1987, January – March 29: (A Constitution Is Paper: U.S.

1987, January – March 29: (A Constitution Is Paper: U.S. Aid Doubles to $100 Million, Freedom Doesn’t Fill Empty Stomachs, Jean-Claude’s $10,000/Month Phone Bills from Three-Star Restaurants in the South of France, Stroock Stroock and Lavin Chase $300–$800 Million in Siphoned Funds but Swiss Bankers Justify Their Penchant for Discretion, the Constitution Written in Creole — The Linguistic Walls Are Beginning to Crumble, Regala Gets a General’s Star as Insurance, 50% Turnout and 99% Vote Aye on March 29, and Danner — An Extraordinary Document That Stripped the Officers of the Parenthèse): U.S. aid for 1987 was to double to more than $100 million, much for the purchase of oil; the IMF promised $25 million over three years for structural readjustment — but as one Haitian commented, freedom doesn’t fill empty stomachs. The anniversary occasioned articles on Jean-Claude’s high style in temporary exile in France, eating at three-star eateries, enriching France Télécom by as much as ten thousand dollars a month, presiding over a household that frequently included Michèle Bennett’s former husband. The CNG had commissioned a New York law firm, Stroock, Stroock and Lavin, to pursue the expatriated Duvalier funds — estimates of le siphonage ranged from $300 million to $800 million. A U.S. court froze accounts at Irving Trust, but French courts refused American jurisdiction, Swiss bankers justified their well-known penchant for discretion, and in Haiti itself the CNG seemed to be paying little more than lip service. Reflecting the success of the campaign to make Creole a viable written language, the constitution was written in Creole and French so that the man in the street could ponder what he was voting on — Creole has become the political language, said ex-minister Latortue; the linguistic walls with which Haiti’s elite had so long kept the populace at bay were beginning to crumble. Anticipating approval, the CNG battened down the hatches, prudently awarding a general’s star to Regala — the number of generals atop Haiti’s 7,500-man army now stood at seventeen. On March 29, 1987, more than fifty percent of the electorate turned out, and in a vote observed by numerous foreign organizations that concluded it was fair, more than ninety-nine percent voted aye — with that vote, the clock started ticking on a thirty-day period at the end of which Haiti’s new charter would become law. It was, in the words of Mark Danner, an extraordinary document — a constitution that in its litany of absurd and brilliant and finally Machiavellian provisions stripped the officers of the one power that was the only power in Haiti, the parenthèse — the right to conduct elections. The Church gave its blessing, saying the constitution seemed a good guarantee of freedom despite gaps and contradictions.