In a July 8 press communiqué, the High Council of the National Police (CSPN) issued an ultimatum to ex-"rebels" who control many towns and cities in northern Haiti.

Headed by de facto Prime Minister Gérard Latortue and his Interior minister, ex-general Hérard Abraham, the CSPN said it was "preoccupied by the overwhelming reports of actions by former soldiers and members of the [Resistance] Front," the small loose network of armed groups which did almost no fighting but provided the fearsome televised images of a pseudo-rebellion which justified U.S. Marines kidnapping and exiling President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29. "These people have established themselves as a force of order and have substituted themselves for the National Police (PNH) in the [departments of the] North, the Center and the Artibonite," the note continued. "These former soldiers and members of the Front illegally occupy PNH facilities and undertake patrols." As of Sept. 15, the police will, "with the help of the MINUSTAH [United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti], proceed with the disarmament of all people found with illegal arms, and these individuals will be prosecuted for having illegal arms as of that date," the CSPN concluded.

This is quite an about-face for Latortue, who last March hailed the Front's gunmen as "freedom fighters." Indeed, there has been close collaboration in recent months between the ex-soldiers, the remnants of the Haitian police, and the foreign occupation forces. In Hinche, on the Central Plateau, ex-soldiers have even been given posts by occupation authorities. In the northern city of Cap Haïtien, the Front has carried out the arrests, and even the trials and executions, of Lavalas "suspects."

Just this week, Col. Rodrigo Carrasco, commander of Chilean U.N. troops in northern Haiti, admitted that the former soldiers were illegally wearing uniforms and bearing arms. But U.N. troops are reluctant to make any moves against the former soldiers, even though they are supposed to seize illegal weapons. "Our role is to not use force unnecessarily," Carrasco told the AP, " and they are doing nothing bad."

But now, the U.S. wants to defang the unsavory "rebel" force it helped train and arm because it threatens to become a counter-power to the technocrat-puppets Washington has installed. Furthermore, the U.S. and France have more political affinity for Haiti's comprador bourgeoisie than for the neo-Duvalierist semi-feudal landed oligarchy, or Macoute sector, of which most Front gunmen are the armed expression.

In the "interim" coup government, the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) and many other state agencies, the occupation authorities have favored bourgeois representatives at the expense of the Macoutes. Disarmament of the former soldiers is the next logical step.

But the former soldiers are resisting. They say the government has no right to disarm them since they put it in power. Furthermore, they argue, the constitution was never amended to dissolve the Army, although Aristide did so by decree in 1995. They are more constitutional than the de facto government, they claim.

Joseph Jean-Baptiste, the ex-soldiers' representative in Hinche, called for a nationwide mobilization to resist the disarmament campaign. "The Feb. 29th regime must not forget that it inherited its power thanks to the armed struggle by a collection of sectors to overthrow President Aristide," he said. "There is no question of the demobilized soldiers laying down their arms to obey the hallucinations of a regime which has nothing to do with the Constitution. Now we are going to organize peaceful marches across the country to respond to the government and to MINUSTAH."

His comrade-in-arms ex-Capt. Rémicinthe Ravix added: "If they want to kill us in the framework of their disarmament campaign, they will have to kill us in our barracks [as the police stations were called before the Army's dissolution]. If they have dissolved the Constitution, they must clearly let us know it."

Ravix also guaranteed that the former soldiers are ready to provide "security" to the Haitian people, whom the ex-"rebels" have been blackmailing and terrorizing for the past five months.

Winter Etienne, the former resistance front leader in Gonaïves, was only slightly more nuanced. "They cannot ask the soldiers to lay down their weapons because they are Constitutionally recognized," he said. "There are other ways to encourage harmony between the government and these soldiers."

Another spokesman for the Macoute sector, former colonel Himmler Rébu, called the proposed disarmament "dangerous and unjust" when speaking in Hinche on July 10. "The time has come for the soldiers to join in and do what they know how to do, that is to assure the security of the nation," he said making a veiled call for the Army's restoration, which is what most former soldiers demand along with 10 years of back pay. "I think that it is an incorrect and dangerous attitude on the part of the government. It's in its interest to reflect. Because when these gentlemen were risking their lives to fight what wasn't right, the government wasn't even there." In a July 15 interview on Radio Solidarité, Rébu went on to call the disarmament campaign "unrealistic" and a "provocation."

Another Macoute spokesman, politician Reynold Georges of the right-wing party ALAH, severely criticized the bourgeoisie's "civil society" and the political parties calling for disarmament, belatedly invoking nationalism. "Instead of negotiating with Aristide, these people preferred to offer the nation to foreigners," he said. "So it's normal that today they want to disarm the former soldiers. Nevertheless, we say that the Haitian army still exists."

Bourgeois spokesmen, like the Democratic Convergence's Micha Gaillard, have tried to downplay the inter-ruling-class struggle. "For our part, at the level of civil society and political society, we are going to go along with disarmament," he said. "This is not a conflictual matter."

De facto Justice Minister Bernard Gousse also minimized the problem, saying the occupation authorities would use a mixture of persuasion, bribery and force. "We must convince them they are on the wrong path, offer jobs to some, retirement pensions to others, reintegrate them into the police ... or use force if we have to," he said.

But the former soldiers are sticking to their guns, with the support of neo-Duvalierist politicians. As talk of elections grows, Washington, Paris and the bourgeoisie want to make sure everything is "stabilized." The CEP this week announced that it will need at least $100 million to carry out elections in three stages. The Macoutes are crying hell.

Osner Févry asked two political parties to quit the CEP because it is not representative and "not credible." The Macoute sector sees that it has been pushed out so that the bourgeoisie and imperialism can control the election's outcome.

"The president and the prime minister with a bunch of foreigners in the international community would like to sell us this merchandise, saying it will be a good election," Févry said. "When the computers and millions of dollars start pouring in, when people start getting paid off, then you'll hear that there are elections because the U.N. foreigners did this, foreigners did that... But all of that is a mascarade."

Despite their squabbles, the ruling groups continue to collaborate in cracking down on the Haitian people, who overwhelmingly reject the Feb. 29th coup. For example, on July 9, the police swept through the capital's hillside slum of Belair and arrested ten young men, throwing them in jail without charges.

"They have treated us very badly," one of the prisoners told Haïti Progrès. "We are more than 30 people in a single cell, and we have to buy a bucket of water for 25 gourdes ($0.63) to bathe."

Despite such periodic roundups, pro-Lavalas neighborhoods continue to mount resistance. Most recently, hundreds of pro-Lavalas demonstrators marched through the streets of Port-au-Prince on July 15, President Aristide's 51st birthday, to demand his return. A conclave of Lavalas mayors, held clandestinely in July near the northern town of Milot, has called for a massive anti-coup demonstration in Cap Haïtien on August 14, the 213th anniversary of the Bois Caïman voodoo ceremony that initiated the Haitian revolution.