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HAITI BRIEFING
Number 33 May 1999
In Creole, there are many ways to express a dilemma. But these days, most Haitians would probably tell you that they are "caught between two fires."
One fire is the 'forces of darkness', the legions of former Tonton Macoutes, soldiers, paramilitary henchmen, and lumpen hooligans, supplemented by dozens of hardened criminals repatriated from the US, who are largely responsible for growing numbers of hold-ups and murders, both criminal and political. Their crime wave is generally referred to as the "insecurity."
The other fire is the 'forces of order', or the Haitian National Police, in particular its heavily-armed Corps for Intervention to Maintain Order, or CIMO. This force is responsible for growing numbers of savage crackdowns, often against the very people who are victims of the "insecurity."
Worst of all, when the two forces are not conveniently avoiding each other, they seem to be working together.
Recent days offer an alarming sequence of events in Port-au-Prince which reveal just how difficult the Haitian people's dilemma has become.
On April 9, five bandits held up a CIMO policeman near Martissant 23. There was an exchange of gunfire in which the policeman was killed and a bandit was wounded in the leg. All the assailants escaped. Shortly thereafter, the CIMO arrived in the area and, according to area residents, began a lethal crackdown. The hardest hit neighbourhood was Fontamara.
"The residents said there was a lot of gunfire and a lot of searches," said Delouis Felix, a former MP…who testified that the police killed his 22-year-old friend. "These young men were passing by and the police made them lie down on the ground and then they shot them... There were other people killed and thrown into the backs of trucks. It was like a curfew; by 6 pm, there was absolutely nobody in the streets of Fontamara. The area was completely traumatised."
Area residents say that the police killed four young men. But the Port-au-Prince Police Chief categorically denied that there were any "concrete cases" of witnesses or families coming to the police to report deaths. "Do they expect us to go to them after what they did to us?" asked one outraged area resident who was afraid to give his name. […]
In fact, the gulf between the police and the people has grown tremendously since the force was rolled out four years ago, and the police hierarchy is particularly distrusted. "After we uprooted a cancerous Army which was spreading rot, you stabbed us in the back by creating this police corps which has the same cancer at its head, which is what has turned it into a headquarters for all kinds of Machiavellian dealings, drugs, theft, corruption, insecurity, and crimes of all sorts," said Paul Raymond of the Ti Kominote Legliz of St. Jean Bosco in an April 13 press conference … […]
On the morning of April 20, events took an ugly turn. Around 9 am a man in a police uniform with a man in civilian clothes behind him rode together on a police motorcycle up Rue des Front Forts in the Bel Air section of the capital. The civilian shot Michel Ange Philippe, 22, a telephone worker and a popular local activist with Aristide's Lavalas Family party. Philippe died from three bullets in the head and several in the body. The assailants abandoned the motorcycle and fled on foot, miraculously escaping a quickly assembled crowd. But …the uniformed assailant dropped his badge, which identified him as officer Luckner Oxil from the police traffic division.
The residents of Bel Air began to riot following the killing, burning at least two houses, breaking car windows, and overturning merchants' stalls. Panic swept downtown, and stores, banks, and schools closed. Rocks flew everywhere. An ambulance and a fire-engine were turned back by the incensed crowd.
Extracted from Haiti Progrès, 21 April 1999.
By Mike Jones
Review of three new CDs of Haitian roots music.
Boukman Eksperyans - Revolutíon; Tuff Gong International
RAM - Puritan Vodou; Margaritaville Records
Various - Angels in the Mirror - Vodou Music of Haiti; Ellipsis Arts
Boukman Eksperyans are quite simply one of the most electrifying bands in the world, both on disc and in live performance. The music they play is known as rasin, or roots music, which is a heady brew of traditional Haitian drumming and chant and response vocals, overlaid with rock guitar, keyboards, and bass.
To the uninitiated, it sounds like a wild clash of styles, as the percussive rhythms leap around in a fashion disconcerting to ears accustomed to a steady rock and roll beat. However, it is these very rhythms that generate so much of the suspense and excitement that characterise the roots style. Mizik rasin evolved in the late 1980s after the overthrow of Baby Doc Duvalier, and it is highly politicised music, decrying death squads and corrupt politicians on the one hand, and celebrating Haiti's Vodou traditions on the other. At times, specifically during the coup years, rasin bands have survived life threatening situations by couching their lyrics in ambiguous metaphors that still left no doubts in the minds of their audience as to their real intent.
Boukman's first two albums, Vodou Adjae and Kalfou Danjere, both on Mango, are absolute classics: fluid and shimmering with some of the very best rasin tracks ever recorded, particularly the longer numbers which can progress through two or three different rhythms to culminate in the idiosyncratic rara rhythm. Rara is Spring festival music in Haiti, when bands of musicians roam the town and countryside playing on bamboo horns (vacsins), percussion, and other instruments. It is a unique and compelling sound, even more so when transferred into electric music, and in many ways it is the defining sound of mizik rasin.
