1991, October – December: (The Cédras-Biamby-François Triumvirate: Cédras the Face of the Coup at Forty-Five but François the Driving Force, Biamby’s Ties to…

1991, October – December: (The Cédras-Biamby-François Triumvirate: Cédras the Face of the Coup at Forty-Five but François the Driving Force, Biamby’s Ties to Mme Cédras, the Presidency Declared Vacant and Offered to Justice Joseph Nérette, Agronomist Jean-Jacques Honorat Named Prime Minister, the Rump Parliament Ratifies What Aristide Had Denied It, Chef Seksyon Rearmed and Reporting Line Restored to the Army, Lavalas Organizers Driven Underground, 300,000 Internal Refugees and an Underground Railway, the Vatican Alone in the World Confers Recognition on the Junta, Adams Ensures OAS Delegates Hear the Less Attractive Aspects of the Aristide Regime, the French Ambassador Denied Access, Washington Tells Aristide to Negotiate with the Rump Parliament, and Fitzwater Lets Drop — We Don’t Know If President Aristide Will Return to Power): On the ground in Port-au-Prince, no one was vouchsafed such certainty. The coup had been fronted by General Cédras, General Biamby, and Major Michel François. Cédras, at forty-five, was to many the face of the coup, but it was said that François, driven both by ambition and fear for his career under Aristide, was the driving force behind it. Biamby’s inclusion — reportedly as a counterweight to the popular François — made the coup a family affair, his ties to the Cédras family reportedly including claims on the affections of Mme Cédras. Both François and Cédras were reputed to have amassed considerable fortunes, while Biamby lived austerely, taking care of his troops first. While real power was in the hands of the officers, the putschists quickly found allies in other key constituencies — many of the most pro-Aristide deputies had gone to ground, leaving a rump parliament composed of ambivalent or openly anti-Aristide members that continued to sit. The coup leaders declared the Presidency vacant and, following the form if not the substance of the 1987 constitution, offered it to Supreme Court Justice Joseph Nérette, who accepted; the deputies then ratified Nérette’s choice of Prime Minister, agronomist Jean-Jacques Honorat — an option they had been denied, they quickly pointed out, by Aristide. The army and Duvalierists supported Cédras, and in the first days of October many in the elite came around as well. Securing their base domestically, the officers handed back the weapons that had been confiscated from the chef seksyon and reestablished their reporting line to the army — the chef lost little time in reasserting their authority, taking good care to avenge slights, perceived or real, suffered during the past eight months. Lavalas organizers, activists, anyone identified with forces for change was driven underground. There quickly developed around Haiti an underground railway — the most efficiently run railway in the country’s history — that gave succor to up to 300,000 internal refugees; in several cases, severely threatened people of prominence were smuggled abroad with the help of foreign commando teams. Internationally, the picture was more clouded — no one argued that Aristide held the moral high ground. Almost no one: alone in the world, the Vatican conferred recognition on the regime that had replaced the contentious priest-president. The officers and their allies held Haiti, and moral suasion was unlikely to dislodge them. Hard on the heels of the emergency OAS session, a delegation visited Port-au-Prince in an attempt to persuade the junta of the error of its ways — while there, the delegates received views of the deposed regime somewhat at odds with those being disseminated in Washington. Ambassador Adams, whose load had grown heavier in the preceding months, made sure that the delegates heard about some of the less attractive aspects of the Aristide regime — in so doing he promptly earned the condemnation of many who had been predisposed to believe the U.S. had had a hand in the coup. The French Ambassador, fresh from his harrowing journey to the Palace in the armored personnel carrier with the now-deposed president, was according to one account denied access to the OAS delegation by Ambassador Adams. Whatever the range of opinion they had been exposed to, the delegates returned to Washington to advise Aristide to enter into negotiations with the rump parliament. However practical the advice may have been, it was received with easily controlled enthusiasm by Aristide, particularly as the OAS stance in Port-au-Prince seemed to be echoed in Washington — at best, the political heirs of Ronald Reagan had been ill at ease with a government whose leader had once described capitalism as a mortal sin. Now, with that government brought low, the naysayers emerged from the gloom to which they had been consigned for some months. Press secretary Fitzwater, just a few days after the Bush-Aristide meeting, let drop that the U.S. supported the rule of democracy in Haiti but did not know if President Aristide would return to power. The Bush administration had begun in its own mind and the public eye to separate democratic rule in Haiti from the person of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.