Rocks in the Water, Rocks in the Sun: A Memoir from the Heart of Haiti

by Vilmond Joegodson Déralciné

  4 Ibid., 60–61.

  5 Ibid., 133; Inquiry Into Occupation and Administration of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, 67th Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Report no. 794, http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/haiti_inquiry.htm.

  6 Roger Gaillard, Les blancs débarquent: Charlemagne Péralte le caco (Port-au-Prince: L’Imprimerie le Natal, 1982). From a critical American perspective, see Mary Renda, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

  7 The occupation altered domestic class relations. The Haitian landowning class was weakened when the United States rewrote the constitution allowing foreigners to own land. Americans established HASCO, a large-scale sugar manufacturing plant, and other capitalist ventures that exploited Haiti’s fertile soils and cheap labour. The Haitian landowning class and merchants depended on the peasants cultivating small plots. The capitalist penetration under Jean-Claude Duvalier spawned a new bourgeoisie that subcontracted assembly work. Their interests were fundamentally different from the landowning class, except insofar as both groups exploited — in their own way — poor Haitians. The comprador bourgeoisie that controls the import-export business in Haiti is described by Fred Doura, Économie d’Haïti (Montréal: Les Éditions Dami, 2002), 78–82.

  8 Rémy Bastien, Le paysan haïtien et sa famille (Paris: Éditions Karthala, 1985). See the preface by Professor André-Marcel d’Ans for a discussion of the ethnographic tradition in Haiti, including the place of François Duvalier.

  9 Bernard Diederich, Le prix du sang: La résistance du peuple haïtien à la tyrannie (Port-au-Prince: Éditions H. Deschamps, 2005). Nicolas Jallot and Laurent Lesage argue that Papa Doc channelled his discretionary funds into the macoutes, rather than into his own personal coffers. See their Haïti: Dix ans d’histoire secrète (Paris: Éditions du Felin, 1995), 50.

  10 Elizabeth Abbott, Haiti: The Duvaliers and Their Legacy (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1988).

  11 Werner Kerns Fleurimond, Haïti de la crise à l’occupation: Histoire d’un chaos (2000–2004) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009), 170–72.

  12 Timothy T. Schwartz, Travesty in Haiti: A True Account of Christian Missions, Orphanages, Fraud, Food Aid and Drug Trafficking, (Lexington, KY, 2010), 108. Robert W. Cox, “Labor and the Multinationals,” Foreign Affairs 54, no. 2 (January 1976): 344–65, describes the new global production regime emerging in the 1970s. Jacques Arcelin’s documentary, Bitter Cane (Canne amère, Haiti Films, 1983) offers readers invaluable access to the conditions that Deland faced as he moved from Saut d’Eau to Port-au-Prince. The documentary contains footage of the American managers of the new factories and the people — mostly women — who worked in them.

  13 Schwartz, Travesty in Haiti, 109–10; Food for the Hungry International, “Haiti Food Security Needs Assessment,” PL 480, Title II Institutional Support Assistance Program, January 1999, http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pnacr821.pdf, 5; World Food Programme, “Rapport complet de l’evaluation du programme de pays en Haiti (1998-2002),” September 2001, http://www.wfp.org/content/rapport-complet-de-levaluation-du-programme-de-pays-en-haiti-1998-2002.

  14 Jimmy Carter, “Haiti’s Election Needs Help,” New York Times, 1 October 1990.

  15 Amy Wilentz, The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier (New York: Touchstone, 1989).

  16 Peter Hallward, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment (London: Verso, 2007), 36.

  17 Kathleen Marie Whitney, “Sin, Fraph, and the CIA: U.S. Covert Action in Haiti,” Southwestern Journal of Law and Trade in the Americas 3, no. 2 (1996): 303–32.

  18 Ken Bresler, “If You Are Not Corrupt, Arrest the Criminals: Prosecuting Human Rights Violators in Haiti,” Project on Justice in Times of Transition, Harvard University, Spring 2003. Bresler’s summary of the process of defending the victims of the Raboteau massacre will help readers understand conditions in Haiti and shed light on both parts of this book.

