BY MEGAN ARNEY
For nearly a week, protesters burned tires in the street, blocked intersections, and threw stones in cities across Haiti protesting government austerity plans. The measures, which include cuts in civil service jobs and the privatization of many state-owned companies, are being demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a precondition for Haiti to secure financial "aid" and loans.

Protesters are calling for Prime Minister Rosny Smarth to resign and for President René Préval to suspend negotiations with the IMF and other imperialist financial institutions. Police attacked the demonstrators, arresting several activists and killing one person on January 16, the Associated Press reported. One man lost a hand the day before when a tear gas bomb fired by police exploded.

Haitian workers walked off the job January 16, closing shops and schools and suspending bus service. The strike, the largest in a series of labor actions, was called by the Anti-International Monetary Fund Committee to protest the austerity measures.

On January 10 teachers struck demanding better training and back wages. It is their second walkout in the month, with 90 percent of teachers participating. Not only have some teachers not been paid for almost a year, but the Haitian education system is seriously lacking in material supplies. There are classrooms without enough benches, blackboards, and even doors. Class sizes reach as high as 150 students. More than half of children ages 6-12 cannot read.

The portion of the national budget allocated for education went from 24 percent in 1994-95 to 18 percent last year. The still unapproved budget for the 1996-97 school year would drop education spending to just 12 percent.

More than 160 organizations joined the January 16 strike. Streets in the three main cities - Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haitien, and Gonaives - were reported practically empty as workers stayed home. Radio Haiti-Inter affirmed that the strike was respected in most towns. The government tried to send buses to carry people across picket lines, but the attempt was met by what AP described as "stone-throwing strikers" in the Cité Soleil, a working-class district of Port-au-Prince, the country's capital.

"The strike was a total success," Yves Sanon, a strike organizer, told AP. "The population has rejected the government and its economic policy."

That economic policy is being pushed by President Préval and Prime Minister Smarth. In order for the Haitian government to receive any loans, the IMF and other lending institutions insist on "reforms." International capital accounts for more than 60 percent of Haiti's budget. The "reforms" include slashing the jobs of up to 7,500 public workers - nearly 21 percent of the total - at a time when 70 percent of workers in Haiti are unemployed or underemployed.

Government officials in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, also say they will move to sell off several state owned enterprises. These include the electricity and telephone companies, the port and airport, a cement plant, flour mill, two banks and a vegetable oil plant. In return, they hope to win approval for $1.2 billion in "aid" from international banks. Préval defended the government's austerity measures, saying, "We are far from the results we want.... We understand the dissatisfaction of the people. But there is a time to sow and a time to harvest."

Under pressure from the demonstrations, Préval has said the government will seek to "modernize" the state-owned companies by selling them as joint ventures, instead of selling them outright.

Axel Porker, a representative of the World Bank, told Radio Signal F.M., "I don't think that our mission [in Haiti] will be disturbed," by the strikes.

Haiti's main industries include coffee, sugar, bananas, cocoa, and tobacco. In 1991, U.S. companies led in imports to the Caribbean island, with 64 percent of the market or $103 million, and bought 84 percent of Haitian exports. The only railroad in Haiti is owned by the Haitian American Sugar Company.

Préval succeeded former president Jean-Bertand Aristide, who was elected in 1990 following a decades-long struggle by workers and farmers to oust the reign of a series of U.S.-backed military regimes. In early 1991, a military coup ousted Aristide. After three years in exile in the United States, Aristide was reinstated as president in 1994 after U.S. troops invaded and occupied Haiti.

Last June, after a request from Préval, the United Nations Security Council voted to extend the presence of the occupation force until November 1996. In March of last year, UN troops replaced the 20,000-member U.S. intervention force in coordinating the occupation. Canadian officials now head up the 1,300-strong force. Washington continues to keep some 250 troops in Haiti.

Aristide was not allowed by the constitution to serve a second term. He backed Préval for president in 1995 elections. Since then, however, Aristide and Préval have differed tactically on how to implement the IMF austerity measures. Both men belong to the ruling Lavalas coalition, but recently Aristide announced he would form a new political group within the coalition. The group will be used to influence Lavalas "when politically appropriate," said Aristide, who remains popular among many workers and farmers in Haiti.  
 
 
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