Hungry Haitians try to storm Palace

A large crowd of protesters marched on Haiti’s Presidential Palace April 8 waving green branches and shouting, “We’re hungry! Feed us!” They pushed large metal trash bins to scale the walls.

Desperate crowd gathers in Port-au-Prince.

Guards managed to keep them from storming the palace until Minustah, the U.N. occupying army, arrived in armored personnel carriers and drove the protesters back from the walls with tear gas, rubber bullets and shots fired into the air.

Haitians are indeed hungry. According to the World Food Program, Haiti already has the world’s highest daily caloric deficit per person—460 calories a day less than the recommended 2,100.

Driven from the wall, the protesters retreated to the nearby Champ de Mars, which was the scene of numerous skirmishes during the day. Even though the U.N. forces could see people actively redistributing goods from stores in the neighborhood of the palace, they did not move to stop them, probably fearing the rebellion would only grow.

Jean-Jacques Augustin, a photographer for Le Matin, and Leblanc Macaenzy, a camera person for Channel 11 television, were struck by the U.N.’s rubber bullets during the skirmishes. Yves Joseph, a photographer/reporter for Haïtí-Progrès, got pellets in his leg and arm.

The protest in Port-au-Prince was not just at the Presidential Palace. Barricades of burning tires and trash were set up all over the city. There was no public transportation and banks, stores, schools and government offices were all closed. Port-au-Prince didn’t function normally for three days. While most of the protesters carried nothing more than clubs, there were reports of some weapons.

Three U.N. “peacekeepers” serving in Haiti were shot the next day in Martissant, a very poor neighborhood of the capital. Another U.N. anti-riot cop was killed April 12 near the cathedral in downtown Port-au-Prince.

The slogans in the food protest were simple: “Down with Préval!” (the president) “End the high cost of living!” and “End the U.N. occupation!” Many demonstrators carried pictures and images of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, deposed in 2004 in a coup inspired and financed by the United States.

Protests were also held throughout Haiti beginning April 7 and 8 in large cities like Cayes, Jacmel, Jeremie and Gonaïves. In Jeremie, the U.N. and local cops broke up the protest with tear gas. In the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, protesters tried to take food sitting in the warehouse of the U.N. World Food Program. Protesters also burned tires in Ouanaminthe, on the border with the Dominican Republic, and hundreds marched peacefully in the western port of St. Marc. There were also protests in smaller towns like Petit-Goâve, Miragoane, Aquin, Cavaillon, Saint-Jean du Sud, Léogâne, Vialet, Anse-à-Veau and Simon.

No organization took credit for these nearly simultaneous demonstrations and protests on a national level, but they showed coordination and consultation. The Platform of Organization of La Savane did call the large protests in Cayes, but it is not a national organization. Le Devoir, a French-language newspaper in Montreal known for its hostility to Cuba but support for the Quebec bourgeoisie, which has interests in Haiti, quoted Haitian sociologist Laenec Hurbon, who claimed Aristide’s Lavalas Movement was behind the protests and redistribution of food.

In a sudden move and in the absence of senators of his Lespwa (Hope) Party, the Haitian Senate voted on April 12 to censure Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis, which meant he could no longer continue in that post. After deaths and more than 100 injured in the protests over hunger imposed by the market oligarchs, some politician had to take the fall.

The Haiti Information Project points out: “The United Nations has blamed the recent upheaval in Haiti on rising world food prices while many in the country also point to the international body’s support of neoliberal economic policies that have favored the Caribbean nation’s small wealthy elite. Profits of wealthy Haitian families and clans who maintain a virtual monopoly on the importation of staples such as rice and beans have risen almost as dramatically as prices for basic goods.”

On April 13 President Préval held a press conference to announce that the three major rice importers had agreed to lower their prices $3 a sack and that he had found the international funding to provide another $7 a sack reduction. Even after this price cut goes into effect, however, the wholesale price of 10 pounds of rice in Haiti will be 60 cents more than the current retail price in New York City. But 80 percent of the people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day.

“The situation is difficult everywhere around the world. Everyone has to make a sacrifice,” Préval told a news conference.

“We are not going to lower taxes on food,” he added, using the excuse that the government would not have enough money to pay for longer-term projects to create jobs and boost agriculture.

Even the right-wing Radio Metropole had to point out on its Internet site that Préval didn’t say when this “price cut,” which is set to last only 30 days, will start.

Préval and the Haitian bourgeoisie, as well as the U.S., Canadian and French capitalists who pull their strings, can maneuver all they want. But until the Haitian people see real relief from “la vie chère” (the high cost of living), their anger is going to remain potentially explosive.