Haiti: Truckers strike at border; UN troops shoot

When Haitians in the United States heard that the truck drivers who bring supplies from the Dominican Republic to Port-au-Prince went on strike to demand the firing of Jeantal Clervil, the director of customs at Malpasse (Malpaso in Spanish), they suspected Clervil was enforcing all of the required import duties, and perhaps imposing some additional ones that he made up.

They were certain this was the case when they heard that Clervil has raised the collection of duties from 9 million to 57 million Haitian gourdes a month. (38.4 gourdes equal $1 U.S.)

But then the strike lasted a month. And the strikers pushed back the cops from Haiti’s national police SWAT team with barricades of burning tires, rocks, bottles and gunfire. The workers had no intention of folding and taking down their barricades. They also ignored a couple of armored personnel carriers from the United Nation’s MINUSTAH occupation force parked near the border post.

Not only were the import businesses in Port-au-Prince and the export businesses in Santo Domingo hurting, but custom duties—a major source of income for the Haitian state—were lagging. Striking workers told Ives Marie Chanel, a special correspondent for Haiti’s AlterPress Agency, that they had a chance of winning.

Chanel talked to a group of Haitian drivers on the Dominican side of the border. They said that the impulse for the strike was Clervil’s abuse of authority and over-taxation.

While representatives of the strikers have talked with President René Préval, who is also in charge of internal security, it appears that the government has adopted a “wait-them-out” policy.

Political prisoners freed

On the political front, Préval’s government did not appeal a judge’s ruling that freed four prominent Lavalas militants: Paul Raymond, Georges Honoré, Yvon Antoine, whose nickname is Zapap, and Annette Auguste, who is better known as Sò Ann.

At a news conference held after their liberation, according to the August 23-29 weekly Haïti-Progrès, the four expressed satisfaction over their liberation, as well as their intent to continue struggling for justice and reparation in order to achieve “unity, peace and national reconciliation.”

Lavalas is the party that supports ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The four demanded the return of Aristide, the rehiring of thousands of employees fired because they were Lavalas supporters, and the release of significant numbers of Lavalas supporters who were thrown into prison on trumped-up charges by the previous, illegitimate government.

Human-rights abuses

An International Human Rights Delegation was in Haiti in late August to examine the current situation and to see if significant changes in the human-rights situation had taken place since Préval assumed power May 15.

At an Aug. 25 news conference, they reported how United Nations “peace keepers” attacked the community Simond Pele, in the commune of Cité Soleil, on the morning of Aug. 24

Six of the international observers witnessed this attack at close range. They said Brazilian MINUSTAH troops in four APCs fired multiple rounds of heavy-caliber ammunition in a densely populated residential area. The only other presence seen on the streets were unarmed civilians, including small children.

U.S. trade unionist David Welsh, a mem ber of the delegation, said: “The indiscriminate UN attacks on civilians in the poor neighborhoods have got to stop. The residents of Cité Soleil have repeatedly said they want an end to the violent repres sion of the country’s poor by Haitian police and the UN occupying force.”

The delegation also witnessed MINUSTAH sealing off Simond Pele in a fashion that was used when paramilitary forces employed by the previous illegitimate government conducted massacres.

“Representatives of popular organizations we spoke with said they want all political prisoners freed and they want their constitutional government returned to office, which is why they voted en masse for René Préval,” said Pauline Wynter, representative of the Congolese Ota Benga Alliance, “and for the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the reinstatement of government officials and civil servants sacked by the coup government.”

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