1986, February 7–9: (The CNG’s Himalaya of Problems: L’Intelligent Avril the Bagman with Signature Authority, Only Gourgue an Outsider, Macoutes in Army Unif…

1986, February 7–9: (The CNG’s Himalaya of Problems: L’Intelligent Avril the Bagman with Signature Authority, Only Gourgue an Outsider, Macoutes in Army Uniforms Hidden in the Casernes, the Counter-Coup Possibility, Less Than $2 Million in the Treasury, Rising Expectations That No Government of Angels Could Meet, the Church Seizing the Moment Against Vodou, and the Stated Goal vs. the Unstated Goal): Three of the CNG’s five members were army men — six if you included counselor Prosper Avril, whom Papa Doc had always referred to as l’intelligent Avril, reputed to have been Jean-Claude Duvalier’s bagman and the only person other than the Duvaliers with signature authority over their foreign accounts. Vallès was commander of the presidential Guard. Of the two civilian members, Alix Cinéas had served the Duvaliers for more than twenty years; only Gourgue, lawyer and founder of the human rights league, was an outsider. Back inside the palace, the group addressed the Himalaya of issues before them. At the top was the preservation of public order — in the week before Duvalier left, many macoutes had been lent army uniforms and made their way to Port-au-Prince; most were in hiding, a good number including Madame Max in the barracks behind the palace, still armed and many minded to use their weapons. A counter-coup was a real possibility. By mid-morning the CNG announced a curfew from two in the afternoon to seven in the morning. A time bomb of rising expectations was ticking — the mobs that had served the purposes of the army, the Church, and the United States were still on the streets, and no one knew better than the CNG how quickly approbation could turn to denunciation. The country was broke — the Duvaliers had left less than $2 million in the treasury. Within the coalition, disparate players had conflicting agendas: the Church, with its tame macoute Episcopacy still in place, looked with scarce-concealed anxiety at the Ti Legliz movement while simultaneously perceiving an opportune moment to redress the balance with Vodou through the medium of the people’s anger. The CNG had to keep itself in power long enough to hand over to a popularly elected government — its stated goal — or to an appropriate government, its unstated goal.