Libète, Boukman's third album, again excellent, started to focus more specifically on the spiritual traditions of Vodou, and the new album, Revolutíon, continues this theme. The result is even rootsier than before, with the drummers brought up in the mix with the vocals, while the electric instruments play off the percussion, rather than overlaying it. Revolutíon is an emphatically Haitian sound, and like all Boukman albums it is an exhilarating ride. Highly recommended.
RAM is the rasin band formed by Richard Morse, the owner of Port-au-Prince's Oloffson Hotel, immortalised in Graham Greene's book, The Comedians. Richard hosted gigs by different rasin bands in the early days of the development of the sound, when the Oloffson was one of the few places that could be relied on as a venue. RAM generally have a lighter and more eclectic feel than Boukman, and Puritan Vodou continues very much in the vein of their previous release, Aibobo, with many of the lyrics sung in English.
Another rasin band to look for is Boukan Ginen, who formed in 1990 around Eddy François, a powerful vocalist who had previously sung for Boukman Eksperyans. Their two releases on Xenophile are entitled Jou a Rive and Rev an Nou, both of which are good, with jazz fusion influences creeping into the overall sound.
The main difficulty for anyone wanting to get into rasin music is getting hold of the music itself, and, sadly, two of the most important bands in the development of rasin, Sanba-Yo and Foula have no releases at all outside of Haiti, although they can be found on some compilations.
One of these compilations is Angels in the Mirror, which is a really good introduction to the acoustic roots sound of Haiti, and includes two tracks by Djakata, fronted by Sanba Zawo, the former lead singer of Sanba-Yo. This CD comes in a great package with articles, many photos, a recipe for pumpkin soup, and a page of proverbs, including the strangely haunting "Pito nou lèd, nou la" which translates as "We may be ugly, but we're still here".
There are a few other compilations of acoustic Haitian music available, including the excellent Musiques Paysannes d'Haiti on Buda Records, which serve as a prelude to the best traditional sound available, Wa Wa and Azor, a Vodou ensemble whose various releases tend to have a peculiarly intense effect, utilising Petro Vodou rhythms that are not generally heard elsewhere.
Haitian roots music, both electric and acoustic, can be disorienting and confusing for some people. On the other hand, last year when Boukman Eksperyans played to an audience in Salisbury who had never heard them before, the whole hall was dancing within half an hour, so maybe its not that difficult. It's just that you've just got to remember to move your feet!
Le Nouvelliste - 31 March 1999
Will the NATO operation in progress against Yugoslavia be limited to selective air strikes? After one week of bombing, of declarations of support and protest, this is the question now posed in the major capitals.
Already some US political analysts are asking themselves what merit in these intense bombardments, if Slobadan Milosevic remains in power, and the tragic reality of the Kosovan drama continues. To weaken the military capacity of the Serbs seems to be the objective of the air strikes. Insufficient, say the analysts who predict that, sooner or later, NATO ground troops will have to be deployed.
These analysts use the example of Saddam Hussein, who holds the record for being on the receiving end of punitive operations, yet remains lord and master of Iraq, and ironically is emerging as the great vanquisher of the whole televisual-military onslaught.
The Yugoslav question is different though. Although the air strikes are the same, the Allied forces recognise that the Serb anti-aircraft defences are well-orgaised, and what is more, that a deployment of ground troops will not be a picnic.
There is a great risk that the Balkans will burn like a forest fire.
Will diplomacy come to rescue of force of arms?
Haiti en Marche - 9 April 1999
For various reasons, the NATO attacks against Serbia have certainly not met with unanimous approval in Haiti, with most people holding a deep-seated aversion to North American militarism. But especially because President Slobodan Milosevic is a "nationalist". This word retains a magic power in the country of Dessalines and our other liberators of 1804.
However, apart from the independence victory wrenched from the arms of Napoleon's France in November 1803, it's hard to see why there is a rapport between Haiti and nationalism. On the contrary, Haiti has been a victim of nationalism…the US occupation 1915-34…the massacre of 35,000 Haitians in the Dominican Republic in 1937…the Papa Doc Duvalier dictatorship… […]
So, to the problem of Milosevic, and the sense that the current events seem to represent a break-point in the history of nationalism.
Indeed, the strategy of Fascism needs not just internal propaganda, but equally vital are cover-ups and disinformation on an international level. Nowadays, on the other hand, the globalisation of information presents this strategy with real difficulties. The power of information - and the point of view that it can uphold, especially for those developed Western nations - is such that, today, the Yugoslav President is overwhelmed, and appears to belong to another world, a world left far behind many years of enlightenment, a world that has disappeared. Slobodan "Tyrannosaurus" Milosevic.
