www.workers.org/ww/2004/haiti1202.php

Rebellion in Haiti reached a pivotal stage on Oct. 24, when a well-organized group of guerrillas attacked the police station in the northwestern town of Gros Morne. They successfully overcame the police there and seized weapons. (Haiti Progres newspaper, Nov. 10-16)

Before leaving, they spray-painted slogans on the station and other buildings, denouncing the occupation and the former soldiers who want to reconstitute the murderous Haitian army. “Down with the Macoutes,” they also said.

Next to a red star was written, “The Dessalinien Army of National Liberation (ADLN).”

In 1804 Gen. Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared independence from France after defeating the once mighty French colonial army, sent in 1802 to restore slavery in Haiti. Two hundred years later, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped in a U.S.-backed coup and forced into exile.

Aristide was Haiti’s first democratically elected president. He was overthrown for failing to fully implement International Monetary Fund and World Bank demands to privatize state-owned industries, among other Draconian capitalist measures. If implemented, the dictates of these imperialist financial institutions would benefit a few but further impoverish the majority of the people, already the poorest in the Western Hemisphere.

Since the Feb. 29 coup, the Bush-White-House-installed regime of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has unleashed a wave of murderous repression against Aristide’s supporters. Even Amnesty International was forced on Nov. 12 to condemn “summary executions by police, serious human rights abuses and an alarming number of illegal detentions in Haiti.” (Reuters, Nov. 12)

Resistance to Aristide’s overthrow and foreign occupation has grown so much that Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin was forced to concede, at a Nov. 14 meeting in Haiti, that Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas Party must be allowed to participate in elections. (Reuters, Nov. 14) Canadian troops were part of the first occupation force that invaded Haiti after Aristide’s ouster.

Popular resistance escalated after police killed two pro-Aristide protesters on Sept. 29. Since then, casualties and deaths have mounted. The guerrilla attack in Gros Morne is a natural consequence of the brutal repression against Haiti’s popular movement—aided by the occupation forces—that the capitalist media have been covering up.

At a Nov. 8-9 meeting in Trinidad and Tobago’s Port-of-Spain, leaders of the 15-member Caribbean Community once again held off renewing ties with the coup regime. They declared “no compromise on the fundamental principles of respect for human rights, due process and good governance….” (CARICOM Press Release, Nov 10)

Grenadian Prime Minister Keith Mitchell also called for an end to “the harassment of the political opposition.” (Associated Press, Nov. 10)

Haiti’s Electoral Council is charged with organizing elections for late next year. But on Nov. 8 council chairwoman Roselor Julien called it quits. She warned that other panel members were trying to rig the vote in favor of groups that formed the bourgeois opposition to Aristide.

“I am not ready to condone an electoral farce,” she asserted even after receiving death threats. “Nor am I ready to support an imposture.” (Haitian Times, Nov. 10)

Latin American leaders of the 19-nation Rio Group recently announced an initiative in Brazil that aims to reduce civil unrest and promote economic development in Haiti. It includes meeting with Aristide in South Africa, although he won’t have much say. Latortue’s response was to announce that he’s seeking Aristide’s arrest based on an international warrant the coup regime’s Justice Ministry is expected to issue for alleged political crimes and fraud.

Soldiers from Brazil, Chile and Argen tina now make up the majority of United Nations occupation troops operating in Haiti to suppress a popular movement that won’t be stopped.

To learn more about mounting resistance, join Haitians and their supporters at a giant rally on Dec. 5 in Brooklyn. See calendar listing on page 2 for further information.