Controversy and confusion have reigned in the Lavalas Family party (FL) since Aug. 8, when three former FL parliamentarians registered the party for November elections being sponsored by Haiti’s coup government and the foreign occupation troops which back it (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 23, No. 22, 8/10/2005).

The enrollment made by former FL senators Louis Gérald Gilles and Yvon Feuillé along with former FL deputy Rudy Hériveau was widely denounced by spokespersons from Lavalas-affiliated popular organizations in Port-au-Prince’s shanty towns as well as by the party’s Miami-based Communications Commission, supposedly second only to exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the FL hierarchy.

“The Lavalas Family party denounces and condemns with all its might the conduct of Senators Feuillé and Gilles and of Deputy Hériveau, who have neither the authority nor the mandate to enroll the party in elections,” the Communications Commission said in an Aug. 9 statement. “This demagogic attempt to register the organization in the mascarade they are calling an election will not succeed.” The Commission said it would take “all necessary legal and disciplinary measures” against the three renegades.

But on Sep. 5, Gilles and Hériveaux made another “demagogic attempt” to rally support behind their electoral ambitions. Flanked by FL popular organization leaders from Cité Soleil, they threatened to not participate in elections unless the government of de facto Prime Minister Gérard Latortue released political prisoners, stopped repression and opened dialogue.

But without even waiting for the de facto government’s response to their demands - a rejection which came minutes later - Gilles and Hériveau announced that they would register imprisoned Catholic priest Father Gérard Jean-Juste as the Lavalas Family’s presidential candidate on Tuesday, Sep. 13.

“It looks like they are trying to get Jean-Juste killed in jail,” commented Lavarice Gaudin, a leader of Veye Yo, the popular organization which Jean-Juste founded in Miami almost two decades ago.

Jean-Juste has been imprisoned without charges since Jul. 21 (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 23, No. 20, 7/27/2005). He was severely beaten by a mob before his arrest but has received no medical attention. He has lost consciousness more than once in his hot, airless, cramped cell.

The maneuver by Gilles and Hériveau (Feuillé is reportedly at odds with them for the moment) is transparent. First, they postured behind an Aug. 31 statement made by Aristide from South Africa calling for Jean-Juste’s release.

“In Haiti, in order to have elections and not a ‘selection,’ the following steps must be taken,” Aristide wrote. “1. The thousands of Lavalas who are in jail and in exile must be free to return home.” This would naturally include President Aristide himself, whose physical return the party has always made a condition. “2. The repression that has already killed over 10,000 people must end immediately. 3. Then, there must be national dialogue. Fr. Jean Juste too has echoed this call for dialogue and peace. He must be freed. All the political prisoners must be freed,” Aristide said.

Gilles and Hériveau are trying to replace the central condition for the FL’s participation in the occupation elections - Aristide’s return to power - with a new one: release of the political prisoners.

But they are not even waiting for this condition to be met. “Before we have the liberation of all the political prisoners, the Lavalas Family asks all citizens to lose no time in going to get their electoral cards,” Hériveau said.

In contrast, the Aug. 9 Communications Commission asked “the people and party members to not go stand in line for baloney electoral cards.” To date, far less than half Haiti’s eligible voters have registered, even according to the de facto Provisional Electoral Council or CEP’s inflated figures.

Release of the political prisoners is also the concession that U.S. and U.N. authorities are pushing for. In the past month, Juan Valdes, head of the U.N. Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH) and James Foley, the recently departed U.S. Ambassador, both called for the release of prominent political prisoners like former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune. Even Haiti’s new de facto Justice Minister Henri Dorléan has echoed this call.

Secondly, Gilles and Hériveau are trying to recuperate the Lavalas popular organizations based in shanty towns like Cité Soleil and Belair. Two weeks ago, Belair popular leader Sanba Boukman issued five conditions for FL participation in elections: the liberation of all political prisoners, return and general amnesty for political exiles, disarmament of all illegally armed groups, resignation of the de facto government, and the formation of an undefined “government of national unity.” Sanba Boukman also said that if the FL were to have a presidential candidate, it should be Jean-Juste.

Although they did not call for the de facto government’s removal or disarmament, Gilles and Hériveau claimed that Sanba Boukman supports them. He was not present at their press conference however. At the table were former deputy Levy Joseph, former Aristide chief of staff Dr. Jean-Claude Desgranges, former Aristide counselor Dismay César, and occasional unofficial FL spokesman Father Yvon Massac.

But the two principal people that Gilles and Hériveau wanted to highlight at the press conference were John Joel Joseph and René Monplaisir, leaders of radical and combative popular organizations in Cité Soleil. In this way, the FL renegades sought to give the impression that they have the support of the party’s head and base, which they don’t.

Latortue quickly dismissed the demands of the press conference, saying that his government had no say in the release of the political prisoners because “justice is independent” and that he would accept no conditions for electoral participation “if they did not fall within the framework of the law.” Nonetheless, rumors persist that a deal for the release of some prominent political prisoners is in the offing.

Meanwhile, on Aug. 30, the National Popular Party (PPN) reiterated its rejection of any elections until the Feb. 29, 2004 coup, in which U.S. soldiers kidnapped Aristide from his home, was reversed and the foreign military occupation of Haiti ended.

“The PPN notes that certain unprincipled leaders at the head of the Lavalas Family cannot lead the people to final victory because they have betrayed the [democratic nationalist] ideals of Dec. 16, 1990,” the date of Aristide’s first election, said the PPN’s Georges Honorat. “These disguised leaders only know how to corrupt the leaders of popular organizations by offering them money and visas to sow division among the masses... These leaders only want to get jobs as senators, deputies and ministers so they can continue to fool the masses... Today, the PPN notes that these opportunist Lavalas leaders have pushed certain popular organizations to publish notes saying they are ready to participate in elections if the political prisoners are released... The PPN calls on the popular organizations concerned to get a grip so that they don’t regret it when they would be massacred on the alter of the selection/elections. The PPN calls on the masses to be vigilant and avoid falling into this trap.”

The PPN closed by repeating that “we will not participate in the selection/elections so as not to legitimize the Feb. 29 coup d’état and the occupation of the land of [founding father Jean-Jacques] Dessalines, of [revolutionary war hero] Capois-la-Mort, and of Charlemagne Péralte,” who led a guerrilla resistance to the first U.S. occupation of Haiti.

Last week, the CEP changed the electoral schedule, as it has done repeatedly, to give Haiti’s recalcitrant population more time to register. The first round of presidential and legislative elections are now pushed back from Nov. 6 to Nov. 20, and run-offs from Dec. 11 to Jan. 3.

Note
Due to space limitations, we have again postponed until next week the continuation of the article, The Haitian Revolution Revisited: Selections from “Avengers of the New World”.