BY ROLLANDE GIRARD AND ERIC SIMPSON
A severe governmental crisis marks Haiti today. Haitian
president René Préval announced January 11 that according
to the electoral law of 1995 under which it was elected, the
parliament's term had expired and it was therefore dissolved.
In a television address after a day of protests, Préval
stated that he had assumed "full power." He is calling for an
election in the next months.
The parliament, a plurality of whose members are from the Organization of People in Struggle (OPL), had rejected each of Préval's nominees for prime minister in the 19 months since OPL member Rosny Smarth resigned from that position in June of 1997. The OPL, which is hostile to former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has demanded ministerial posts as a precondition for approving any candidate as prime minister. Préval's latest appointment, Jacques Edouard Alexis, who is the minister of education, has yet to announce his cabinet.
Préval served as prime minister under Aristide who was elected president by an overwhelming majority in the 1990 vote, in which 95 percent of the electorate participated. Aristide was overthrown 10 months later in a military coup, during which thousands of Haitians died. He was reinstalled in 1994 by a UN occupation army of 20,000 troops dominated by Washington, after ongoing protests in Haiti and the United States against the coup.
In a U.S.-imposed deal with the coup leaders, Aristide only served as president until 1995, when Préval was elected for a five-year term. Those elections, held under conditions of foreign occupation, had only a 30 percent participation. Aristide is reported to plan to run for president in 2000, when Préval's term expires. Several hundred U.S. soldiers remain in Haiti today.
Throughout the day of January 11, demonstrators gathered outside the parliament building to support the dissolution of the parliament. At the same time members of the dissolved parliament were meeting inside under police protection. Some of the demonstrators burned tires while an antiriot unit of the national police threw tear gas at them and fired shots in the air. These protests and others reportedly paralyzed Port- au-Prince, Gonaives and Saint Louis du Sud.
Tony Jeanthenor, a leader of the Miami Haitian rights group Veye-Yo, expressed the view held by many Haitians here when he said, "The Haitian people support Préval's move because the parliament is no good."
In his television address January 11, Préval appealed for calm. "Neither demonstrations nor the closing down of city halls will solve the problem," Préval said, calling instead for a national dialogue.
But protest actions by popular organizations close to the Lavalas movement, which is associated with Aristide, have continued around the country, demanding that city governments whose terms of office have expired vacate their posts. Demonstrators closed down and looted the mayor's office in Petit-Goave January 14, detaining the mayor and charging his administration with waste and corruption. Late the day before, flaming barricades were seen outside city-halls in Petit-Goave and throughout the country. Demonstrators closed down the southern entrance to the city of Saint-Marc January 19 demanding the city council give up their posts.
On January 12, gunmen attacked a government vehicle, killing the driver Jean Franklin Versailles and wounding Marie-Claude Préval-Calvin, the sister and private secretary of Préval. This attack is widely interpreted as a response to the president's actions against the legislature. Préval- Calvin was flown to Havana a few days later to receive further medical care.
The Miami Herald used the attack as a pretext to call for U.S. intervention. A January 14 editorial stated, "The attack ... is the most visible sign of Haiti's slow slide into the netherworld of political chaos. It should be a signal to the impeachment-preoccupied U.S. government and its United Nations allies that more forceful, direct steps are needed if Haiti is to regain its tenuous grasp on democratic governance."
The U.S. State Department is calling for quick elections for a new parliament.
Prior to Préval's action, the chairmen of the U.S. House of Representatives committees on Intelligence and International Relations sent a letter to U.S. president Clinton saying, "We understand that Haiti's president, René Préval, is considering dissolving parliament and ruling by decree. We should vigorously oppose U.S. government funding of the Haitian government at any level or for any activity."
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80 percent of the workforce unemployed or underemployed and a $225 annual per capita income.
With the new prime minister in place, Préval is planning to go ahead faster now with the sell-off of the nine state- owned enterprises of Haiti. Privatization has been hampered by the lack of functioning of the government. Working people in Haiti oppose Préval's privatization program and the layoffs that come with it. Préval is also widely distrusted among Haitians, in particular for his callous remarks when a ferry sunk in September of 1997, killing some 300 people.
As the economic and social crisis continues to deepen Préval has tried to distance himself from imperialism's demand for austerity measures and debt repayment.
In recent months, relations between Haiti and Cuba have been strengthened. The Cuban government sent hundreds of doctors to Haiti following the devastation and deaths caused by Hurricane Georges. At least three volunteer teams of Cuban medical workers and doctors are working with their Haitian counterparts in the capital as well as in the countryside. Préval also visited Cuba in December with a 60 person delegation. In a speech January 1 celebrating the 195th anniversary of Haiti's independence, he called for cancelling the country's foreign debt.
Eric Simpson is a member of Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. Rollande Girard is a member of the International Association of Machinists.