1992, February – October: (The Bush Fine-Tuning: Assembly Plant Goods Exempted from the Embargo, 50,000 Assembly Jobs Lost, Elliott Abrams in the National Re…

1992, February – October: (The Bush Fine-Tuning: Assembly Plant Goods Exempted from the Embargo, 50,000 Assembly Jobs Lost, Elliott Abrams in the National Review — What Attitude Should Democratic Countries Take Toward Governments That Undermine Democratic Institutions?, Père Adrien Calls It the Most Cynical Thing, Guantánamo at 12,500 and Bush Begins Returning Boat People, Pétionville Dines on French Wines and Norwegian Salmon While Water Is Diverted from the Artibonite for Péligre Generators, Malpasse Opens as the Embargo’s Highway — the Junta Builds the Road to the Border, the OAS Proposal Affirms Aristide’s Title but No Return Date and Offers Amnesty, Bourik Chaje Urges Approval but the Rump Parliament Cannot Muster Votes, Right-Wing Members Brandish Arms in Debate, Repression in the Countryside Is Severe, Gas at $18 a Gallon, the Rich Buy Four-Wheel Drives and Private Generators, the Assassination of Georges Izméry 200 Yards from the Police Station, Whole Neighborhoods Torched in Retribution, Lavalas Pamphlets Showered from Private Planes, Haiti’s Army Becomes an Occupying Army, Bazin Named De Facto Prime Minister, François Benoit Pressed as De Facto Foreign Minister Meets Père Adrien in Washington, the OAS Observer Team Shrinks from 500 to 18, and a Pro-Aristide Senator Says the Return of Aristide Signifies Total Failure for the Coup Supporters): Pouring salt in the wound, the Bush administration announced a fine-tuning of the embargo at the beginning of February that allowed some goods manufactured by assembly plants in Port-au-Prince to enter the U.S. — useless it was to argue about the more than 50,000 jobs lost from the assembly sector since the embargo’s start, or that the leaky embargo hurt poor Haitians far more than the elite. In a March piece in the National Review, Elliott Abrams put the U.S. government dilemma squarely: what attitude should democratic countries take toward governments that come to power in free elections but then undermine democratic institutions? — the embargo, Abrams argued, left the U.S. in the untenable position of attacking Haiti’s economy, destroying jobs, creating emigrants, and then telling them no when they sought a haven. Père Adrien, who as a Catholic priest knew cynicism when he saw it, denounced the U.S. policy as the most cynical thing. The refugee crisis grew worse — with Guantánamo at 12,500 refugees nearly full, the Bush administration began returning boat people to Port-au-Prince. The richer parts of Port-au-Prince, the papers noted, were doing just fine — to provide additional generating capacity at Péligre, water was being diverted from the Artibonite, further crippling agriculture, but in Pétionville the elite dined well off French wines and Norwegian salmon. The holes in the embargo were being widened by the increasing traffic over the Dominican frontier — thirty-five miles east of Port-au-Prince, the aptly named town of Malpasse had been largely off-bounds for most Haitians since Duvalier’s troubles with the Dominicans in the sixties, the sole exception being the thriving but unpublicized traffic in bodies that went on every year when Haiti furnished the wherewithal to harvest Dominican sugarcane. Beyond Croix-des-Bouquets, hardtop turned to flinty rock and the rutted track limping toward the border was ill-suited for the increasing amounts of traffic it began to carry — bowing to economics, the junta managed to scrape up the funds to macadamize the entire unpaved stretch to the border, demonstrating that it did indeed know how to build roads for Haiti. A month after the beating of Théodore, a new OAS-backed proposal was put forward that improved on previous attempts in that it affirmed Aristide’s title as president, but set forth no date certain for his return; it also legitimized acts undertaken by the regime since the coup and offered amnesty to the officers. Again bourik chaje lumbered into the fray, urging approval in Port-au-Prince; again the vessel of practicality was smashed against the rocks of emotion — the rump parliament could not muster enough votes for passage. Right-wing members brandished arms in debate and fisticuffs ensued between those few still brave enough to urge a centrist path and their diehard opponents. Conservative Senator Guy Bauduy, no Aristide lover, lamented that repression in the countryside was severe. In the countryside, livestock prices fell as the means to take cattle to market became ever more dear — pigs were still too scarce to be a significant factor. The rich increasingly forsook the sputtering power grid for private generators; with gas as much as eighteen dollars a gallon, traffic had so dwindled that the drive from Pétionville downtown was, marveled one old-timer, just like the good old days. Aristide supporters still in Haiti daily took their lives in their hands, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with their opponents in the junta — ministers in the Aristide cabinet were that in name only, with their lives threatened if they tried to exercise their functions. In May, the assassination of Georges Izméry, brother of Aristide financial backer Antoine, some two hundred yards from the police station in broad daylight, revealed just how lawless things were. The violence was not confined to Aristide supporters — soldiers from various army units used the cover of darkness to even old scores, and some mornings the harvest of fresh corpses included soldiers. Some of the murders were committed by a smoldering but increasing Aristide resistance; retribution was swift and brutal, with whole neighborhoods torched in return for a single death. The undercurrent of tension was fed by pro-Aristide shortwave broadcasts and Lavalas pamphlets showered on Port-au-Prince from private planes — Haiti’s army was becoming an occupying army in its own country. In the wake of the collapse of winter efforts to reach an accord, those left in Haiti tried again to form some sort of government — as a result of meetings at the end of May and early June 1992 between the army, President Nérette, and Prime Minister Honorat, both being referred to in Creole as the de-faktos, there emerged a call for a government of consensus. As de facto Prime Minister, Honorat had been unable to garner desperately sought international support; now he stepped aside in favor of Marc Bazin, whose presence the junta felt would lend legitimacy to the de-faktos. To some degree the gambit worked — François Benoit, pressed into service as de facto Foreign Minister, by September was meeting in Washington with père Adrien, the meetings greeted with howls of indignation from those who wished to keep their perceived moral high ground as coup victims untainted by dealings with the coup-makers. Adrien put forward a suggestion that OAS observers take up positions in Haiti as a step to defusing tensions. Just before the thirty-fifth anniversary of François Duvalier’s 1957 election, the observer team hit the ground in force — all eighteen of them. A five-hundred-man team had shrunk to eighteen, a force that René Théodore, his name officially still in play as Aristide’s nominee for Prime Minister, called truly negligible. In view of the paucity of results from a summer of negotiations, the hard-liners in Lavalas felt vindicated in their anti-negotiation stance — if we have learned one thing, said a pro-Aristide senator, it is that for all those involved in supporting the coup, the return of Aristide signifies a total failure.