A week after the promise-filled installation of the Senate’s ex-president in the National Palace as Haiti’s provisional president, Jocelerme Privert has taken no initiatives and is integrating reactionaries into key posts in his government.

Does Privert have the political will to bring a solution to the political crisis that has torn Haitian society’s fabric since the kidnapping-coup of Feb. 29, 2004? Can he withstand the pressure of the U.S.-led “Core Group,” of the reactionary oligarchy and its “civil society” collaborators, of the neo-Duvalierists and neo-putschist to provide a viable solution to the Haitian people’s demands for justice and democracy? After more than ten days in the National Palace, Privert has passed each day in meetings, just passing time, without having taken any concrete steps to win the people’s trust.

He still has not appointed a new Prime Minister, which should be his top priority. He reported on his work during his first five days at the National Palace in a press briefing on Fri., Feb. 19, during which he told of the government’s dire economic situation. He took more than a week to talk to political leaders, businessmen, civil society, human rights groups, and even some from Haiti’s popular organizations. But nothing concrete has been done. No changes have yet been made in the government. The criminals of the neo-Duvalierist Martelly regime and all those who squander state funds have become increasingly arrogant in front of everyone. They continue to kill, steal, loot, and empty the state’s coffers.

One of the interim president’s most controversial acts has been to appoint two arch-reactionary general secretaries at the National Palace: Anthony Barbier, a notorious supporter of the 2004 coup and third highest ranking leader of businessman André Apaid’s “Group 184," and Rony Gilot, an infamous official in and ideologue of the Duvalier dictatorship.

Anthony Barbier was one of the most vocal champions of an international boycott against Haiti’s 2004 bicentennial celebrations. The “Group of 184" was a political destabilization force, fabricated with support of the U.S., France, and Canada in the lead-up to the 2004 coup. It was financed by international mafia networks, including the CIA.

Rony Gilot was a former spy at the State University’s Faculty of Medicine with his colleague Roger Lafontant, who later became the Tonton Macoute paramilitary force’s chief. They and others infiltrated, undermined, coopted, and dispersed the students’ democratic struggle. Gilot is deeply responsible for and identified with many of the crimes committed during the bloody Duvalier dictatorship. He has even asked his colleagues, Duvalierist torturers and assassins like former police chief Franck Romain, to attend meetings under the label of a business group called "Haiti Chérie." These meetings with notorious Duvalierist criminals are a strategy to facilitate the return of reactionary and retrograde forces into the political arena once more.

Meanwhile, the people of the upper Artibonite Valley, particularly in Estère, are demonstrating for water and fertilizer so they can farm. Ravaged by cholera, over 2,000 Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent expelled from the Dominican Republic have been abandoned and ignored in the southern border town of Anse-à-Pitres, without shelter, food, or water. Crime is in full swing around the country.

Nothing has been done to respond to the Haitian people’s demands, whether political, economic, or social. The Haitian people have called for the annulment of the Aug. 9 and Oct. 25 elections, while opposition parties are still demanding an independent commission of inquiry to review the results from those pollings. The people also want an independent audit of how the Martelly regime conducted its finances during its five years in power, given the many reports and signs of widespread corruption. Furthermore, the people demand an improvement in the conditions of everyday life, a lowering of the cost of living, and other measures to create a safer environment as a crime wave terrorizes the nation.

Faced with this situation, the Haitian people will not stand idly by and will not obey the neo-cons. They are ready to repeat the uprising of Jan. 22, which brought the cancellation of the Jan. 24 elections.