1991, October 11 – 1992, January: (100,000 March in New York on October 11, the OAS Oil and Trade Embargo Imposed October 23, Bush Orders U.S.

1991, October 11 – 1992, January: (100,000 March in New York on October 11, the OAS Oil and Trade Embargo Imposed October 23, Bush Orders U.S. Compliance November 5, the Fatally Flawed Embargo Leaks from Day One, 7,000 Boat People Intercepted in Two Months, Guantánamo’s Tent City Mushrooms to 12,500, the Junta Expels the French Ambassador, the Cartagena Talks — End the Embargo and Legitimize the Junta, the Key Is the Prime Minister’s Office, Aristide’s Non-Renewable Five-Year Term Ticking Away, the Search for a Compromise Name Settles on René Théodore and Marc Bazin, Aristide Balks When the Junta Offers No Return Date, Washington Calls Aristide Intransigent, and Bishop Romélus Still in Jérémie Says the People Don’t Want Théodore): The tenth department entertained no doubts — on October 11, 1991, some 100,000 Haitians marched in support of Aristide in downtown New York, even as the UN was voting its support of the proposed OAS sanctions. At the heart of any such sanctions was an oil embargo — unable to afford a strategic reserve, Haiti would not last more than a few days in the face of an oil cutoff. The OAS imposed an oil and trade embargo on October 23 and by November 5 George Bush had ordered U.S. compliance. The tide of boat people, which had almost disappeared during Aristide’s time in office, began to rise — in the first two months of the coup, nearly seven thousand refugees were intercepted at sea. Reluctant at first to return them to the arms of the regime it had so recently branded as a pariah, the U.S. set up a temporary camp at Guantánamo Bay; as the Tent City mushroomed, it quickly became apparent that this measure could not be sustained. With a presidential election less than a year away, the pressure was on to find some sort of solution. Feeling its oats, the junta expelled the French Ambassador Jean-Rafaël Dufour, who had been so instrumental in saving Aristide’s life on the day of the coup, just a few days before the Colombian talks. The delegation that left Port-au-Prince for Cartagena had clear marching orders: end the embargo and work out some arrangement that legitimized the junta. By the 1987 constitution, the key was the office of Prime Minister — the president was chief of state, but it was through the Prime Minister that he ruled. With Aristide away, the question of who would rule in his stead became paramount. In the back of everyone’s mind, not least Aristide’s, was the fact that the president served for a five-year non-renewable term — while the non-renewable label had not bothered many of his predecessors, it weighed heavily on Aristide. Every minute that he was away from Port-au-Prince and there was no regent on the throne was a minute for the opposition to dig in further. Negotiators, as in the time of Borno, began early to search for someone who might satisfy both sides — discarding a number of names, attention began to focus on René Théodore and Marc Bazin. Sole survivor of a bloody purge of Haiti’s communists in the late sixties, Théodore’s ideological fires had been banked by age and the tropics to the point where he actually seemed to represent a middle road between Aristide and the military. The difficulty in such an appointment — indeed in the entire process of negotiation — lay in the fact that at the extremes of left and right were groups that believed their leaders had no business negotiating with the other. Aristide balked, especially when the quid pro quo offered by the junta neither reaffirmed his presidency nor offered a specific return date — Washington in December called Aristide intransigent. His difficulties were not eased by the statement of his mentor, Bishop Romélus, still holed up in Jérémie, that the Haitian people had no desire to see René Théodore as their Prime Minister. On January 8, 1992, feeling heat from Washington, Aristide agreed to have Théodore’s name put forward — the howls of outrage from both ends of the spectrum were extreme. By the end of the month, the assassination of one of Théodore’s bodyguards and a beating of the nominee himself finished what three weeks of polemics had started — it sunk the nomination. The elite, bolstered by the arrival of several renegade tankers of petroleum, wanted no part of a solution that involved Aristide.