With Prime Minister Out, 
Hot-Seat Has Few Takers
Prime Ministers generally haven't remained in office very long during the tumultuous past decade in Haiti. Since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was first inaugurated on Feb. 7, 1991 (marking the first democratic regime's entrance after the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship five years earlier), the country has seen nine premiers -- including the two puppets installed by the Haitian army during the 1991-1994 coup d'état -- and two years without any prime minister at all.

Jean-Marie Chérestal is the latest PM to bite the dust. He formally resigned on Jan. 21 after a mere 11 months in office. He is now care-taking until Aristide nominates a replacement.

One might have expected Chérestal to last longer than his predecessors. He had no problem being ratified, since Aristide's Lavalas Family party (FL), to which he belongs, dominated the Parliament. But quickly things began to sour. Three of Chérestal's key ministers -- Planning, Commerce, and Justice -- were former collaborators of the Duvalier dictatorship and/or the coup (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 18, No. 51, 3/7/2001). The government immediately took a neo-liberal tack, disregarding the FL's previous posturing. 

Justice, another FL promise, stagnated, particularly progress on the litmus-test murder investigation of radio journalist Jean Dominique and his caretaker Jean-Claude Louissaint (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 48, 2/13/2002). Examining judge Claudy Gassant found that his logistical support and security dried up, while threats and hostility from certain FL legislators grew.

On top of everything, a culture of nonchalant corruption spread like mold through the ministries and municipal offices of the government, fueling deep resentment and frustration in the Haitian people who had put the FL in office to uproot such legacies of the Duvalier years. Wars broke out among mayors and ministers, fought mostly through accusations graffitied on walls, leaked to radios, or trumpeted on the Parliament floor. The most spectacular battle was that between Chérestal and his Interior Minister, Henri Claude Ménard, an Aristide confidant. Ménard and his FL allies struck the mortal blow when they revealed that Chérestal had bought a home for $1.7 million last fall. The precise details of the purchase remain unclear (Chérestal argued that the house was obtained as an official Prime Minister's residence), but Haiti's hungry masses were outraged that such extravagant real-estate deals were being made while they are experiencing growing hunger due to the economic melt-down brought on by a de facto foreign aid embargo on the country.

The flames of popular anger were also licking at Aristide's previously unsinged ankles, another reason why he had to cut loose Chérestal, who was a close advisor prior to assuming his post. Aristide, who was the architect of his PM's policies, never openly criticized Chérestal; his modus operandi has always been to have others do his dirty work while he remains above the fray. According to some sources within his party, Aristide approved of, and even inspired, the final campaigns to force his PM's resignation. Ditching Chérestal and reshuffling the cabinet will buy Aristide some time as he maneuvers against a relentless destabilization campaign orchestrated by Washington.

Now the problem is: who will take Chérestal's place? Even for the most power-hungry opportunist, taking the job must give pause. This week alone, Cité Soleil, the capital's giant slum, was being wracked by fierce gun-battles between rival gangs, forcing hundreds of residents to flee; a deputy from Gonaïves, Marc André Durogène, was shot to death on a Port-au-Prince street by two bandits; a pro-FL television personality was dragged off a bus and severely beaten by an anti-FL gang of seven men; a policeman, chasing a thief through a crowded market in the capital, fired wildly, killing a 21-year-old woman, Sherline Coriolan, and wounding a pregnant woman and a child; in St. Marc, a supposedly pro-FL popular organization trashed the national social security office, apparently an attempt to pressure jobs from any new administration. Meanwhile, the government is massively deficit-spending, progressive political allies are recoiling, and popular impatience is boiling.

Presidential spokesman Jacques Maurice said this week that "the president's desire is to have a government which is very, very broad, broader, much broader than the government before." Deciphered this means that, rather than turning back to the democratic-nationalist positions he once espoused, Aristide wants to include even more Duvalierists and reactionaries in his new government than there were in the last. Maurice claimed that there are "informal meetings underway now" with the Democratic Convergence (CD), the Washington-backed opposition front of 15 or so miniscule parties."We cannot reveal any names yet," Maurice said. "We cannot yet give a final report on the consultations" since they are supposedly on-going.

But Washington and the CD are unlikely to allow Aristide out of the economic and political cul de sac he has entered and is now desperately trying to escape. The U.S. has vetoed the release of about $500 million in foreign aid -- on which Haiti is paying interest and Aristide made rosy campaign promises -- until there is a political deal struck with its CD minions over the FL's sweep of municipal, parliamentary, and presidential elections in 2000. "We are terribly concerned about the political unrest that continues to haunt Haiti," said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to a CARICOM meeting in Nassau, Bahamas on Feb. 7 after the body called on Washington to lift its aid blockage. "We are concerned about some of the actions of the government, and we do not believe enough has been done yet to move the political process forward. We believe we have to hold President Aristide and the Haitian government to fairly high standards of performance before we can simply allow funds to flow into the country."

Although Aristide has made met many (if not all) of the demands originally made by the CD and Washington in the fall of 2000, the bar keeps rising... since the real purpose of the demands is to overturn Aristide, not compromise with him. No matter how much Aristide concedes, Washington officials, especially the Republicans, do not trust him, nor do the CD reactionaries. They also feel victory "by other means" may be close at hand. An armed band of about 30 men sympathetic to the CD took over the National Palace for several hours and came close to assassinating Aristide on Dec. 17 (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 40, 12/19/2001).

Last week, the police arrested 14 people alledgedly involved in kidnappings, which have plagued Haiti in the past two months. Eight of the detainees were mostly low-level members of a CD component party, KID. As it has repeatedly over the past year, the CD is using these arrests as an excuse to not negotiate, while pointing a finger at Aristide. "This is part of the strategy of Mr. Jean Bertrand Aristide to weaken the opposition and to create a situation which renders impossible the pursuit of negotiations aimed at arriving at a compromise on the basis of a political agreement," said Paul Denis, a CD leader.

The intransigence of Washington and the CD is all part of the low-intensity war being waged against Haiti on many fronts, from cutting off aid in Washington's carpeted board rooms to supplying ammunition to rival gangs in Haitian shantytowns. Aristide, having once miscalculated his political leeway with Bush at the helm of the superpower, is now miscalculating again. He may be looking for ways to jettison his whole party, so that he can continue as President in a Convergence-run Haiti. Already, Sen. Dany Toussaint proposed last month that all the Senators and Deputies elected in May 2000 resign en masse, rather than hold new elections in November of this year as planned.

Could such a proposal have been coming from Aristide? Could there have been whisperings of this proposal when the Senators met with Aristide at the National Palace on Feb. 15? Ben Dupuy, secretary general of the National Popular Party (PPN), prophesied months ago that only one thing is sure with Aristide: "Other than the presidency, everything else is negotiable."