This week in Haiti
May Day in Haiti:
Peasants and Workers March
On International Workers Day, about five hundred peasants marched through the rice-producing Artibonite Valley to demand that the Haitian government undertake a true agrarian reform, provide peasants with irrigation and fertilizer, prosecute those implicated in several peasant massacres, and sweep Duvalierists and putschists out of the cabinet and other high posts.
The spirited march from the town of Pont Sondé to the state-run Organization for the Development of the Artibonite Valley (ODVA) was organized by about a dozen Artibonite-based popular organizations affiliated with the National Popular Party (PPN).
"The PPN calls on Haitian peasants and workers everywhere, above all in the Artibonite Valley, to light the flame of resistance and mobilization against the [neoliberal] death plan which would tie Haiti to the leg of the table of some big foreign countries," declared PPN leader Jules André in a speech to the demonstrators. "The meeting of bigshots in Quebec, Canada last week is a big scheme of the U.S. to continue to dominate all the people of the continent and to continue to use all kinds of threats and pressure against countries which resist following the formula of their death plan."
The PPN also organized a May 1 march in Cap Haïtien from Morne Rouge to Bwa Kayiman, the site of the 1791 slave voudou ceremony which sparked the Haitian revolution. The party also arranged Mayday meetings in other towns around Haiti, where films were shown and debates held.
Meanwhile in the capital, the Organization of Revolutionary Workers (OTR) together with the Union of International Communists (UCI) led a march of several dozen assembly factory workers to demand a minimum monthly wage of 2000 gourdes (about US$77). About two hundred workers marched through downtown Port-au-Prince in response to the call of Haiti' traditional unions - including the Confederation of Haitian Workers (CTH), the Autonomous Confederation of Haitian Workers (CATH), and the Federation of Unionized Workers (FOS) - in what organizer' called "a social not a political march."
To protest the country's lack of electricity, another union, FOSREF, distributed large black boxes, painted with the slogan "Down with Blackouts," around the city and in front of National Palace.
Meanwhile, former employees and drivers from the Service Plus bus line took to the streets on May 1 to denounce corruption in that company.
The Haitian government organized an "Agricultural Fair" from April 28 to May 1 on the Champs de Mars, Port-au-Prince's main square. The fair displayed and promoted the different products of Haitian agriculture. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide traveled to Jacmel on May Day, where he extolled that city's artisanal industry.
Despite Declarations, Negotiations Still Going Nowhere
In the days leading up to the arrival of a new delegation of international "mediators," the Lavalas Family party (FL) of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the opposition coalition, Democratic Convergence (CD), postured and parried, each taxing the other as obstructionist.
Infighting also broke out this week between government ministries, while the homogeneous Parliament has all but ceased to function, hobbled by inertia and turf wars.
Washington and Ottawa used the Apr. 20-22 "Summit of the Americas" to step up pressure on Aristide by sending a new team of diplomats from the Organization of American States (OAS) and CARICOM to broker a deal between the FL and the CD. The opposition front, with foreign backing, continues to challenge the legitimacy of elections last year which brought Aristide and his party to power (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 6, 4/25/01).
Early last week, the CD sent a letter to the FL inviting Aristide to meet with them on Apr. 27 at the El Rancho Hotel in Pétionville. At the last minute, the FL agreed to send Sen. Yvon Neptune, their highest ranking spokesman. But this gesture outraged the CD, which claimed that it would only meet with Aristide.
Then Aristide invited the CD to come meet with him at the National Palace on May 3, an invitation which some CD leaders refused, saying that the negotiations had to be at a "neutral" location. The FL claims that other "opposition leaders" have accepted the invitation. But mostly, both sides are saying that the other is dealing in "bad faith." The mediating diplomats, led by the OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria, were due to arrive in Haiti this week.
Despite the apparent stalemate, a settlement is likely sometime soon. Politically, the FL and the CD increasingly resemble each other, having no strategic differences. Both have integrated Duvalierists and putschists into their ranks, and both argue that Haiti must adhere to the neoliberal policies prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
Ironically both the FL and several CD parties issue from the 1990 Lavalas movement, which had as principles the notion that "makout pa ladann" (Macoutes are excluded) and that Haiti should pursue a nationalist alternative development. The FL's abandonment of this program has generated great dismay among popular organizations and progressive parties like the National Popular Party (PPN).
Last week also saw more signs of inter-Lavalas feuding when Interior Minister Henri Claude Ménard protested the arrest of Dongo Joseph, the mayor of the Central Plateau city of Hinche, by police acting on the orders of Justice Minister Gary Lissade. Human rights groups have accused Dongo Joseph of involvement in intimidation and violence against political opponents, most recently when he allegedly attacked a local justice of the peace in March. Ménard dispatched a special commission composed of Territorial Collectivities director Harry Voltaire, Pétionville mayor Sully Guerrier, and lawyers Richard Désulmé and Jackson Pujeot to Hinche to "investigate" the arrest. After the Commission's arrival and eight days in jail, Dongo Joseph was released on Apr. 26. The unprecedented inter-ministerial tiff has raised questions of how much control Prime Minister Jean Marie Chérestal exerts over his cabinet.
Meanwhile, in the town of Gressier, just south of Port-au-Prince, mayors Anile Jean François and Jude Celestin accused the third mayor of their "cartel", Jacques Bertho Pierre, of selling state land without their knowledge or authorization. Similar wars within other mayoral offices are happening around Haiti. It is nothing new but was not expected in almost exclusively FL local governments.
The Parliament is also almost purely FL, but it too is crippled. As in previous parliaments, lawmakers simply are not showing up to do their job. Lacking a quorum, the Senate has not been able to hold session for two weeks. "It is clear that there is no Senate," Senate head Yvon Neptune said on Apr. 26. "But then again, any action that needs to be taken against a senator, it is the assembled Senate which must take it." In other words, they're all absent, but there is nothing I can do about it, and they're not going to punish each other.
Amid growing disenchantment with the FL's direction, a new party emerged last week. The Socialist Identity and Liberty Collective (CSIL) was formed by such political figures as economist Camille Chalmers, former Agriculture minister Gérald Mathurin, and Magalie Marcelin of the women's group "Kay Fanm." "We don't see our interests being defended in the debates on today's political scene," said CSIL spokesman Jean Claude Cherubin. "We feel there is the necessity for another type of language on the political scene."
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