One island, could turn out to be crucial for the two countries that share the island the Indians two crises used to call Kiskeya - Haiti and the Dominican
Republic. On November 19,
1990 a general strike in the
Dominican Republic challenged the very existence of the
Balanguer regime.
In Haiti, US imperialism faces a different challenge: the possible, not to say probable, victory of the priest
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the elections scheduled for
December 16 - at least if the elections are allowed to take place and there is no massive fraud.
ANDY BROCK AND ARTHUR MAHON that) the number of votes for the winning candidate exceeded the total number of voters.
"The French team also found the delay in the announcement of the results suspicious.....
"[Benazir's] claims of mass rigging appear to be widely believed in Pakistan on both sides of the political fence, largely because the IJI victory was so big. However, few believe that the rigging would have changed the overall result."
President distributes the seats
More interesting was a statement by the Chief Minister of Sind, Jam Sadiq Ali that "Benazir should thank the President for allowing her to win (in her home town) of Larkana."
Thus, it was the President and his henchmen who were "distributing" the seats, and not the people electing their representatives.
Millions of ordinary Pakistanis feel cheated. These elections were an r xercise by the Pakistani ruling classes a their American backers to establish a reactionary regime backed by the military and the bureaucracy — a different formula from the naked military dictatorships of the past.
But will the people accept this travesty lying down? For the first time in the country's history we have a Punjabi President; an "elected" Punjabi Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, a protege of Zia's; and the hated Muhajir Qomi movement (the neofascist and openly racist party), detested by Sindhis, is part of the government.
With a bankrupt economy, the intensifying conflict in Kashmir, the weariness of the US administration and the uncertain political climate in India, the sectari14 an and regional conflicts in Pakistan will • intensify to an alarming extent. *
### General strikes confront Balaguer B ALANGUER'S new electoral term began on August 16, 1990, two days after a 48 hour general strike called by union and popular organizations had paralyzed the coun try. The government had just announced a series of austerity measures designed to open the way to the signing of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The army violently suppressed the movement - twelve people were killed, more than 100 wounded and there were about 5,000 arrests.
Only one head of state, Venezuela's president, Carlos Andres Perez, took the trouble of attending Balaguer's inauguration, this latter having won by fraud against his opponent Juan Bosch on May 16. Balaguer resorted to ferocious repression once again in response to a three day general strike on September 26-28. A strike leader in the town of Salude was tortured and then shot by the army. There were at least three deaths and dozens of people wounded by gunshots. If one leaves out the massacre of 200 people during the riots of 1984 - during the presidency of the social democrat Jorge Blanco — the present wave of repression is the most violent since Balaguer's first dictatorial term in power (1966-1978).
The September strike was less successful than that in August, but it was not a complete failure. Almost all urban and rural social layers were affected, surprising most observers. The strike was called by a small minority current, the Collective of Popular Organizations (CPO), which is supported by a front bringing together the small - and for a long time untypical — Dominican Communist Party and some other far left organizations.
The movement's relative success is explained by the massive rejection of the austerity measures of summer 1990, which have sharpened the country's deep economic, political and social crisis. For several months, Balaguer's regime has been effectively levying the poor by means of inflation.
The money is needed for the big financial and export bourgeoisie, active above all in tourism and the free trade zones (see article on p. 9), for the ruling camarilla and grandiose construction projects. These latter are being undertaken with a view to the arrival of the Pope and a quantity of heads of state in 1992 coming to celebrate the "fifth centenary of the discovery and evangelization of the Americas (sic)".
The government's policy has meant a cruel drop in purchasing power to a level not experienced for decades, the collapse of social services (a few hours of electricity each day, abandoned hospitals, chaos in public transport), a decline in agricultural production and periodic interruptions in supplies of goods as essential as bread, noodles, sugar and fuel. The crisis took a new turn for the worse in August with the devaluation of the peso, a doubling of petrol prices and a surge in inflation. The Red Cross no longer has the means to carry out tests for Hepatitis B or AIDS, since Balaguer will not give them the funds. Since the start of October nobody dares to admit to having voted for Balaguer and his party, and in the public transport talk is of one thing only — how to get rid of Balaguer. The regime is only able to hang on for two reasons: the support of the military following orders from Washington -which is at the moment opposed to a coup d'état — and the treachery of the major opposition parties. In exchange for a cata- Ps pres. u ekcnange for a cata-
International Viewpoint #196 • December 10, 1990
logue of promises from Balaguer, on September 9 these parties withdrew their support for the general strike called for the following three days by all the union and popular organizations. The General Workers' Confederation (CGT) and National Confederation of Popular Organizations (CNOP) of Virtudes Alvarez refused to sign the accord with Balaguer, but also did not support the appeal of the CO for the September 26-28 strike.
Its manoeuvre having succeeded, the goverment broke its promises regarding wage rises and buried its other undertakings in exploratory commissions. Even so, it is everyone for themselves in Balaguer's entourage now, as they loot the treasury.
The November 19 strike came in response to two different appeals. The
A mortal sin STOP persecuting priests that are with the people", said some of the banners carried by the thousands of demonstrators who thronged Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince in August 1988. They were opposing the decision of the Salesian Fathers to send Father Aristide to Canada. The protest movement took on such breadth — even the reactionary political parties came along — that airline companies refused to deliver the flight ticket to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, for fear that the crowd might attack the airport.
In the end the church gave in. But two months later, Aristide found out that he had been expelled from the Salesian order. Thus the Vatican had decided to silence a man who the supporters of the ex-dictator Duvalier had tried several times to kill. His expulsion came three months after a band of thugs had set fire to his Church, killing twenty beggars and believers, and wounding many more. The Apostolic Nuncio was in the vicinity but refrained from intervening.
