Another prairie fire in Reagan's 'backyard' AFTER NEARLY thirty years in power, the Duvalier family dictatorship has been blown away by an irresistible mass upsurge, which for an indefinite period has put power in the streets. U.S. imperialism is obviously trying to put together an alternative regime. But the fact that for the third time in seven years a U.S.-backed dictatorship has been overwhelmed by a mass upsurge indicates a drastic decline in Washington's ability to maintain its control over superexploited colonial countries such as Haiti.
The Duvalier dictatorship was already one of the last cards populist nationalist demagogy, similar in that respect to the populist bourgeois nationalist currents that have been losing their political force generally throughout Latin America. In Haiti, for deep-rooted historical reasons, the populist nationalism assumed a racial the populist coloring, with Duvalier posing as the representative of the Black majority against the mulatto commercial class.
HAITI factors that explains the depth of the present mass movement. It is, in fact, the culmination of a process initiated by the riots of May 1984 and continued by big rallies held under religious pretexts at the beginning of 1985 and the massive boycott of the referendum last summer.
In 1985 the churches and bourgeois opposition personalities remained generally in control. On the contrary, in the present movement they have been bypassed by events.
It is clear that the United States failed to achieve a peaceful transition. The movement seems to have been largely spontaneous in recent weeks, although one cannot underestimate the role of the Christian youth, the small workers' and people's parties active underground, and the traditional organizations linked to the voodoo religion, well rooted in the shantytowns in particular.
However, the mass movement has no leadership today recognized by broad sections of the population and still less one able to offer a working-class alternative.
The flight of Baby Doc relaunched the mass mobilizations. The masses went after the Tontons Macoutes and attacked the symbols of the Duvalier regime and the interests of the ruling family, from the tomb of Papa Doc to the stones belonging to Baby Doc's wife. That must distress U.S. imperialism, which manipulated the setting up of a junta to govern the country.
Of the six members of the new junta, five worked hand in glove with the regime. They include four officers: a chief of the general staff, his second in command, and the chief of the presidential guard and the author of plays glorifying the elder Duvalier. The fourth was a personal friend of Duvalier. One of the civilians was a minister known for his corruption. To add some respectability to this gang, they added the president of the Human Rights League of Haiti, reputedly linked to the United States.
This junta has named a cabinet made up mostly of servants of the dictatorship. Its initial decisions — such as the proclamation of a curfew -showed its determination to protect the Tontons Macoutes and prevent demonstrations. There is also a danger of direct U.S. intervention. Washington has already warned that its forces are ready to respond to an appeal for aid from the new regime. So it is necessary now to mobilize solidarity with the mass movement and its demands for a real purge of the state apparatus, punishment of the torturers, and re-establishment of full democratic rights and to oppose any military intervention in Haiti.
CLAUDE DEVILLIERS
Presenting himself as the heir of the Black Jacobins who liberated the country from slavery and French colonial rule, Francois Duvalier managed to capture the aspirations of a large part of the population. With the help of a gangster organization similar to Somoza's National Guard, the so-called National Security Volunteers, known as the Tonton Macoutes, the Duvalier regime managed to destroy the Haitian workers' movement and to annihilate any form of opposition, even bourgeois.
After having himself proclaimed "president for life" in 1964, "Papa Doc" Duvalier toward the end of his life agreed to apply repression in a more selective way, as Washington demanded.
In exchange for financial aid, Duvalier offered Rockefeller the following perspective: "Haiti could be a big reserve of labour power closer, more secure, and easier than Hong. Kong for Americans wanting to establish re-exportation industries."
In 1971, Papa Doc was succeeded by his son, Jean-Claude, "Baby Doc." The 1970s saw the setting up of a great number of factories employing tens of thousands of workers. JeanClaude's marriage to Michele Bennet marked an attempt to knit an alliance between the Duvalierist "dinosaurs," who had enriched themselves in the shadow of the state, and the traditional, mainly commercial (and mulatto) bourgeoisie supported by the U.S.
Thus, the Duvaliers and the Bennets control a not inconsiderable part of the economy of the country. This made them very reluctant to accept any modification of a state based on extreme corruption.
In 1980 a period of timid "liberalization" initiated in 1976 ended abruptly. It had seen the revival of certain forms of organization and the re-emergence of strike mobilizations.
The contradiction between maintaining the Duvalier dynastic state and the imperatives of a capitalist development of the economy sought by the traditional bourgeoisie and the imperialists were to become more and more acute. And the situation was aggravated by the radicalization of the oppressed masses, which was accelerated by the economic crisis that struck Haiti particularly hard.
U.S: imperialism, conscious of the potentially explosive character of the situation, in recent years stepped up its pressures on the regime to reform itself and encouraged the re-emergence of a bourgeois opposition.
At the same time, new generations came onto the political scene (39 percent of the population is under 15 years of age), unmarked by the generalized terror of the early Duvalier regime. Moreover, the churches began to take their distance from the regime.
Many young people were inevitably affected by the rise of the Central American revolution. In 1979 a private radio station broadcast the news of the fall of Somoza hour by hour.
It is the combination of all these