| More on the orange workers' struggle
On Thursday, June 14, Anioguel Bell, a member of the executive committee of the Agricultural Workers' Union in this area, was illegally arrested by the local Justice of the Peace, Justin Monero, without an arrest warrant, on the mere say-so of the company supervisor. Not only did he spend close to one week in prison for no other reason than his union activity, but he was joined there on Friday, June 15, by three other members of the executive committee of this trade union - the four summarily imprisoned in the purest anarcho-feudal style of rural Haiti. The mother of one of them was mistreated and two other members of the committee had to go into hiding. The one remaining member of the union committee, appearing before the local Court on Monday, June 18, was not imprisoned, despite her show of solidarity, on the grounds of her gender. The case was transferred to the Court at Grande Rivière du Nord, the nearest large town, on Thursday, June 21, thanks to the diligence of the Batay Ouvriye unions' legal advisers, the Groupe d’Assistance Juridique. Naturally, the four detainees were immediately released, not only because of the lack of evidence that a crime had been committed but also because there were no arrest warrants. In spite of all this, the St. Raphaël police had to be paid five hundred gourdes to get them to carry out the judicial decision to release them! The incident is all to do with a dastardly plot concocted by the Guacimal director, Nonce Zéphir, and his second in command, the supervisor Jean-Marie St Fleur, to counter the legitimate claims of the four hundred families who have lived on the lands in question for a hundred years. Indeed, a contract was signed with them in 1958 that guaranteed them improvements in their living and working conditions in exchange for their land. The terms of this contract were never respected and when a union was formed at the company to seek redress for a number of violations, the management struck out. The above-mentioned arrests were the latest intimidation. The spark? Simple. The agricultural workers who had since 1958 exercised their right to grow crops on the orange plantation during the dead season union, had recently been obliged to hand over half of their harvest to the company's supervisors. When, in anti-union reprisals, the Guacimal S.A management refused to allow union members to farm the land, the four hundred families responded by driving out the supervisor and his "watchmen", and redistributing the land amongst themselves. No orange tree was cut and the reiterated its wish to negotiate the management. However, on Monday, June 11, it was discovered that someone had taken some things from one of the company's buildings. The lock was open but intact. Three days later, the arrests started under the pretext of theft. At present, the Guacimal S.A. management have still not begun negotiations with the agricultural workers and, although the members of the union committee have been released, the situation remains to say the least tense. At the same time, at Habitation Desglereaux, yet another plantation run by Nonce Zéphir, on Wednesday, June 20, the order was given to dismiss all the members of the just-formed union. It seems that prior to this, a small group of twenty workers had been seriously maltreated by the despotic supervisor, Smith Mondésir. In response to the union's strike to force negotiations, the company brought in workers from other areas (a tactic similar to that used at Guacimal). A fight broke out until Mondésir fired shots to bring it to an end. One worker was detained by the police but was quickly released because of the legitimacy of his demands and his membership of Batay Ouvriye . The police chief at the station said, "Release him - they are only asking for what is right!" Faced with the threat of dismissal, the workers, joined with the unionised workers from across the whole of the northern department, and presented themselves on Wednesday, June 27 2001, at the Novella Establishment offices at street 8 in Cap-Haitien where the two Zéphir brothers, Nonce and Daniel, direct all their operations. Smith Mondésir, called it appears to testify about the situation, arrived with a truckload of hired thugs who proceeded to lay into the workers and disperse the unionists who had only come to assert their legal rights. (Note that a member of the executive committee of the Novella Workers' Union was attacked last week by a group of Zéphir lackeys when he was peacefully at work, sorting coffee beans.) The situation is becoming intolerable. Workers at bay, owners and supervisors out of control...the scent of civil war is in the air.For background information on the orange workers' struggle see: The Haiti Support Group web site campaigns section and Multinational Monitor's Winning Campaigns:"Haiti's Thirst for Justice" : Back to What's New Back to Campaigns |