  19 Hallward, Damming the Flood, 56–58.

  20 Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights, see Eric Verhoogen, “The U.S. in Haiti: How to Get Rich on 11 Cents an Hour,” 1 April 1996, http://www.globallabourrights.org/reports/the-u-s-in-haiti; Charles Kernaghan et al., “Behind Closed Doors: The Workers Who Make Our Clothes — University Students Investigate Factories in Central America,” 28 April 1998, http://www.globallabourrights.org/reports/behind-closed-doors.

  21 Campaign for Labor Rights, “Disney/Nike Contractor Leaves Haiti for China,” Action Alert, 8 August 1998, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/263.html.

  22 The Fair Labor Association documents its successes at http://www.fairlabor.org/. FLA Watch documents its failures at http://flawatch.usas.org/.

  23 Hallward, Damming the Flood, 63.

  24 Ibid., 64–72.

  25 Schwartz, Travesty in Haiti, 103–6. When Schwartz tabled his report that demonstrated the devastating effects that food aid has had on Haitian agriculture and society, some experienced executives in the development industry privately acknowledged his findings. Others went on the attack, threatened both professionally and personally by his claims that aid actually harms Haitians. A German nutritionist who had just arrived in Haiti was outraged at his survey report. She had invested a doctorate and her identity in the prospect of making a difference in the world. If the development industry was misguided, then so was her career.

  26 The OAS press release issued on 21 May reads: “The Mission has noted that Haitian voters showed their strong desire to go to the polls by the relatively high participation in the elections. The EOM congratulates the voters, the Government, the police and the political parties for having worked together to create the climate necessary for the vote.” http://www.oas.org/OASpage/press2002/en/Press98/Press2000/haitielections.htm.

  27 Hallward, Damming the Flood, 76.

  28 Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Haiti, State Against Nation: The Origins and Legacy of Duvalierism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990), identifies the problem of states struggling within the context of the world order at the same time that they have domestic responsibilities. Consequent contradictions arise most markedly in peripheral states.

  29 Hallward, Damming the Flood, 78.

  30 Irwin P. Stotzky, “Democracy and International Military Intervention: The Case of Haiti,” in Democracy and Human Rights in Latin America, ed. Richard S. Hillman, John A. Peeler, and Elsa Cardoza Da Silva, 125–178 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 2002).

  31 Hallward, Damming the Flood, 78–80. Manus appealed to newly appointed Secretary of State Colin Powell in December 2000, describing how “ballot boxes were stolen and replaced with stuffed substitute boxes,” all in favour of Aristide. If true, the logistics would have been impressive. A copy of Manus’s letter to Colin Powell is posted at http://www.corbetthaiti.org/archive/archive7/msg06504.html.

  32 For a brief critique of the National Endowment for Democracy, see Jonah Ginden and Kristen Weld, “Benevolence or Intervention? Spotlighting US Soft Power,” NACLA Report on the Americas, 1 January 2007, 19–21. Sourcewatch offers a critique and numerous sources documenting NED’s work in the world at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Endowment_for_Democracy#Fostering_.22Free_Press.22.

  33 Fleurimond, Haïti de la crise à l’occupation, 70.

  34 Ibid., 37–50.

  35 Ibid., 68–69.

  36 Hallward, Damming the Flood, 82.

  37 Fleurimond, Haïti de la crise à l’occupation, 84.

  38 Ibid., 113–14.

  39 Kim Ives, “‘Mafia boss… Drug dealer… Poster-boy for political corruption’: WikiLeaked U.S. Embassy Cables Portray Senator Youri Latortue,” Haïti Liberté, vol. 4, no. 50, (29 June 2011). Ives reports that, according to a high-level government security source, Youri Latortue used his contacts in Palace security to ensure that Philippe was admitted to the grounds. Latortue would play an important part in the coming coup, helping to coordinate the paramilitaries led by Philippe and Cham
blain. The focus of Roger Noriega’s OAS inquiry into the events of 17 December 2001 is the reaction that the attempted coup d’état provoked among the poor. Nowhere in the report is the connection drawn between the OPL’s attempt to install a parallel government in February 2001 and the retaliation against the OPL offices, which the people naturally understood to be at the centre of the attack on their elected government.

