It all began in the town of Gros-Morne on Jan. 1, 2004
when the population, at the end of an anti-Lavalas
protest, chased away the handful of Haitian National
Police stationed there. Gros-Morne is a sleepy town
with little strategic value, so the news didn’t get
out much. Then Gonaives followed suit. The only
thing in common between the Gros-Morne uprising and
the highly mediatized takeover in Gonaives was the
general disaffection of the population which enabled
the Cannibal Army and the so-called rebels to soundly
defeat the special forces sent from the capital to
reclaim Gonaives. The RAMICOS uprising in St. Marc
was preceded by an anti-government demonstration of 15
to 20 thousand people, a massive turnout in a
medium-size town like St. Marc. The whole Artibonite
region had turned against Lavalas. A quick glance at
a map of Haiti would help to understand why the regime
felt obliged to retake St. Marc at whatever cost.
RAMICOS is the acronym for Rassemblement des Militants
Consequents de St. Marc (Rally of Genuine St. Marc
Activists), a grassroots coalition with widespread
support from the population. Bale Wouze (Clean Sweep)
on the other hand was a criminal gang of the “Cannibal
Army” type, controlled by the government. To equate
the two as Louis Joinet has is a kind of “tout voum se
do” arrogance akin to imperialist chauvinism.
Neptune and a police detachment arrived in St. Marc on
Feb. 9, two days after RAMICOS and a group of
supporters had stormed the police station. The prime
minister called on partisans of the regime to assist
the police in putting down the uprising. Over a
two-day period the police and a strafing helicopter
overwhelmed the La Scierie stronghold, forcing its
defenders to flee up a hill, while the Bale Wouze
militia carried out a first sweep of the neighborhood.
A number of houses were burned down, and several
wounded people were thrown alive in the fire according
to eyewitnesses, including one woman who witnesses her
son being thrown inside one such burning house.
The Lavalas lobby later tried everything to deny the
massacre, including a virulent campaign to discredit
the NCHR human rights group that carried out an
investigation in the area in early March 2004. Anne
Fuller published an article two weeks ago detailing at
least 25 Bale Wouze killings in the two-week period
leading to Aristide’s flight. She acknowledged in the
article that there were probably many more deaths to
be documented.
As I wrote in a previous note, there is a chain of
command that leads straight to Neptune. His hunger
strike, by the way, is a slap in the face of other
political prisoners who spent more time in HIS jails
without seeing their day in court. In some instances,
his government disregarded repeated judicial decisions
to free prisoners languishing in Lavalas jails. Where
was his outrage then? The interim government can
free Neptune for political reasons, but it cannot
exonerate him. Only a court of law and a full
investigation can do that. But this is precisely what
Neptune is fighting literally tooth and nail to avoid.
Originally published on the Bob Corbett e-mail list. Reproduced here by author’s permission.