, 1991 coup. Rumors of assassination scenarios of Lavalas leaders raced through Haiti’s capital and diaspora. Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis publicly addressed the matter in remarks at the opening ceremonies of a food fair on the capital’s Champ de Mars on Oct. 14. "I think that we must find a way to deal with our differences and problems with dialogue, discussions, and constructive criticisms and not look to create problems, to introduce weapons into the country," Alexis said. "There are some people attempting assassinations and a coup d’état. We think that it is time to finish with such things in Haiti."
The same day, Senator Lans Clonès of Aristide’s Lavalas Family party (FL) was attacked by two individuals on a motorcycle. The senator’s bodyguards fought off the assailants, who fled while firing on the senator’s vehicle. "Luckily, nobody was wounded," Clonès said. "If it weren’t for the vigilance of my bodyguards, I don’t know what would have happened."
The following day, Sun. Oct. 15, a similar attack occurred at the Tertulien Guilbaud national school in front of the Port-au-Prince cathedral, where Lavalas-leaning popular organizations meet each week. "A group of well-armed men fired on the locale where we were meeting," explained René Civil, leader of the Popular Power Youth (JPP), who believes he was one of the gunmen’s principal targets. "This group of hit men started shooting at people and creating havoc. My bodyguards fired back, which sent them running... There were many victims; we have six or seven people in the General Hospital and two in the French Asylum hospital." A JPP member running errands was also ambushed and wounded by gunmen in a separate incident.
President René Préval, who was visiting Taiwan during the weekend, sought to allay fears when he returned to Haiti via Miami on the morning of Mon. Oct. 16. He was to have been assassinated at the airport on his return, according to rumors.
«Well, even if I wasn’t here, I was abreast of all the rumors circulating in the country," Préval said. "We are working on the matter. I don’t think there is anything to fear. One must take all rumors seriously, especially when they are about this kind of thing." FL senators Lans Clonès, Gérald Gilles et Sonçon Prince Pierre also gave a press conference denouncing the coup plans.
On Monday evening, the National Television of Haiti (TNH) offered an editorial which explained some of the weekend’s events without naming names. "There is a small group of policemen, former soldiers, above all those who studied abroad, who had a meeting on Oct. 8, 2000 with an official of a foreign embassy in Port-au-Prince." The anchor also said that weapons were being smuggled into the country by an unnamed "big industrialist" and that it was time for authorities to investigate the lavish life-styles of some police brass. "One example: how can a police chief transferred to the provinces live in a hotel room which costs about $1500 US for 6 to 7 months while at the same time he pays for an apartment in this same province?" the anchor asked. The program also said that the coup was scheduled to take place in November.
According to a police source requesting anonymity, the coup attempt was the work of a group of officers known as the "Group of 13" or the "Equadorians" because they had studied in Equador before being recruited into the Haitian National Police (PNH). These former soldiers are headed by the Cap Haïtien police chief, Guy Philippe, who appears to be the well-financed officer to whom TNH was referring. He has under his wing other police chiefs such as Jean-Jacques Nau alias Jacky Nau of Delmas and another called the Dragon of Croix-des-Bouquets, according to our source.
Nau was recently almost lynched after disarming a Lavalas street organizer named Ronald Cadavre during an Oct. 2 pro-Aristide demonstration in front of the Provisional Electoral Council on Delmas.
The "industrialist" that TNH did not dare name, according to our police source, is Olivier Nadal. Further clarifying the TNH report, our source says that Guy Philippe lives in the Montjolly luxury hotel in Cap Haïtien. He had served in the police in Port-de-Paix and Delmas, before being transferred to Cap-Haïtien. An arrest has been made at the National Palace in connection with this matter, our source said.
The opposition was clearly gleeful at the reports of an attempted coup, which at the very least could destabilize the situation enough to delay the presidential elections scheduled for Nov. 26. Despite a third visit this week to Haiti by Luigi Einaudi, a mediator of the Organization of American States (OAS), the opposition continues to exhibit complete intransigence in negotiating an end to its hostilities with the FL and the Préval government. However, Einaudi did manage to organize a framework-seeking sit-down of low-level representatives of the opposition, FL, and government on Oct. 17.
Opposition spokespeople deny any knowledge of or responsibility for a coup, saying that the Lavalas controls the State administration. "They are giving themselves a coup d’état" said Reynold Georges of far-right ALAH-MPSN faction of the Democratic Convergence, the opposition’s front. Georges was an outspoken defender of the 1991-1994 coup. "We will let them tear themselves apart while we stand by watching."
In the course of an Oct. 16 press conference given by the Convergence, Sauveur Pierre-Etienne of the Organization of Struggling People (OPL) said that he considered the coup reports as nothing but theatre. He even portrayed the coup targets as the aggressors. "In fact, Aristide and Préval today are the real two putschists, no different at all from [general Raoul] Cédras and [colonel] Michel François," the leaders of the bloody 1991 coup.
What are the lessons to draw from this affair? The authorities should not commit the same errors as in September 1991, by calming the people while projecting a false picture of being in control of the situation. TNH revealed there was a meeting at an embassy. Which embassy? It spoke obliquely of arms-smuggling businessmen. Who are they? It is this transparency which will allow the Haitian people to foil such plots. The people must remain mobilized and be vigilant. The shadowy military and paramilitary forces which made the 1991 coup are today allied with former "Lavalas" democrats, former so-called communists, and the most reactionary sectors in the US, who are all opposed to the masses having any role in directing Haiti. This convergence of forces feels that the best way to crush Haiti’s progressive nationalist movement is to prevent the return to power of Aristide.
It is clear: the opposition,
with no popular support, has little to gain from negotiations and has always
made clear its preference for the "zero option," that is the removal of
Préval before the end of his term on Feb. 7, 2001 and the scrapping
of last summer’s parliamentary and municipal elections. This is surely
the ultimate goal of would-be putschists, who according to other reports,
had planned to execute some Lavalas leaders, put others on trial, and then
form a government of "national salvation."