  40 Fleurimond, Haïti de la crise à l’occupation, 95–100, 1313.

  41 Dan Whitman, A Haiti Chronicle: The Undoing of a Latent Democracy, available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/117997669/A-Haiti-Chronicle-the-Undoing-of-a-Latent-Democracy-Dan-Whitman. Whitman discusses his role with the American embassy in implementing the program. He sees himself as a defender of the goodwill of the American State Department in helping Haitians to advance.

  42 Hallward, Damming the Flood, 92–94. The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux document their approach, which seeks justice and attempts to empower victims of human rights abuses in Haiti. Their legal work exposes the collaboration between Washington and the Haitian oligarchy: http://www.ijdh.org/about/#.UvzVw2JdWSo. They successfully helped to convict fifty-seven defendants, including the leaders of the Cédras coup, the subject of a Harvard University case study: see Bresler, “If You Are Not Corrupt, Arrest the Criminals.”

  43 Hallward, Damming the Flood, 98; Max Blumenthal, “The Other Regime Change: Did the Bush Administration Allow a Network of Right-Wing Republicans to Foment a Violent Coup in Haiti?” Salon, 16 July 2004.

  44 Jonathan Demme, The Agronomist (Jonathan Demme, 2004); Hallward, Damming the Flood, 157–58.

  45 Thomas M. Griffin, “Haiti Human Rights Investigation,” Center for the Study of Human Rights, University of Miami School of Law, 11–14 November 2004, 4–11.

  46 Ibid., 51.

  47 Hallward, Damming the Flood, 192–223.

  48 Ibid., 224.

  49 Yves Engler and Anthony Fenton, Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority (Vancouver: Red Publishing, 2005), 41–45, discuss the Ottawa Initiative, in which officials from Canada, France, and the United States appear to have planned their collaboration in the overthrow of the Aristide government a year prior to Aristide’s removal.

  50 United Nations, Statement by the President of the Security Council, S/PRST/2004/4, 26 February 2004.

  51 Kim Ives and Ansel Herz, “WikiLeaks Haiti: The Aristide Files,” The Nation, 5 August 2011.

  52 UN Security Council resolution 1529, 29 February 2004.

  53 Statement issued by CARICOM heads of government at the conclusion of an emergency session on the situation in Haiti, 2–3 March 2004, Kingston, Jamaica.

  54 “Aristide’s ‘Removal’ from Haiti ‘Unconstitutional’: African Union,” Agence France Presse, 9 March 2004.

  55 Venezuelanalysis.com, “Venezuela Won’t Recognize Haiti’s New ‘Illegitimate’ Government,” 17 March 2004, http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/419.

  56 Washington had attempted to coordinate the overthrow of Hugo Chavez in 2002, with the same American agencies using the same tactics in league with the same class interests in Venezuela as in Haiti: N. Scott Cole, “Hugo Chavez and President Bush’s Credibility Gap: The Struggle Against US Democracy Promotion,” International Political Science Review / Revue internationale de science politique 28, no. 4 (September 2007): 493–507; Ronald D. Sylvia and Constantine P. Danopoulos, “The Chávez Phenomenon: Political Change in Venezuela,” Third World Quarterly 24, no. 1 (February 2003): 63–76. Joshua Kurlantzick, “The Coup Connection: How an Organization Financed by the U.S. Government Has Been Promoting the Overthrow of Elected Leaders Abroad,” Mother Jones, November–December 2004, describes how the same people were involved in both coups, namely Bush advisers Roger Noriega and Otto Reich. Haitian Stanley Lucas, who would become an adviser to President Martelly, was also involved in both the attempted coup in Venezuela and the successful coup in Haiti.

  57 Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review Human Rights Council, “Republic of Haiti: Submission to the United Nations Universal Period Review,” 3–14 October 2011.

