Any Sudden Noise May Cause Panic : Anarchy Grows in Haiti as Regime Is Pressed to Quit

In the political turmoil that has taken hold in Haiti, violence erupts without warning, in unexpected places, as the anarchy escalates. It did so the other day in a street market not far from Port-au-Prince’s City Hall.

When poor Haitians die, their bodies are sometimes carted away on a garbage truck, so it was only natural that when a garbage truck made its slow way through the market it was accompanied by rumors.

Someone claimed to have seen a child’s foot protruding from the trash. Or was it a bullet-riddled body, another victim of the police? Or was it several bodies, decapitated, with bound hands?

No matter. In Haiti, rumor is often as strong as fact. The crowd became enraged, and rocks were hurled at the truck. It sped away.

A second truck entered the marketplace, and this time a mob blocked its way out. The driver tried to flee on foot, and was kicked and beaten. Someone set fire to the truck’s cab.

Dozens of soldiers arrived in olive-green trucks. The mob scattered, and the troops pursued on foot, firing their rifles down Traversiere Street, a crowded side street that leads to Port-au-Prince’s famous Iron Market.

Three vendors were hit and fatally wounded: A youth collapsed between bags of rice; a graying middle-aged man lay dying amid baskets of green oranges; the third victim, a young woman, fell atop lettuce and squash.

The soldiers retired, taking with them four prisoners. The injured driver was taken away in an ambulance. All through the day, the three dead vendors remained sprawled along Traversiere Street. Passers-by gaped at them as though they were looking at displays of merchandise.

For more than a month now, tension and violence have been feeding on themselves. Opposition leaders and foreign observers have begun to draw comparisons with the days just before the Duvalier dynasty came to an end 19 months ago.

“We have lost any sense of safety,” said Louis Dejoie, an opposition leader. “The mentality of terror is returning.”

At least 40 persons have been shot to death in the streets of Port-au-Prince during this period, either in anti-government demonstrations or in incidents like the one at the marketplace, which has come to be known as the “Truck of Death Affair.”

As a result, any sudden noise--a taxi backfiring, a door being slammed--can send people running in panic.

In the countryside, the toll has been higher, including the reported massacre of protesting peasants in an incident still clouded by lack of information. Several hundred may have died in the rifle and machete attack, which took place on the remote northwestern peninsula. No one knows for sure.

Change Demanded

The turbulence centers on demands that the National Council of Government, Haiti’s three-member provisional regime, step down. The council was created after the ouster, in February of last year, of President Jean-Claude Duvalier. Duvalier and his father, Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier, had ruled Haiti for 28 years.

The council is headed by Gen. Henri Namphy. The other two members are Gen. Williams Regala, also from the military, and Luc Honore, a former president of the Supreme Court. The council came under fire in June for trying to place a newly formed electoral commission under its control and for decreeing the abolition of an important labor union. The council later rescinded the decrees, but that has not silenced the demands that its members step down.

A loose coalition of civic and rural groups known as the 57 Organizations has spearheaded demonstrations and strikes to support demands that a new commission replace the council. Since June, these demonstrations have led almost inevitably to violence. On July 29, eight demonstrators were killed when soldiers fired on a peaceful march in downtown Port-au-Prince.

‘War on People’

“The army is making war on the people,” said Jean-Claude Bajeux, a leader of the 57 Organizations.

A year and a half ago, there were no such remarks when the army was helping to topple Jean-Claude Duvalier, who had succeeded his father as “president for life.” Most Haitians praised the army then.

According to opposition leaders and protesters, the military wants to hand-pick a president, and former Duvalier supporters still in the army are pulling strings to keep themselves in power.

“The people reject anyone who has ties with Duvalier--they must go,” said opposition leader Dejoie, one of several candidates for president.

Contributing to the uncertainty is the revival of Duvalier-style terror. The massacre of peasant demonstrators two weeks ago in the northwest, near the town of Jean-Rabel, was said to have been carried out by former members of the Tontons Macoutes at the service of local landlords.

Citizens’ Fear

The Tontons Macoutes were the private security force of the Duvaliers and were disbanded after the fall of the dictatorship. But most of them went free, and many Haitians fear that they have been lying in wait for a return to power by the Duvalier interests.

The peasant demonstrators were members of a Roman Catholic Church-affiliated group called Tet Ensem’n, Creole for “Heads Together.” Tet Ensem’n was demanding that government land occupied by large landholders be turned over to peasant farmers.

Hundreds of Tet Ensem’n followers began a march from villages near Jean-Rabel, 140 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince. They had planned to occupy land in an area called La Montagne. They were attacked and, according to press reports and interviews with foreign missionaries, many of them were killed.

The army sent soldiers to the area, but there have been no reports of arrests.

The National Council of Government has announced that it intends to turn power over to civilians, but this was thrown into question this week when a vocal political opponent, Daniel Narcisse, was ordered deported. Narcisse returned to Haiti last year after 20 years in exile in Canada, where he had become a citizen.

Deportation Resisted

The government argued that Narcisse is no longer a Haitian citizen but a foreigner bent on disturbing public order. Narcisse is resisting deportation on grounds that he gave up his Canadian citizenship upon returning to Haiti. He is reportedly hiding in Port-au-Prince.

Reporters appear to be another target of official intimidation. On several occasions, soldiers have threatened groups of reporters and in some cases beaten them or fired at them.

The government explained these attacks by saying that photographers were concealing rocks in their camera bags with the intention of throwing them at soldiers and that cars designated “press” were roaming the streets carrying gunmen who fired on troops.

Despite the turmoil, the United States has given no indication that it might reduce its support for the council, though the State Department did criticize the government’s attempt to control a supposedly independent electoral commission.

U.S. Lament

Privately, U.S. officials lament the use of deadly force to break up demonstrations. The United States has trained at least one unit of the Haitian army in crowd control, but these units have been sent out only once to face a demonstration. It took place near Petionville in the mountains above the capital. No killings were reported.

U.S. officials expect that American-trained troops based in Petionville would be less likely to shoot to kill than the soldiers based in Port-au-Prince, who have been called on to deal with most of the demonstrations.

The United States has also supplied the Haitian military with shotguns and birdshot, which can be crippling but are not usually deadly. Haitian soldiers in the capital are armed mostly with M-16 and M-1 rifles, which cannot be fired into crowds without the likelihood of fatalities.