Haiti Progrès - 17 April 1999
During the course of an important meeting in New York on 3 April, former US attorney-general, Ramsey Clark, made the connection between the Kosovan crisis, the deadly embargo on Iraq, US policy on Haiti, and the US war, and subsequent embargo until 1995, against Vietnam. He had just returned from several days in Belgrade.
«The upholders of Western media propaganda have it that the Kosovar refugee crisis is the greatest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War. To tell the truth, it (the crisis) is US foreign policy.» He posed the question, «The US supported the coup against Aristide, supported the candidacy of his opponent (Marc Bazin), supported the Duvalier regimes – how can it claim to have humanitarian objectives in Yugoslavia?»
Campaign for the Return of the FRAPH/FADH Documents
A little over a year since it began, the international campaign to lobby the US to return Haitian army and death squad documents stolen in 1994 has received the backing of thousands of individuals both in the US, in Haiti, and here in Europe.
As of the end of April, over 4,000 people in Europe had signed the petition, including 1,523 from France, 852 from Belgium, 753 from Ireland, and 732 in England, Scotland and Wales.
At the United Nations Human Rights Commission session in Geneva in April, Adama Dieng, the Commission's independent expert on Haiti, renewed his appeal for the return of the documents in their entirety:
«Today, there is unaminous opinion that these documents, including audio and video cassettes of torture sessions as well as photos, would be a valuable source of information for the prosecution of those responsible for serious crimes committed during the coup regime… Despite my appeals and the persistent requests of the Haitian authorities, supported by the UN Civilian Mission in Haiti, by 69 members of the US Congress, three Nobel Prize winners, dozens of NGOs, and thousands of individuals across the world, the Haitian people are still waiting for these documents which constitute an essential part of their History. This Commission has the duty and the obligation to invite the United States to return, without delay and without deletions, the said documents.»
As we go to press, it is hoped that the full UN Human Rights Commission will be allowed to vote on a resolution calling for the return of the FRAPH/FADH documents, and that it will vote in favour.
The Paris-based Committee to Bring Duvalier to Judgement is continuing the process of compiling legal cases against the former Haitian dictator, Jean-Claude Duvalier, for crimes against humanity. However, a court hearing on the status of his residency in France was held in March, but Duvalier failed to appear, and the hearing was postponed until May.
In April, the Committee to Bring Duvalier to Judgement deplored the reticence of the French authorities to trace and detain the former dictator, and denounced the preparations being made for him to escape justice by leaving France for another country.
In Haiti, the news of the moves to judge Duvalier has been welcomed at a time when violence and human rights abuses are again on the rise. Former Tonton Macoutes, and soldiers from the now-abolished Haitian army, are believed to be responsible for a recent spate of murders and shootings in the Haitian capital. In March, Senator Yvon Toussaint was shot dead, and Pierre Esperance, the Treasurer of the Haitian Platform of Human Rights Organisations, was shot and badly wounded.
The Committee to Bring Duvalier to Judgement web pages index (in French) is at http://www.chrd.org/in.html
After struggling for twelve years as one of Haiti's leading popular organisations, the National Popular Assembly (APN) has chosen to transform itself into a "people's political party" and to participate in upcoming elections in Haiti.
The vote to make the leap from mass organisation to political party came during the APN's Fourth National Congress held from March 26-28 at the Domaine Ideale Hotel in Carrefour. Over 500 delegates - mostly peasants, workers, small merchants, and students - gathered for three days of workshops and general assemblies in which they hammered out the new structure and political direction of the organisation.
"It is time for the APN to position itself to be able to participate in any elections where it judges the conditions are correct and where it can advance the cause of the masses," said APN spokesperson Ben Dupuy. "For that to be possible, the APN must transform itself, not into a traditional political party, but into a party of the people, which will continue to tie its fate to that of the masses and struggle for popular power, which is the one condition necessary to bring real change to the country."
APN leaders consider participation in upcoming elections necessary, but only at certain levels.
"We are not going to enter the race for seats in the Senate or Chamber of Deputies," Dupuy said. "Even if one were elected, there is little one could do there under the present conditions."
Instead the APN will offer candidates for certain municipalities and, above all, the Territorial Collectives, which direct local affairs and elect the members of the Permanent Electoral Council, which will conduct the year 2000 presidential election. It will be difficult for Washington to employ its usual tactic of buying votes in these local races, since APN militants are well-known, proven and trusted in many rural areas and cities.
Extracted from Haiti Progrès March 31, 1999
Unless otherwise indicated all articles are copyright of the Haiti Support Group.
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