On Jul. 24, six students at the State University of Haiti (UEH) undertook a hunger strike in the school’s administration building. As members of the Inter School Commission (CIF), a student group aligned with the Lavalas Family party (FL) of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the strikers were demanding that the school’s president, Pierre-Mary Paquiot, step down and not pose his candidacy for the post again.
"We will continue our strike until Mr. Paquiot resigns, and then they form a council which will pass a law guaranteeing the autonomy of the University," declared one of the CIF hunger strikers.
The hunger strikers charged Paquiot with corruption and favoritism, saying that the deans of the university’s different schools were all his friends. "We are not against elections; we are against the way elections have been held," said Marjorie Michel, a student supporting the CIF strikers. "We have a problem with Pierre-Mary Paquiot in particular, and the problem we have is his management." She called for an audit by the Haitian general accounting office of the school’s administration.
But another student group, the Federation of University Students of Haiti (FEUH), denounced the CIF’s hunger strike saying that it was fomenting a "false crisis." In a Jul. 26 press release, the FEUH charged that the FL was working through the CIF to "completely fabricate all the tension at the university." The FEUH asserted that some students came with armed guards to disrupt exams at the School of Science on Jul. 26. "It was like the commando raids that [former dictator François] Duvalier used to organize in the 1960s," the FEUH note said.
Education Minister Myrtho Célestin Saurel visited the striking students last week. "I came to hear their demands and to see how I could do something to prevent the hunger strike from degenerating into something worse," she said. "I cannot cross my arms and do nothing. Thus, I will study the students’ demands, which are clear. I should consider these demands and meet with those responsible for the State University of Haiti." Later she announced that she would appoint a new commission to replace Paquiot and his team in the UEH administration.
The FEUH strongly denounced the CIF’s "request for the intervention of the executive to resolve a false crisis." It said the Education Minister was taking advantage of the situation "in order to meddle in university affairs" illegally. The 1987 Haitian Constitution prohibits Haitian government authorities from encroaching on the autonomy of the school. The FEUH called on all "students, professors, and intellectuals of all stripes" to mobilize "together to stop the totalitarian and fascist wave threatening the UEH."
On Jul. 29, FEUH students mobilized to protest that CIF students were taking money and getting support from the Lavalas government to carry out their hunger strike. Indeed, the strike did appear to be officially sanctioned. Government vehicles swarmed around the administration building and gave the strikers security. Before the strike ended on Jun. 30, at least one of the hunger weakened strikers had to be taken to the hospital.
Nonetheless, not all hunger strikes garner such official support. In June, employees of the state electric authority, EDH, held a hunger strike in the National Cathedral to denounce the corruption of then EDH director, Syldor Jean-François, and to call for his resignation. But their demands were not favorably received by the National Palace, and heavily armed CIMO riot police were ordered to penetrate the Cathedral’s sanctuary and forcibly removed the strikers. Clearly, all hunger strikes are not equal.
It also appears that the FL and its rival for political power, the U.S. Republican-backed Democratic Convergence opposition front (CD), were waging their on-going war through the student groups.
On the one hand, it was clear that Paquiot was feathering his own nest and that a new election had to be held. But the CIF went beyond this call by giving government authorities an opening to undermine the sovereign rights of the university, a move which could end up abetting FL sectors which would like to privatize the state school.
On the other hand, the FEUH was justified in denouncing the meddling of state authorities in the university’s sovereign affairs. But it was unacceptable for certain FEUH students to use certain CD leaders in the university to block the movement to renew the administration at the school.
Students should defend honest administration and real autonomy for the university, but not allow themselves to become pawns in the rivalry between the CD and FL, both of which long ago abandoned any progressive agenda.
Danny Glover Stands with Haitian Workers
by Noelle Théard
On July 27 in Miami Beach, FL, actor Danny Glover joined about 100 workers and activists demonstrating outside the parent company of the Mt. Sinai/St. Francis Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, where the largely Haitian workforce is trying to form a union.
The demonstrators were denouncing Mt. Sinai management’s union-busting tactics. Among other things, it wants to throw out the 49 to 37 vote last February in favor of the union, saying that union proponents used voudou to intimidate other workers into voting with them. The union branded the charge pure racism. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled in May that the Mt. Sinai complaint had no merit and that the Service Employees International Union 1199 Florida (SEIU) be certified as the collective bargaining representative of the employees.
The demonstration in which Glover took part was organized by the Miami SEIU chapter Unite for Dignity, Fanm Ayisyen nan Miyami, the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, and the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition. They denounced how Mt. Sinai’s management has continued to block the union despite the NLRB ruling.
Glover also visited TGK (Turner Gilford Knight), a maximum security detention center, where a score of women refugees from Haiti are being held. They were part of a larger group of refugees which landed in Florida December 3. The women were transferred from the infamous Krome Detention Center following charges that guards there were sexually harassing them. Glover lent his support to their struggle for fair and equal treatment, which Haitian refugees have historically been denied.
