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Political Violence Rules Cité Soleil

Anne Fuller, Miami Herald, 2003-11-26

Haiti Democracy Project web page item #1086 (http://www.haitipolicy.org)

I was a monitor for Haiti's 1990 elections, when Jean-Bertrand Aristide won two-thirds of the popular vote. It happened that my election eve was spent watching the vote tallying in a classroom in Cité Soleil, the vast shantytown built out onto landfill near Port-au-Prince.

I remember buying rolls and butter and soft drinks for the poll workers, who sat by candlelight counting and recounting each paper ballot cast for president, for legislators and local officials. Meticulous they were, and Aristide and those on his ticket won all but about five of the 190 votes counted in that station.

Cité Soleil was wild about the young priest who had preached in the nearby St. Jean Bosco Church and nearly lost his life there when thugs attacked it in 1988. The issue for monitors was whether, in an area where support for Aristide was so strong, the popular and charismatic priest would be allowed to win. It felt like a historic moment.

In 2003, Aristide still looms large over Cité Soleil, but the love has turned to bitterness. For years now, young gangsters have been the president's core supporters there. Flattered by his attention, they have made something of a living in politics and crime, while holding Cité Soleil in fear. But early this month, the leading gangs turned sharply against the president.

What has happened?

Cité Soleil suffered for its love of Aristide during three years of military rule from 1991 to 1994. Bodies turned up regularly in its streets, particularly after the paramilitary organization called FRAPH formed. It was a scary place. I would carry a box of condoms during visits to pass for a family-planning worker.

FRAPH's membership swelled as many people began to lose hope that the military could be ousted; whether out of venial inclination, self-preservation or direct pressure, many joined the paramilitary group that resembled Duvalier's old Tonton Macoutes. In Cité Soleil, FRAPH's coordinator was a local politico named Fritz Joseph.

Joseph was in charge when an arson fire around Christmas 1993 destroyed hundreds of small homes and killed at least a dozen people. Lawyers with the Aristide government are still working on a lawsuit against FRAPH for the fire and have called for the U.S. government to extradite FRAPH chief Emmanuel Constant to Haiti. But Joseph does not need to be extradited; Aristide appointed him mayor of Cité Soleil in 2002.

How could Aristide have named a former FRAPH chief to be mayor? I still puzzle over this, but I think that most of the answer lies in an essential continuity between the FRAPH paramilitary force under military rule and the gangs that back Aristide today. These groups have never had much ideology, so for one to support the army and the other the man who dissolved it means little. What really matters is allegiance and access to power and scarce resources.

Today, Joseph is finally being denounced, but it's by the gang members he helped nurture. They say that he was behind the Oct. 31 killing of an influential 23-year-old thug and former Aristide loyalist nicknamed ''Colobri.'' A new leading Aristide loyalist has already emerged: Emmanuel ''Dread'' Wilmé. He is only 22, but, as most of his predecessors, he likes to call himself a political militant who faithfully serves the president. How long will he survive?

As for Cité Soleil, there is more violence here today than during the military rule. It is poor, and its residents lack many things. But what they need most is peace and security. Thousands of people have fled, with regret, missing what they say were the lower rents and better grocery prices. Large swathes of Cité Soleil today are barren and burned out, where small homes have been destroyed, mostly in gang wars, and the streets are thinly populated.