TITLE: Aristide About-Face Rends His Followers and Allies

AUTHOR:

PUB: Haïti Progrès

DATE: April 20, 2001

Anger and defiance has begun to erupt from several quarters of the Lavalas movement in the wake of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's 180 degree political pivot shortly after his Feb. 7 inauguration. In press conferences, radio programs, and street demonstrations, former Aristide allies and even members of his own party, the Lavalas Family (FL), have begun to denounce the new government's rightward swing as a "betrayal" of the democratic, nationalist ideals formulated a decade ago when the Lavalas movement was born. The trouble began last month when Aristide's Prime Minister Jean-Marie Chérestal packed his cabinet with former officials and collaborators of the Duvalier dictatorship (1957-1986) and the most recent military coup d'état (1991-1994) The nine-member Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) was also pressured to resign and a new one was appointed, again filled with Duvalierists. Haïti Progrès then revealed that Commerce Minister Stanley Théard had been indicted in 1986 for milking the Haitian treasury of millions of dollars under Duvalier, but the government has taken no action nor made any comment. Théard remains smugly in his post. Now, around the country, protest is percolating up from the people who fought and sacrificed to bring Aristide back to power. "Lavalas Family members marched through the streets of Jacmel [on Apr. 9] to make known their frustrations and the problems they have with many of the political directions that the Lavalas is taking these days," said FL Senator Pierre Prince Sonson. The demonstrators denounced, among other things, that popular organizations and the masses in general have been marginalized while former Macoutes (as Duvalierist henchmen were called) and bourgeois kingpins are leading figures in the government. Sen. Sonson has also been a dissenter, not reluctant to challenge some of his parliamentarian and party colleagues. For instance, he denounced a move by the parliament last month to make Sen. Dany Toussaint immune from appearing before a judge investigating the murder of radio journalist Jean Dominique. As a result, Sonson has been vilified as a foreign agent and traitor by some party members. On the night of Apr. 13, his home was stoned and fired at with automatic weapons. "I defy anyone to challenge my commitment to the true Lavalas, to the ideals of Dec. 16, 1990," Sen. Sonson said, referring the date when Aristide was first elected president on a platform of justice, transparency, and participation. "I will continue to work in the Senate to find justice for the people and to chase out the drug-dealers and the corrupted." On Apr. 10, several dozen pro-Lavalas demonstrators rallied in front of the National Palace to denounce Duclos Bénissoit, a director of the Lavalas-affiliated Service Plus bus line, for corruption and to demand his removal. He, too, remains in his post. Meanwhile, Kozepèp, a pro-Lavalas Artibonite Valley-based peasant organization, revealed this week that it is once again the target of threats from "a sector of the Lavalas." Kozepèp leaders had previously been intimidated by Lavalas sectors last September when they sought to organize a political meeting in Mirogoâne and just weeks ago when they were mobilizing for the Apr. 3 anniversary of Dominique's death. Kozepèp leader Charles Suffrard said that certain FL leaders were conducting themselves as Duvalierists once did, with brutality and arrogance. "When a guy does whatever he wants, perhaps a crime, corruption, or even theft, one feels afraid to ask him what is going on," Suffrard said. Some of the sharpest criticism has come from the National Popular Party (PPN), which had been a close FL ally in the struggles leading up to Aristide's inauguration. In an Apr. 2 press conference, PPN secretary general Ben Dupuy charged the FL with "betrayal of the ideals of Dec. 16, 1990." Transparency? Dupuy asked. "We see a number of people in the government now... who came to power without a penny and today they have lots of capital, huge palaces, and big institutions," Dupuy said. "Nobody knows where that money came from and they have never abided by the Constitutional requirements" of filing a financial disclosure statement on entering and leaving office. Participation? "If there is participation, it is only for the Macoutes and bourgeois whom they used to qualify as 'pocket patriots'," Dupuy said. Justice? "Until now, we see that the justice system is blocked," Dupuy said. From the Duvalier years, the post-Duvalier dictatorships, the coup, and recent times, Dupuy pointed out that there are still no results in the prosecution of political crimes, like the assassinations of Jean Dominique, Antoine Izméry, Jean-Marie Vincent, and Father Jean Pierre Louis. Furthermore, no action has been taken to prosecute those accused in the Truth and Justice Commission report of coup crimes, which was hand-delivered to Aristide on Feb. 5, 1996, Dupuy remarked. Meanwhile, economic crimes, like the Théard's corruption scandal, are also being swept under the rug. Dupuy referred to a thick dossier which he secured in 1987 detailing how Jean-Claude Duvalier and his clique embezzled over $510 million from public coffers. "In 1987, I personally gave this documentation to Aristide who in turn gave it to then Justice Minister [Vincent] Bayard," Dupuy said. "Since that time, zilch has happened." Those who plundered state funds are not being prosecuted, they are being rewarded with government posts, he said. On top of all this, the PPN and a number of other groups have remarked that, with former World Bank economist, Duvalierist Finance minister, and putschist prime minister Marc Bazin as Planning Minister today, the Aristide/Chérestal government has embraced Washington's long-prescribed "structural adjustment" policies. "It is the complete application of the neoliberal plan," Dupuy said, "what they used to call 'the death plan,' 'the American plan,' and which the Lavalas swore that it was never going to apply." This week the Aristide government was seen skipping ever more merrily toward the neoliberal rainbow as it expressed delight to be participating in the "Summit of the Americas" being held in Quebec City on Apr. 20, where thousands of anti-neoliberal demonstrators are expected to protest. Aristide also requested that the United Nations restation its political overseers in Haiti, a mission which ended on Feb. 6. Meanwhile, Aristide has received at the National Palace figures like Duvalierist ideologue and broadcaster Serge Beaulieu, who was jailed for involvement in the Jan. 6, 1991 coup, which sought to thwart Aristide's first inauguration, who was freed during the Sept. 30 coup, and who threatened Jean Dominique's life on the airwaves not long before his murder. Despite his ever accelerating capitulation and reversal, Aristide has still tried to summon some magic from his bag of tricks. On Apr. 10, the President and First Lady received a few hundred poor people for lunch at the Palace, a lame replay of the Feb. 9, 1991 "breakfast for the poor." The invitees each received a small gift and an envelope containing 1000 gourdes (about US$40) from the President and his ministers. "I don't want misery to make you lose hope," Aristide declared. It was a symbolic event, one might say. But also symbolic and significant was the number of poor who were not chosen at the gate to partake in the feast and who had to be dispersed by police. This event alone demonstrates the limitations of this sort of stagnant populism, which has to resort to Haiti's age-old device, paternalism. Most ironic of all is that, while 1000 gourdes might give someone hope for a few days, what would really help the poor to survive is more schools, hospitals, water pumps, and jobs, all of which are now being prepared for sacrifice on the altar of neoliberalism. END top