  58 Interview with Samba Boukman, Haiti Analysis, http://haitianalysis.blogspot.ca/2012/03/samba-boukman-on-his-life-and-necessity.html,

  59 Harvard Law Student Advocates for Human Rights, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Centro de Justiça Global, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, “Keeping the Peace in Haiti? An Assessment of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, Using Compliance with Its Prescribed Mandate as a Barometer for Success.” The people of Joegodson’s birthplace, Saut d’Eau, also testify to a reign of terror: Association of University Grads for a Haiti with Law, “Central Plateau: Mirebalais-Lascaobas-Belladère, Former Soldiers and Armed Civilians Enjoy Complete Impunity, the Current Situation of the Victims of Former Soldiers and Armed Civilians from 2002–2005,” August 2007. For a focus on the popular neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince in the aftermath of the coup, see Griffin, “Haiti Human Rights Investigation”; and Kevin Pina, We Must Kill the Bandits, documentary, Haiti Information Project, 2007.

  60 Bresler, “If You Are Not Corrupt, Arrest the Criminals,” 22. In the Haitian justice system, jurors can ask questions of the defendants. The lawyer for the victims, Mario Joseph and Brian Concannon, reported that the jurors’ questions showed that they had followed the details and implications of the testimony, even where the prosecutors had been lax in their presentation of the case.

  61 Hallward, Damming the Flood, 275. Ravet pa gen jistis devan poul — the cockroach is never in the right before the hen.

  62 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1542, 30 April 2004.

  63 This argument is advanced by Ricardo Seitenfus, the special representative of the secretary general of the Organization of American States in Haiti from 2008 to 2011. See Dan Beeton and Georgianne Nienaber, “Haiti’s Doctored Elections, Seen from the Inside: An Interview with Ricardo Seitenfus,” Dissent, 24 February 2014.

  64 Harvard Law Student Advocates for Human Rights and Centro de Justiça Global, “Keeping the Peace in Haiti?” 1.

  65 Griffin, “Haiti Human Rights Investigation,” 4–13. Harvard Law Student Advocates for Human Rights and Centro de Justiça Global, “Keeping the Peace in Haiti?” 10. Wadner Pierre, “Why Bernard Grousse Shouldn’t Be Haiti’s Next Prime Minister,” http://www.dominionpaper.ca/weblogs/wadner_pierre/4063.

  66 Dan Coughlin and Kim Ives, “WikiLeaks Haiti: Country’s Elite Used Police as Private Army,” The Nation, 22 June 2011. Also see Professor Keith Yearman, The Cité Soleil Massacre Declassification Project, College of DuPage, http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/yearman/cite_soleil.htm.

  67 Tullo Vigevani and Gabriel Cepaluni, “Lula’s Foreign Policy and the Quest for Autonomy Through Diversivication,” Third World Quarterly 28, no. 7 (2007): 1309–26.

  68 Hallward, Damming the Flood, 300.

  69 We observed the huge protest marches. The people chanted “Pa gen Préval, pa gen Ayiti” which is ambiguous but can mean, “If we don’t get Préval, you don’t get Haiti.” Thousands of poor from Cité Soleil climbed the mountain to the luxurious Hotel Montana where they entered en masse, jumped in the pool, lounged on the chaises longues, and otherwise hobnobbed with the rich. When they left everything just as they had found it, the message was not lost on the oligarchy. The price for fixing the elections was going to be high.

  70 Alex Dupuy, “Haiti Election 2006: A Pyrrhic Victory for René Préval,” Latin American Perspectives 33, no. 3 (May 2006):135.

  71 See Georgetown University, Political Database of the Americas at http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Elecdata/Haiti/06pres.html.

  72 Dan Coughlin and Kim Ives, “WikiLeaks Haiti: The PetroCaribe Files,” The Nation, 1 June 2011.

  73 Lamp for Haiti, “The Right to Vote: A Report Detailing the Haitian Elections for November 28, 2010, and March 2011,” Bwa Nef, Cité Soleil, 2010, http://ijdh.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/LAMP_HR_Program_Right_to_
Vote_Rep_2010_2011.pdf; “Reconstructing Democracy: Joint Report of Independent Electoral Monitors of Haiti’s November 28, 2010 Election,” 7, http://ijdh.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Haiti-Joint-Observer-Report-FINAL.pdf.

