1990, December 16 – 1991, January 7: (No Wink or Nod: Adams Meets Immediately with the Victor, Aristide Says Foreign Investors Are Always Welcome but His Vis…

1990, December 16 – 1991, January 7: (No Wink or Nod: Adams Meets Immediately with the Victor, Aristide Says Foreign Investors Are Always Welcome but His Visit to a Wealthy Haitian’s House Could Be Home to a Dozen Families, Lafontant Vows Attila the Hun Will Not Enter the Gates, Ligondé’s Independence Day Sermon Warns of Social Bolshevism, the January 6 Attentat — Lafontant and Macoutes Seize the Palace and Broadcast Facilities but the Army Counter-Attacks at Noon, Lafontant Hauled Off to the Penitencier, Déchoukaj Reprise — Mobs Lynch Macoutes and Necklace Lafontant’s Followers, Pitched Battles Around Lafontant’s Delmas Home, the Lalue Supermarket Burned with Its Syrian Owners Alleged Macoutes, the Eighteenth-Century Cathedral Burned Down in Revenge for Ligondé’s Sermon, the Papal Nunciature Sacked, Thirty-Seven Dead, and Aristide Urges Vigilance Without Vengeance but Takes Note of the People’s Will to Catch Powerful Macoutes): Holding its nose, the U.S. government in the person of Ambassador Adams met immediately with the victor in a show of support — one State Department official said it was important to send a signal to the Duvalierists and the army that there was no wink or nod for them to undercut Aristide. Aristide for his part tried to reassure nervous foreigners by stating that foreign investors were always welcome in Haiti, though his disclaimer did little to comfort those who had heard the story of his visit, on Election Day, to the home of a wealthy Haitian — Aristide, impressed with the size of the house, had subsequently remarked that it could be home to a dozen families. The elite braced itself. More pointedly, in a Christmas Eve statement Roger Lafontant vowed that Attila the Hun would not enter the gates. Echoing the elite’s sentiments, Msgr. Ligondé chose as the theme of his Independence Day sermon on January 1, 1991 the coming regime of political authoritarianism and wondered whether Haiti could avoid the social Bolshevism rejected by countries of the East. Spurred on by what he viewed as the bishop’s blessing, Roger Lafontant gathered his men for one final attentat. On the evening of January 6, 1991, three weeks after the election, he and a group of macoutes seized the palace, President Trouillot, and broadcast facilities — appearing grim-faced on television, he announced that he had seized power. Counting on the army to rise up in support, he was shocked when troops stayed loyal to the interim government and counter-attacked at noon the next day. Arrested, Lafontant was hauled off to the penitentiary to which he had consigned so many. Public response was immediate and visceral — in echoes of the first waves of déchoukaj following Jean-Claude Duvalier’s ouster, mobs went after all macoutes. Pitched battles were fought around Lafontant’s Delmas home and his political headquarters; followers who emerged were beaten to death or necklaced, while others who jumped down a well to find sanctuary drowned. In a message whose nuances were not missed by the elite, crowds looted and then burned the Lalue supermarket, whose owners of Palestinian origin were alleged to be macoutes. Mindful of Msgr. Ligondé’s New Year sermon and deeming it to have encouraged the attentat, the vengeance-bent crowds burned down Port-au-Prince’s eighteenth-century cathedral, whose restoration had been Ligondé’s quid pro quo for performing the marriage of Jean-Claude Duvalier ten years before — the oldest building in Port-au-Prince and one of the oldest in the Caribbean was now no more than a pile of embers. For good measure, crowds sacked the Papal Nunciature and beat the nuncio’s secretary. It was all over in a matter of hours, but with thirty-seven dead and scores wounded it did nothing to reassure anyone about the path ahead. While referring on the radio to the hideousness of the destruction, the president-elect urged followers to be vigilant without vengeance — going further, he said he took note of their will to catch powerful macoutes today so that they would not destroy them tomorrow, calling it legitimate. His speech was seen by many as tacit encouragement of further mass action against the macoutes. The Lafontant attentat and its aftermath — a Duvalierist coup attempt defeated by the army’s refusal to join it, followed by a popular explosion that consumed the colonial cathedral, the Papal Nunciature, and dozens of lives — established the pattern that would define the Aristide era: a president whose legitimacy rested on the mobilized fury of the masses, whose survival depended on the army’s acquiescence, and whose rhetoric consistently walked the razor’s edge between channeling popular anger and inciting it, the line between vigilance and vengeance blurred by the structural reality that in a country where no institution of justice had ever functioned, the street remained the only court whose verdicts were enforced.