<i>By: Yves Pierre-Louis - Haiti Liberte</i>
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On Thursday, Apr. 15, 2010, Haiti's Senate ratified President René Préval's "emergency law" which allows him and the Haitian Interim Reconstruction Commission (CIRH) to rule by decree and fiat for the next 18 months.
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The CIRH is controlled by foreigners, which has outraged Haitians. Headed by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, the Commission is composed of 15 foreigners (13 voting) and only 12 Haitians (11 voting) and will lead Haiti's post-quake reconstruction.
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The Senate's vote comes after Deputies passed the bill on Apr. 8 (see Haiti Liberté, Vol. 3, No. 39, 4/14/2010). The "emergency law" went into effect after being published in Le Moniteur, the official government publication, on Apr. 19.
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On Friday, Apr. 16, the Unified Popular Masses for Development (MAPOUD), a grouping of peasant, youth, student, union and popular organizations, called a press conference at the "Ba de le" Restaurant to give its position on Haiti's political situation. MAPOUD leaders René Civil and Semereste "Pasteur" Boliere fiercely criticized the Préval/Bellerive government as being incapable of resolving the nation's problems.
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Three months after the catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake, they said, thousands of Haitians are still living in the street, enduring sun, rain, dust, dew and hunger despite many millions of dollars having been received and squandered by the Haitian government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
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Préval and Bellerive have only carried out the dictates of the big imperialist countries, MAPOUD said, putting the country in trusteeship under the "emergency law." Meanwhile, people can't get housing, food or education.
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"The opening of schools was a catastrophe," said Semereste Boliere. Schools were supposed to open on Apr. 1. "A majority of establishments are not cleaned up. There is no assistance for parents who lost everything under rubble. There are no measures to aid parents who don't have money to pay school for the rest of the year. In high schools that were opened, kids went but they did not find teachers such as at Lycée Jeune Fille, Lycée Marie-Jeanne, Lycée Pétion, etc.."
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Boliere charged that the Haitian government was not consulting with any progressive sectors but was simply following "a policy of abandoning the people."
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"What's worse," Boliere concluded, "these racketeer parliamentarians got together with the vision-less, corrupt government to continue squeezing the masses, following the dictates of the international community, with a so-called 'emergency law' which gives them the right to make more money off the people's misery. MAPOUD asks all principled organizations, all leaders who care for people more than power, all valiant Haitian men and women to shake off their sleep and rise up to block the death plan of Préval and his acolytes."
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René Civil called for exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return from South Africa, and Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) president Gaillot Dorsainvil's removal and the formation of a new CEP.
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Civil also vowed that "even though the racketeer senators and deputies passed it, we will continue to oppose the 'emergency law' and try to block it."
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Civil called on other Lavalas Family popular organizations to join with MAPOUD in resisting Préval's "anti-people" policies.
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At about 11:30 a.m., as the press conference was ending and René Civil finished talking to television cameras, three armed men created panic in front of the "Ba de le" Restaurant, which is on Rue Capois in Port-au-Prince. The armed men entered a Digicel store underneath the restaurant, where they shot three times a Digicel client, an unidentified man in his fifties. They did not rob him or anyone else but left the victim on the sidewalk in a pool of blood. Some passers-by rushed the victim to the hospital. A few street merchants said that they had seen the gunmen loitering in the area before the shooting, buying cigarettes and candies.
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After about 30 minutes, the police arrived with a young man in handcuffs in the back of a pick-up. One observer said the man was one of the bandits, but other observers said none of the gunmen resembled the man. The police may have made a mistake.
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Some people at the scene speculated that the bizarre shooting was in fact orchestrated by the government to intimidate MAPOUD and other Préval government critics. This has happened in other parts of Haiti.
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We have learned that in the southern city of Cayes, the Préval government's representative is persecuting Lavalas militants. Ti Pistol Siméon was mobilizing in the area, and Préval's representative put out a warrant for his arrest so as to block a demonstration he was organizing against the "emergency law."
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On Monday, Apr. 19, several hundred people took to the streets to demonstrate against the "emergency law" in Gonaives, Hinche, and Miragoane. In Port-au-Prince, mobilizations are planned for this week.
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Some progressive militants have expressed concern about MAPOUD's participation in a new front called "Tet Kole" (Heads Together), which includes parties like Union, UCCADE, Konbit, Ansanm Nou Fò and platforms like Rasanble. Eyebrows have been raised because the new front also includes the political front, Alternative, headed by Evans Paul of the party KID. Paul was a vocal supporter of the 2004 coup d'état against Aristide.
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In the press conference, René Civil did not address the questions raised by MAPOUD's alliance with Evans Paul. However, the "Tet Kole" front has not generated a lot of press or public attention.