1985, November – December: (Gonaïves Erupts Again: Three Schoolchildren Shot in Cold Blood, Down with Misery and Long Live the Army, Michèle’s $1.7 Million C…

1985, November – December: (Gonaïves Erupts Again: Three Schoolchildren Shot in Cold Blood, Down with Misery and Long Live the Army, Michèle’s $1.7 Million Concorde Shopping Trip to Paris While the Oil Tanker Sails Away Unpaid, Ligondé’s Christmas Sermon — Yes to Liberty No to Servitude, Salomon Returns to the Cabinet Knowing Fòk Sa Chanje, and Beauvoir Tells the President the Spirits Have Wanted Him to Leave for Nearly a Year): None too soon either, for the situation on the ground was worsening rapidly. Turbulent Gonaïves, the flashpoint fifteen months earlier, erupted at the end of November 1985 — crowds carrying signs reading down with misery and long live the army had grown violent after riot troops shot three schoolchildren in cold blood. An uneasy order was reestablished by the dispatch of Léopards, but all waited tensely. The president ordered Catholic Radio Soleil to stop broadcasting, but the teledjòl carried what the airwaves could not — the feeling by all that a sea change was occurring. In an awesome display of indifference, with her country starving, Michèle Duvalier that December flew to Paris with several friends on a specially chartered Concorde to do her Christmas shopping — the $1.7 million she spent on furs, jewelry, and other baubles so depleted the national coffers that there was no money to pay an oil tanker that docked at Port-au-Prince with desperately needed petroleum. Denied payment, the captain upped anchor and sailed off into the Gulf of Gonâve; as taptap ground to a halt and generators sputtered out, Haitians in horrified fascination began to realize that the regime’s cupidity had literally and figuratively drained them dry. Trying at the eleventh hour to jettison the baggage, the president put together a new cabinet of old-line Duvalierists — Alix Cinéas, Pierre Merceron, and most importantly Georges Salomon, the scion of Castel père, grown weary of defending a regime he knew had betrayed its people, who nonetheless agreed to take up the traces one more time, this time for the Haitian people, for he too realized what nearly everyone in Haiti save the palace occupants knew — Fòk sa chanje. Even the mostly compromised Episcopacy was climbing aboard the bandwagon — to the stupefaction of the first lady, who wondered aloud how a family member could do this to her, Msgr. Ligondé delivered a Christmas sermon whose message was yes to liberty and justice, no to lies and servitude — a stunning indictment read from pulpits across the land, giving the Church’s imprimatur to the gathering momentum of change. At the beginning of January 1986, thousands of students failed to return to school, foregoing their one sure meal a day. Belatedly, Jean-Claude did what his father would have done long ago — he consulted the spirits. Gathered in the palace was a delegation of eight oungan and a manbo led by the dapper Max Beauvoir, the university graduate who had made money staging Vodou ceremonies for tourists but behind the showmanship had made the transition from scholarship to belief. Standing before his president, Beauvoir delivered the news: the spirits had wanted Duvalier to leave for nearly a year. The president was surprised and then depressed as the enormity sank in. A few days later the association of industrialists added their voices to the chorus demanding change — Gédé’s seeming desertion the president could take in stride, but when the industrial community whose fortunes he had done so much to advance joined in, his depression turned to anger.