  74 Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and Bureau des avocats internationaux, “The International Community Should Pressure the Haitian Government for Prompt and Fair Elections,” 30 June 2010, http://www.ijdh.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Elections-Process-6-30-10_final-1.pdf.

  75 Center for Economic and Policy Research, “Reconstructing Democracy: Joint Report of Independent Electoral Monitors of Haiti’s November 28, 2010 Election,” n.d.; National Human Rights Defense Network, “RNDDH Presents Its Report on the 2nd Round of the Presidential and Partial Legislative Elections of March 20th, 2011,” 23 March 2011; Lamp for Haiti, “The Right to Vote,”; Center for Economic and Policy Research, “Haiti: From Original Sin to Electoral Intervention — An Interview with Ricardo Seitenfus by Dan Beeton and Georgianne Nienaber,” 24 February 2014.

  76 Kim Ives, “The Split in Fanmi Lavalas: How It Came About and What It Portends,” Haïti Liberté, vol 7, no 22, 11–17 December 2013.

  77 Yves Pierre-Louis, “17 Octobre 2013: Commémoration sur fond de manifestation anti-Martelly,” Haïti Liberté vol. 7, no. 15, (October 2013), 4.

  78 The press conferences of both KOD and FOPARK are available on the YouTube channel of frantzetienne1: https://www.youtube.com/user/frantzetienne1. “Deklarasyon KOD sou 10zyèm anivèsè koudeta 2004 la!” Haïti Liberté vol. 7, no. 33, (February 2014), 6. The Sentinel Staff, “FOPARK Announces March to U.S. Embassy on November 29,” http://www.sentinel.ht/news/articles/community/5198-fopark-announces-march-to-u-s-embassy-on-november-29#ixzz2wFdpwSEN.

  79 These claims are only a small summary of the accusations against the Martelly government. Many are repeated and elaborated independently in various human rights, Senate, and legislative reports. Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, “Situation Générale des Droits Humains dans le pays au cours de la deuxième année de présidence de Michel Joseph Martelly,” 18 June 2013, 6–7; Statement of Senator Benoit to the American Congress, http://www.ijdh.org/2013/10/topics/politics-democracy/senator-benoit-statement-to-congress/; Kim Ives, “Arrestation de Me André Michel!” Haïti Liberté vol. 7, no. 15 (October 2013), 4; Kim Ives, “Outspoken Senator Charges: Martelly Government, a ‘Cesspool’ of Corruption and Nepotism,” Haïti Liberté vol. 5, no. 25 (January 2012); United States Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013; Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, “Trafic illicite de drogues: Le Gouvernement Martelly/Lamothe met tout en oeuvre pour protéger les narcotrafiquants proches du Pouvoir,” 18 September 2013. One of the most disturbing revelations is the testimony of Sherlson Sanon, who describes how Senator Joseph Lambert enrolled him into his criminal gang at age eleven. Lambert and Senator Edwin Zinny paid him to carry out executions of criminal and political competitors, run drugs, and frame political opponents, such as Senator Moïse Jean-Charles. See Emmanuel Saintus, “Affaire Lambert: Al Capone haïtien?” Haïti progrès, 11 July 2013. One of the most tenacious journalists in Haiti, Jean Monard Métellus, exposes the workings of the Martelly government. In October 2013, Justice Minister Jean Renel Sanon published a press release revealing that Métellus was the target of an assassination plot. He claimed that two motorcyclists had been engaged to kill the journalist in a drive-by shooting, a common tactic in Haiti. Jean Dominique had been assassinated in precisely that manner. Journalist Francklyn Geffrard questions the purpose of a press release announcing the assassination plot rather than a police investigation to find the conspirators based on whatever information the justice minister possesses. The announcement had the effect of communicating to journalists the price that accompanied criticism of the Martelly regime. Francklyn B. Geffrard, “La vie de Jean Monard Métellus en danger!” Haïiti Liberté vol 7, no 15 (October 2013), 7.