Forty two million dollars have been channelled into the army, Cedras pocketing five million of it. The soldiers of the Port-au-Prince police corps were bought for the price of $5,000 each, which represents around two years pay. But not all the soldiers have received the sums promised, and some, heavily armed, recently turned up at the house of one bourgeois to demand "their pay".
The putsch was prepared, or supported after the event, by all those sectors whose interests had been in some way hurt by the Aristide regime; big traders groaning under the new rigour of paying customs duties, smugglers, the mafia and international drugs networks, soldiers who up until now have carved out a big part of the revenues from diverse rackets, civil servants dismissed for corruption, industrialists indignant at the increase in the minimum wage, big landowners frightened at the perspective of land reform.
Balaguer regime implicated
There are several indications that the Balaguer regime in the Dominican Republic was implicated in the coup d'état. Two Duvalierist dignitaries who had sought refuge in the Dominican Republic received a visa to leave the country several days before the coup. Five hundred former Tontons-Macoutes who lived there had also crossed the frontier.
In some of his declarations, Aristide has placed the responsibility for the coup d'état on the Duvalierists, a small group inside the army and the drugs smugglers. In fact this coup has a clear class character. Some soldiers explained to a group of bourgeois who had picked them up as hitch-hikers that they had done this "to protect them". And the national radio claimed that the coup was directed against those "who wish to oppose the poor to the 27 rich".
HAITI / USSR
The press has republished Cedras' | denunciations of a "dictatorship under popular pressure" and imaginary human rights violations. In one of his declarations, Cedras unveiled one of the fundamental reasons for the coup; president Aristide had committed the crime of weakening some of the pillars of the Haitian state. A fault which, beyond even the immediate economic interests of the various parties to the coup, was unacceptable as much for the army as for the Haitian bourgeoisie and for imperialism. And it is true that in retiring certain officers and changing others, Aristide and Préval challenged the power of the military hierarchy.
By encouraging the people, in some cases, to close the tribunals which had functioned against the popular interests, Aristide inspired fear in the wealthy whose power has been defended for generations by a corrupt judicial apparatus. In refusing to disown demonstrators who brought pressure on the parliamentarians, Aristide indicated clearly that he placed the authority of the people above that of the deputies and the senators.
While wishing to modify the balance of forces, put the president back on the right track and reaffirm the authority of the army, it is not certain that Cedras wanted to go as far as the overthrow of Aristide. On the contrary, it is now obvious that he began in the first hours of the coup to lose control of a good part of the army. Since then, his deputy, Colonel Silva, has even sought refuge in the United States (perhaps to hold himself in reserve). Cedras must now act under the control of the Duvalierists and the most extreme elements of the army rank-and-file. These latter wanted to physically eliminate Aristide on the day of the coup, and they are now blocking any possibility of negotiat-
Russian workers have had enough!
AS the first autumn snow fell lightly, at least ten thousand people, mostly workers assembled on October 23 in the Manezh Square In central