Haitian Offices and Shops Closed in New Anti-Government Strike

Businesses closed and public transportation stopped here Wednesday after the 57 Organizations demanding the resignation of the military-led ruling council called a strike for the seventh time this month.

Near Carrefour, a slum in the southwest end of the capital, protesters threw garbage cans and tires in the street. But the barricades that appeared during clashes between the army and protesters two weeks ago were absent.

There were no soldiers on patrol downtown, where most businesses and offices remained closed. Because drivers participated in the strike, there was no public transportation, even for the Haitians who apparently wanted to work.

Some Support Wanes

“I’m not with the strike,” said Richard Hippolyte, a young factory worker. “I supported the strike last week but now it’s too much. I need to make some money.”

“About 80% (of the workers) came to work this morning,” said a foreman at Aetna Handbag of Haiti. “We’re all against the strike now. It only serves to hurt the workers.”

Large groups of unemployed men and women gathered outside the four factories that were open, hoping to fill in for absent workers.

At least two other cities were affected by the strike, radio reports said. Radio Metropole said Gonaives, 90 miles north of the capital, and Port-de-Paix, on the northern coast, were paralyzed.

21 Dead in Strikes

In the six days of strikes this month, at least 21 people have been killed and more than 100 injured. It has been the worst political crisis since President Jean-Claude Duvalier was deposed on Feb. 7, 1986.

The strikes were triggered by a government decree that seized control of elections from a constitutionally designated independent electoral council.

Public pressure forced the government to rescind the decree. But the loose coalition of 57 labor, student, peasant and political groups that organized the strike has continued to demand that the three-member National Government Council resign. On Tuesday, the electoral council said it had finished drafting a new electoral law.