|
 Political
tensions are rapidly rising in Haiti as showdowns approach over
determining if Haiti’s President Michel Martelly has broken the
law, and if former president Jean-Claude Duvalier, viewed by
many as Martelly’s political mentor, will get away with
flagrantly doing so a quarter century ago.
Hundreds of demonstrators
marched through the streets of Port-au-Prince on Feb. 7, the 26th
anniversary of the 1986 fall of the 29-year Duvalier
dictatorship.
In one rally in front of the
Justice Ministry, demonstrators condemned Investigating Judge
Jean Carvès’s decision on Jan. 30 to waive prosecution of the
crimes against humanity – extrajudicial killings, jailings, and
torture – committed by “Baby Doc” Duvalier during his
reign from 1971 to 1986. Carvès said he would only pursue the
former “President for Life” for embezzling hundreds of
millions from the Haitian treasury, a crime which carries a
maximum sentence of five years in jail.
“Martelly stop tolerating
criminals in the country,” read the sign held by one
demonstrator. “Duvalier must be judged.”
 The
second demonstration, which many from the first rally attended,
marched from the hillside slum of Belair down through the
capital to demand that Martelly turn over his passport to a
special Senate commission investigating charges that he and 38
other high government officials hold foreign citizenships in
violation of the 1987 Haitian constitution. The march, called by
a newly formed front called the Patriotic Force for Respect of
the Constitution (FOPARK), saw demonstrators climb up lampposts
and tear down pink street banners with President Martelly’s
smiling face proclaiming “In Port-au-Prince, 41,402 children
are in school for completely FREE, a promise is a debt.” The
protesters then carried the posters upside down and finally set
them ablaze.
“President Martelly lies to
us about providing free education,” said Rodrigue Joseph, a
taxi driver. “It appears that, around the nation, school
masters have not been paid by the government for teaching kids
for free, and the National Education Fund that Martelly set up
with an illegal tax on international money transfers and phone
calls has no money in it. Close to $30 million from it seems to
be missing, and that’s just going by what the Martelly people
say. It might be much more.”
“But he’s also lying about
his citizenship,” interrupted Yolande Sénatus, a student. “I
think he has a U.S. passport and so ran for president illegally.”
“If you don’t have double
nationality, give your passport!” read one demonstrator’s
poster. “Hunger tèt kale, poverty tèt kale, unemployment tèt
kale, double nationality tèt kale” read another poster,
where “tèt kale” – previously a campaign refrain – refers
to Martelly’s “bald head” and also means “completely.”
Demonstrations calling for
Martelly to shed light on the charges, particularly from Sen.
Moïse Jean Charles, that he is a U.S. citizen (see Haïti
Liberté, Vol. 5, No. 26, 01/11/12) were also held in Cap
Haïtien on Feb. 6 and in Miragoâne on Feb. 7.
Meanwhile, according the
Haitian Press Agency, a pro-Martelly mob attacked a delegation
of parliamentarians in the central plateau town of Lascahobas.
Sen. Annick Joseph was reportedly hurt in the leg by a thrown
rock.
In a combative press conference
on Feb. 4 as he was leaving on a state visit to Venezuela and
Panama, President Martelly declared that “there is no law,
there is nothing that gives anybody or any institution the right
to ask the Executive to report on his passport... The passport
will stay in the President’s pocket.”
Martelly also backhanded
questions from the press about an allegedly curse-filled
confrontation he had with lawmakers meeting at Prime Minister
Garry Conille’s residence, where he arrived, reportedly without
being invited, on the evening of Feb. 1. Martelly denies that
anything untoward happened – “three quarters of what you are
hearing, it’s all is lies” produced by a “laboratory”
intent on creating “destabilization,” he told the press
conference.
But the Senate’s president,
Simon Dieuseul Desras, issued an open letter to Martelly on Feb.
2 in which he reproached Martelly that “Your vulgar comments,
your obscene gestures, your propensity to provocation and
scandal do not reflect the image of a life devoted to a noble
cause... The grotesque scenes to which you have made us
accustomed, including the one last night at the official
residence of the Prime Minister, witnessed by many deputies and
senators, demonstrates your lack of moral fiber and your
inability to be part of this collection of men whom the country
should view with reverence and gratitude.”
Desras wrote that “Last
night, my colleagues and I, after leaving the Prime Minister’s
house mortified, with our heads full of thoughts... after being
covered with insults, without cause or reason, by President
Martelly, we felt... this is a clear case of contempt, affecting
the honor of... the Haitian Parliament, against which we raise
the most vehement protest,” and therefore “we ask the
President of the Republic to make amends and apologize publicly
for having departed from the basic principles of morality,
ethics and respect for the dignity of our people and that of the
institution we represent.”
Meanwhile, the Collective against Impunity, which is
comprised of people who have filed suits against Duvalier,
announced on Feb. 7 that its members would appeal judge Carvès’s
decision, which the group’s coordinator Danielle Magloire
characterized as an “insult” and “a perversion of the
foundations of a democracy and a state of law.” |
