U.S. funding raises coup danger
By G. Dunkel
Political tensions in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's
capital, have moved from the stage of agitation and marches to
rock-throwing skirmishes, with a few shots exchanged.
The escalation began on Dec. 11 when a crowd of young
people, including a number of better-off students armed with
batons and rocks, marched on the Presidential Palace. One death
was reported.
Some 19 people have died since September in Gonaïves, a
major city in the north, in political struggles between
supporters and opponents of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
who was elected by the poor of Haiti.
Because Aristide has dissolved the Haitian army, which
deposed him from 1991 to 1994, coups are not the sure thing
they once were. The so-called Democratic Convergence, which
morphed into the Group of 184 this fall, has been trying to
pull one off for the past two years, with the full financial
backing of the U.S. government.
Agence France Press reported Dec. 14 that Aristide
supporters had seized one, perhaps more, of the Haitian
National Police's weapons depots, and were distributing arms in
poor neighborhoods in the northern districts of the
capital.
La Presse, a French-language newspaper in Montreal, reported
Dec. 15 that Nahum Marcellus, a deputy in Aristide's Fanmi
Lavalas party, had issued a statement calling for armed
struggle against those who want to force Aristide's departure.
It was heard on Radio Africa, which covers the northern part of
the country.
"Jean-Bertrand Aristide will not take a step. Take out your
weapons, we are engaged in a battle," said Marcellus. He
denounced the current crisis as "a bourgeois plot against the
unfortunate."
Even if the opposition can't force Aristide out, they want
to disrupt celebrations coming up on Jan. 1 to commemorate the
200th anniversary of Haiti's independence. And they want to
weaken the president by making life harder for most Haitians,
who already have the lowest standard of living by far of any
people in the Western Hemisphere.
Reprinted from the Dec. 25, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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