|
After five months without a legally
established government, Haitian President Joseph Michel Martelly
finally managed in October to nominate and have ratified by
Parliament a prime minister, who has set up a government of 18
ministers and 19 secretaries of state.
But no sooner was Prime
Minister Garry Conille installed in office than President
Martelly provoked a new crisis by ordering the illegal and
arbitrary arrest of Deputy Arnel Bélizaire on Thursday, Oct. 27,
2011 at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in
Port-au-Prince.
The arrest was carried out by
Port-au-Prince government prosecutor Félix Léger, with the help
of the Haitian National Police (PNH) and the soldiers of the
United Nations occupation force, MINUSTAH (UN Stabilization
Mission for Haiti).
Around 4 p.m. on Oct. 27,
Deputy Bélizaire, who represents the capital’s Delmas and Tabarre districts, returned from an official parliamentary visit
to France using a diplomatic passport. As he stepped off the Air
France jet, PNH officers arrested him and took him directly to
the National Penitentiary, where he stayed overnight.
Martelly charges that Bélizaire
is a convicted criminal who escaped from the Penitentiary during
the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and belongs back behind bars. His
desire to imprison Bélizaire followed a heated exchange between
the two men during an Oct. 12 meeting of the Deputies’ “Group of
58" voting block with Martelly at the National Palace to discuss Conille’s ratification.
Bélizaire explained his version
of what happened at that meeting in an official Oct. 14 letter
to Chamber of Deputies president Sorel Jacinthe. Following an
introduction by Deputy Fritz Chéry, Deputy Virkens Derilus told
Martelly that, in order for them to ratify the Prime Minister’s
general policy declaration, the Group of 58 had been offered 50
million gourdes ($1.25 million) to be released to each commune
and for communal leaders to be respected, according to the
letter.
“The President responded:
‘What is this shit?’” Belizaire wrote. “‘You know me.
Nobody can make me do anything. I have a big dick which is too
heavy for me. You can’t do anything to me, and I’m not going to
lose anything. If you want to do anything with me, you say
President, this is what we’d like, and I’ll see what I can do.’”
“At that moment, I
intervened to say to the President that I did not agree,”
Bélizaire’s letter continues. “He responded to me: ‘My ass.
You forget once I was with you one evening and we were helping
people, and the next day you went on the radio and lambasted me;
I didn’t hear you, that’s what people told me.’ I told him: ‘Mr.
President, what they told you was right. I did lambast you on
the radio. Already I didn’t like you.’ At this point, the
President lost all control, insulting me and threatening me
(with every kind of cursing that there is) up to the point where
he dared to tell me: ‘since I hear you have balls, prove it to
me, I’m going to make it so you don’t leave the Palace alive.’”
Following that meeting,
Martelly swore that he would arrest Belizaire.
So it was that last Thursday at
the airport, all measures were taken to arrest the deputy.
Police barred a parliamentary delegation, headed by Chamber of
Deputies president Sorel Jacinthe, from entering the airport’s
diplomatic lounge. "We are dealing with a supreme leader who
is plunging into dictatorship and who should be following the
example of others in the country today," said Jacinthe. "We
are going to see Arnel to tell him that we are for democracy,
for the separation of powers, and for respect of the
Constitution. "
Jacinthe said that he feared a
return to the status quo ante because he believes that
Martelly has the highest disregard for freedom of the press and
the legislature and holds former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier
as his preferred political model.
The former Chamber of Deputies
president, Lévaillant Louis-Jeune, meanwhile, said that the
country experienced last Thursday the “D” day of a new
dictatorship. He also promised that when Parliament reconvenes
in January 2012, there will be a proposal for the President’s
impeachment, pursuant to the Constitution’s Article 186 which
states: "The House of Deputies, by a majority of two-thirds
(2/3) of its members, shall indict: a. The President of the
Republic for the crime of high treason or any other crime or
offense committed in the discharge of his duties."
Many parliamentarians feel that
Martelly committed a crime by arresting Deputy Bélizaire,
despite their warnings that he should not, because the President
flagrantly violated Article 115 of the Constitution which
states: "No member of the Legislature may during his term be
arrested under ordinary law for a crime, a minor offense or a
petty violation, except by authorization of the House of which
he is a member, unless he is apprehended in the act of
committing an offense punishable by death, personal restraint or
penal servitude or the loss of civil rights. In that case, the
matter is referred to the House of Deputies or the Senate
without delay if the Legislature is in session, and if not, it
shall be taken up at the next regular or special session."
Prosecutor Félix Léger claimed
that Haitian “justice is not dealing with a deputy," but
rather "justice is dealing with a citizen." (The same
semantic word-play was on display last week when PNH spokesman
Gary Desrosiers called the eight MOLEGHAF activists arrested for
demonstrating outside the offices of the Department of Social
Affairs last Tuesday, Oct. 25 “bandits.”)
"There is a citizen who had
trouble with the law, justice has done its job, that's what's
important," said Léger, who seems (as Jacinthe noted last
week) to be unfamiliar with Haitian law.
"There was a formal order by
[Haitian] justice," - he should have said by President
Martelly - "not to take him to the courthouse to be charged,
but to take him directly to the National Penitentiary,”
Léger explained.
While the deputies were held
outside the airport, Interior Minister Thierry Mayard-Paul was
able to enter with a squad of heavily armed bodyguards, in
flagrant violation of airport security rules. Worse still,
Mayard-Paul physically assaulted several airport security guards
who got in his way, as did his armed henchmen. The badge of the
airport security officer Fritz Dorcé was confiscated, which
caused airport workers to stage a work stoppage on Friday, Oct.
28.
The day after his arrest,
Deputy Arnel Bélizaire was taken to the Chamber of Deputies,
where he was received by hundreds of his supporters and
colleagues. The deputies voted overwhelmingly for a resolution
calling for the immediate resignation of four members of the
Martelly/Conille government: the Minister of Justice and Public
Safety, Josué Pierre-Louis; Interior Minister, Thierry Mayard-Paul;
Secretary of State to the Presidency for Foreign Affairs, Michel
Brunache, and Government Prosecutor of the First Court of
Port-au-Prince, Félix Léger. If they do not comply with this
injunction, they will be sanctioned when Parliament reconvenes
in January 2012, deputies said.
In the Senate, 16 senators have
signed a motion summoning Justice Minister Josué Pierre-Louis
and Secretary of State Michel Brunache on Thursday, Nov. 3.
Prime Minister Garry Conille
and Interior Minister Thierry Mayard-Paul are to appear before
the Senate on Monday, Nov. 7. They will be asked to explain the
government’s project to restore the Armed Forces of Haiti.
A Senate committee has also
been formed to investigate the nationality of several government
members who are suspected of being foreign citizens. Everything
is being put in place to bring down some of the ministers close
to Martelly.
Martelly left the country last
Thursday, Oct. 27 to visit the United States for health reasons,
according to a statement of the National Palace’s Communications
Office. He was expected to return home Sunday, Nov. 6, but faced
with the tempestuous situation, it is reported he will return
instead on Wednesday, Nov. 2.
The government has unleashed a political
confrontation which may have far-reaching consequences.
Meanwhile, the National Palace has taken steps to mobilize some
sectors to welcome the President at the airport, so as to
project the image that Martelly is popular. This Wednesday,
we’re likely to witness another spectacle at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport. |