Jean-Bertrande Aristide comes from the crossroads of two worlds: on the one hand the impoverished quarters of Port-auPrince and their "barrow drivers, tragic Sisyphean figurers, condemned to eternally carry the weight of a world of sorrows on their shoulders" as he put it in a homily of 1982, and on the other, that of Jesus, chasing the moneychangers from the temple, and the prophets of Israel castigating the powerful in the name of the oppressed and voiceless. He refers to the first Christian communities, qualifies capitalism as "mortal sin" and speaks in favour of socialism.
While he is by no means the closest of the liberation theologians to Marxism, few among them have taken such an organizations that signed the pact with Balaguer called for a work stoppage of three days to demand that the government keep its promises. For the CGT and the COP, the strike was to last the whole week with the aim of toppling Balaguer. This orientation is supported by eight small political parties, including the Communist Party, and, despite public dissensions on the subject, the People's Liberation Movement (MPL), which brings together most of the cadres — and notably the CT's secretary general - who left the Socialist Bloc (which is supporting the first option) three years ago. The CNOP meanwhile has taken up a midway position — it is demanding the organization of a referendum by the popular movement. *
FLORIDA
0 200 Miami MILES AREA OF DOMINICAN
CUBA DETAIL REPUBLIC
Port-au-Prince Santo HAITI Domingo
JAMAICA
Cap Haitien Gonaives HAIT Port-au-Prince uncompromising stand at the side of the dispossessed. Aristide in his words and deeds has come to personally embody the struggle against the dictatorship, imperialism and Vatican policy. He has also given Haitians back a sense of dignity — a sentiment which has been held up to ridicule since the proclamation of the first Black republic in 1804.
For these reasons, as Haiti Progrès commented, when the radio announced his candidacy for president on October 18, "it was enough for all the oppressed and miserable, for all those people with little political education, but overwhelmed with suffering, to hear the
HAITI/ DOMINICAN REPUBLIC name of 'Pé Titid' for them to pour into the electoral registration offices." Aristide's first miracle has been to get electoral registration up to 85%.
After General Avril was forced out of power a multitude of individuals, groups and parties believed that a page was being turned, and thought they could get their hands on the levers of state. Ertha Pascale Trouillot, whose Duvalierist past was overlooked, was lauded, and hymns of praise were sung to General Abraham, commander in chief of the armed forces.
Disenchantment was not far behind. The army continued to massacre peasants and remained unable to stop the activities of the "zenglendos" — many of them military personnel - who continued to sow terror, to kill and to rob. Things reached the point when a section of the population began to look back nostalgically on the time of the Duvaliers. Madame la présidente quickly freed herself from the irritations of the State Council, an organ specially created to control the executive. Little by little her Duvalierist friends were brought back in.
The irreversible Duvalier
Determined to govern as soon as possible and believing that Duvalierism was an "irreversible" reality, the parties directly tied to imperialism — the MIDH of Marc Bazin and the PANPRA of Serge Gilles, an emanation of the French Socialist Party — supported Ertha Trouillot against the State Council. After a series of small advances, the Duvalierists concluded that the hour had come to openly regain power.
Thus Roger Lafontant, who led the repression under Duvalier, returned to Port-au-Prince in July 1990, founded a party in October and is now standing for the presidency. The Duvalierists are coming out of their hiding-places.
Aristide put forward his candidacy the day after Lafontant, and by doing so has brought down the whole scaffolding constructed by imperialism. As he said: "the big bosses are preparing the election with pseudo-democrats and with the (tonton) macoutes of Lafontant; now they are stunned because this is an event which they were in no way expecting." The stated aim of this "people's candidate" is to "provide a means of mobilization that can bring on the tidal wave" and block the road for the Duvalierists.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide does not want to lead his people to the slaughter. He remembers the 1987 elections. The candidates sent the electors to the ballot-box while the army and the Duvalierists put the country to the sword to prevent the elections. There was a terrible massacre. For this reason Father Aristide has clearly stated: "the voting slip that we take up is an active non-violent weapon in our hands... We are going forward, but that 15 does not mean that if we have to stop fur-
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC / SENEGAL ther on, we will not do it. This is up to the people to decide. The tidal wave has not yet swept forward. Perhaps this will happen during the elections, perhaps afterwards" He has also warned that if there is any "dirty business" on December 16, this will be like "putting the petrol into the motor of the popular mobilization to turn it into a popular revolution."
Father Aristide is well aware that "to turn the elections into 'operation tidal wave organization is indispensable -the revolutionary energy unleashed by geoisie, in the hands of a Duvalierist army supposedly protecting him, unable to keep the promises made in his sermons, and trapped between the task of accomplishing his prophetic mission and the need to avoid premature clashes. At least unless an electoral victory leads to a
The empty massive popular mobilization that disrupts everyone's plans. But already the US embassy has warned the voters that, as the créole proverb has it, "after the ball, the drums sound loudly" ", and Washington has asked American citizens to put off their trips to Haiti. * this social phenomenon must be converted into organizational energy so that we can keep hold of our movement."
Here lies the big difficulty. The popular organizations which are the only existing forms that can provide a framework for the movement are weaker than they were in 1987.
The labours of the Church
This is notably the result of the labours of the Catholic Church which has withdrawn its support from numerous base organizations that originated within it. In these conditions it is hard to see what "operation tidal wave" could lead to apart from an electoral landslide — if imperialism and the Duvalierists, who have been ruled out of the race by the State Council, allow it — or an explosion without any future of the type seen several times in Haiti since 1986.