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,…

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 to $800 Million in Siphoned Funds but Swiss Bankers Justify Their Penchant for Discretion, the Constitution Written in Kreyòl: 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. 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 Kreyòl a viable written language, the constitution was written in Kreyòl and French so that the man in the street could ponder what he was voting on. Kreyòl has become the political language, said ex-minister Latortue; the linguistic walls with which Haiti’s oligarchs 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.