1991, February 9 – September: (The Preval Appointment, Lavalas as a Super Party, Paris 1968 and the Cultural Revolution, the Cuba Youth Group, the Mob Shouti…

1991, February 9 – September: (The Preval Appointment, Lavalas as a Super Party, Paris 1968 and the Cultural Revolution, the Cuba Youth Group, the Mob Shouting Aristide à Vie Visits the Senate, Pascal-Trouillot Charged as Attentat Co-Conspirator Rather Than Victim, Pognon Imprisoned, Lafontant’s Life Sentence and the Impromptu National Holiday, Père Lebrun Tires Paraded Outside the Courthouse, Abraham Replaced by Cédras over Ordnance Irregularities, the Proposed Security Force That Sounded Curiously Like the VSN, the Chef Seksyon Ordered to Report to Justice Not the Army, Smuggling and Drug Crackdowns Dent Officers’ Lifestyles, Two Thousand Lavalas Supporters Intimidate Legislators During the No-Confidence Vote, the 300,000-Strong Hero’s Welcome in New York and the Tenth Department, and the Attentat Coalesces): The president’s choice for Prime Minister was a forty-eight-year-old bakery owner with European training as an agronomist, René Préval — devoid of previous political experience, Préval had been a close Aristide confidant and another survivor of the Romain raid on St.-Jean-Bosco in 1988. The choice, widely viewed as a way of sidestepping the constitutional controls on the presidency, occasioned one newly elected senator to comment that if Aristide intended to rule with a personal clique, they might as well go back to a dictatorship. Doubting that the necessary approval would be forthcoming, Aristide simply omitted to submit the nomination — a poor start to his relationship with the legislators. Other appointments followed the same pattern; as if to underline that the omission of Evans Paul and other FNCD members was not accidental, the new president set about immediately to transform Lavalas into a sort of super party of his own, much as François Duvalier had done three decades earlier. One diplomat described the Lavalas activists as straight from another era, their political models being Paris in 1968 and the Cultural Revolution in China. As there was no absolute majority in parliament, Aristide was required to consult the National Assembly but in practice could find many ways to sidestep it and did. In early March the Aristide government demonstrated its independence from Washington by sending a Haitian youth group to Cuba — the first such open move by a Haitian government in many years. Like many of his predecessors, Aristide was not above showing some muscle when frustrated by the legislature — an insufficiently compliant Senate was the object in early April of a visit from a mob shouting Aristide à vie. April 1991 was also memorable in that Ertha Pascal-Trouillot, only two months after handing over power to Aristide, was charged with being a co-conspirator in the January attentat rather than a victim of it — briefly imprisoned in the Pénitencier National, she was soon released thanks to the strong intervention of Ambassador Adams, but the truculent action gave pause to many. Also bundled into the Pénitencier, though for far more reason, was Isidore Pognon, the Fort Dimanche commander whose 1987 ambush had pushed père Aristide onto the national stage. Mass action was again in evidence at the July trial of Roger Lafontant — crowds outside the court paraded tires while waiting for the verdict. Lafontant received a life sentence, which Aristide did nothing to commute, instead declaring an impromptu national holiday. Irregularities in ordnance acquisition caused Aristide to replace General Abraham that July with General Cédras, the latter just five months into his job as chief of staff — the Cédras appointment, like all senior army appointments Aristide had made since taking office, was conditional, not permanent, Aristide believing that appointees would thus behave more accountably. While the army had been on its best behavior since the inaugural, fundamental issues of restructuring the army, disarming the macoutes, and creating a civilian constabulary had still not been addressed. In the wake of the Abraham dismissal, Aristide decided to form what was described later, depending on who painted the picture, as variously a small security force or a private army — to be totally independent of the FAd’H, the proposed force sounded curiously like the route taken by Papa Doc when he created the VSN to deal with the army. Alarmed, the army protested, especially as the proposed force’s size grew with each telling. An order that the chef seksyon report to the Justice Ministry rather than the Army exacerbated fears that the military was losing any say in national affairs, while the Aristide government’s efforts to clamp down on smuggling and drug running were putting a dent in many officers’ lifestyles. The government was encountering problems with the legislature, which sought in August to pass a no-confidence measure on Prime Minister Préval — two thousand Lavalas supporters gathered outside the Assembly building, harassing and intimidating legislators as they went in. As he left in September to address the UN in New York, the president knew this was a problem he would have to address on his return. In New York he was accorded a hero’s welcome by a crowd of nearly 300,000 Haitians, members of what he had come to refer to as the Tenth Department in recognition that one in four Haitians now lived overseas. While he was gone, there coalesced in the army and the elite enough support for an attentat — the grievances were varied and the agendas often personal, many civilians who had been willing to give Aristide a chance in February dismayed by his actions since, the senior command feeling threatened by the lack of permanent appointments and the proposed security force, and more venally, the crackdown on smuggling and drug running putting a dent in many officers’ lifestyles.