Anger over hunger in Haiti bursts out

For the past few months poor Haitians have been calling the hunger that they feel every day “Clorox,” because it is so painful that it feels like they have drunk bleach.

Aba Satan (Down with Satan), a community group from Cité Soleil, a very poor community in Port-au-Prince, held a protest in front of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry April 1 to make the government understand the people need relief from high prices. Photo : Jean Ristil/Haiti Liberte

After weekly demonstrations in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere against rapidly rising prices of basic necessities and gasoline, the growing anger at these desperate circumstances spilled into the streets.

It began April 3, in Les Cayes, the third largest city in Haiti, about 125 miles south of Port-au-Prince. Five thousand people set up barricades of burning tires and wrecked cars, stopped at least two food trucks carrying rice, distributed the rice to the crowd and attacked a United Nations compound.

Sonia Jeanty, 32, told the Haiti Information Project during a telephone interview from Les Cayes: “We are hungry and have given up on the U.N. and the Préval government to help us. After all the money they have spent here, most of us are eating only one meal a day. It’s unacceptable, especially as we hear the U.N. trying to tell us every day on the radio that things have gotten better. It’s a lie!”

The U.N. and the U.S. have spent around $2 billion in Haiti in the past four years trying to stabilize the situation after the last coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. While the U.N. runs the show in Haiti, it’s the U.S., with the active cooperation of Canada and France, that calls the shots.

More people came out in Les Cayes April 4 and again attacked the U.N. compound. The U.N. soldiers, mostly from Uruguay, fired on protesters who tore down a wall and attacked two U.N. trucks. Four protesters were killed and 20 were injured, according to Sen. Gabriel Fortune, who represents the area in Haiti’s parliament.

Local television network Tele Caramel showed a dead person close to the U.N. base in Les Cayes. Schools, stores and banks remained closed in Les Cayes on both days.

Also on April 4, hundreds of people demonstrated against high prices and hunger in the northwestern port city of Gonaives. U.N. workers there were evacuated to a police base, although the protests in Gonaives remained mainly peaceable. Five people in Gonaives, according to the Haitian Press Agency, were injured by rocks when protesters demanded a school let its students out.

In Petit-Goave, a small city 45 miles south of Port-au-Prince, demonstrators closed schools, but the cops kept them from attacking public buildings. They were, however, able to beat up the mayor.

For the past few months a group called Aba Satan (which is Creole for “Down with Satan”) from Cité Soleil, has been holding demonstrations in front of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry demanding the government lower the price of gasoline and basic foodstuffs. The response of the government has been, “Haiti doesn’t produce petroleum; we can’t subsidize its price.”

Aba Satan told the ministry head, Magguy Durce, that she should lower the taxes on these items even if that would cause the World Bank to stop congratulating Haiti for its “remarkable results.”

As production in the world’s economy spirals down and price inflation spirals up, the big capitalists use all their powers to protect their investments by shifting the burden onto their working classes and onto countries like Haiti.

Haiti’s farmers were bankrupted by the free food coming from all the aid programs over the past 20 years. The pressure of the IMF and World Bank for Haiti to only make “profitable” investments has kept it from developing its tremendous agricultural potential.

Of the 420,000 tonnes of rice Haitians consume yearly, 340,000 tonnes are imported. Of the 31 million eggs the Haitian population eats monthly, 30 million are imported from the Dominican Republic. About 80 percent of farmers earn less than 135 dollars a year.

These types of protests have overthrown Haitian governments in the past. If President Préval and Prime Minister Alexis don’t do anything concrete—other than demanding respect for private property—they are going to face more serious mass protests.