Haitian General Ousts President : Strongman Escapes House Arrest, Seizes Palace in Hail of Gunfire

Military strongman Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy broke dramatically out of house arrest and recaptured Haiti’s presidential palace in a hail of gunfire late Sunday, unseating the civilian government of President Leslie F. Manigat.

Early today, Namphy appeared on national television, an Uzi submachine gun in his right hand and surrounded by officers and men in the palace. “My friends, trust in me and trust in the army in my hands,” he said. “We work together for the country, and we will have peace and discipline. Long live the Haitian people.

“The army will lead the country this way,” Namphy shouted, raising his weapon.

He refused to discuss the gun battle between his troops and those loyal to Manigat.

‘We Love the Army’

“We will not speak of what happened,” Namphy said his his seven-minute speech. “We are looking ahead. We love the army, the regular army, the army loves the people and the country.”

Manigat’s whereabouts were unknown, but relatives of one of his closest aides said the president was last seen being transported to a military hospital in an ambulance. They said they were told that he was in shock.

Foreign Minister Gerard Latortue, Information Minister Roger Savain and several diplomats with close connections to Namphy and Manigat confirmed that the general, whom Manigat fired Friday for insubordination, was freed from house arrest and took the palace at about 10 p.m. with the aid of loyal officers of the 1,000-man Presidential Guard.

Two majors of the guard, whom the president, in a sweeping reorganization of the armed forces, had attempted on Sunday to shift to powerless staff jobs, led the Namphy rescue and the palace seizure.

Once inside the palace, they met resistance from troops of the adjacent Dessalines Barracks, commanded by the controversial Col. Jean-Claude Paul, who backed Manigat in a power struggle last week that unseated Namphy from his dominant role as commander in chief of the armed forces.

Sporadic, Heavy Gunfire

Sporadic but sometimes heavy gunfire in the vicinity of the palace and the Dessalines Barracks more than three hours after the palace takeover suggested that Paul’s resistance to the coup d’etat was continuing.

Haiti’s other combat-equipped infantry battalion, the Leopards, joined the Namphy forces against Paul’s troops, according to reliable diplomatic sources.

According to Latortue and other sources, Namphy has told associates that he intends to form a new three-man military junta. They said the junta would include the current defense minister, former army Maj. Gen. Williams Regala, and Col. Prosper Avril, a longtime Namphy associate and inspector general of the Presidential Guard whom Manigat tried to transfer to an innocuous post Sunday. Regala was Namphy’s No. 2 in the provisional military government that ruled Haiti for two years between the fall of the Duvalier family dictatorship and Manigat’s inauguration last Feb. 7.

Earlier Sunday, the stunning rapidity with which Manigat made the changes affecting the high command of the country’s most powerful institution--as well as the police, the pivotal Presidential Guard and locally powerful provincial and district commanders--had taken most observers here by surprise.

Most prominent among 37 officers whose retirement, transfers or promotions were announced by Manigat’s Ministry of Information was Col. Gregoire Figaro, the feared chief of police of Port-au-Prince, widely believed to be responsible for waves of terrorist murders that have swept the capital city during the past year. Figaro was abruptly retired without explanation.

Key Aides Transferred

Figaro’s chief aides, including his top intelligence officer and the head of the police narcotics bureau, were transferred by Manigat Sunday to other staff jobs in the army, of which the police force forms a part. He was replaced by the chief of Port-au-Prince traffic police, Col. Roland Chavannes, who has the reputation of being an honest cop.

Another major military figure, Col. Avril, who had been former counsel to Namphy’s provisional military government, which ran Haiti until Manigat took office, was to be demoted to a staff job in charge of military attaches abroad.

Since Manigat’s disputed rise to office in an army-staged election, Avril had ruled the Presidential Guard force of about 1,000 troops, outranking the nominal commander, Col. Charles Louis, whom Manigat promoted Sunday to brigadier general and renamed as the guard commander.

Another Presidential Guard officer who was close to Namphy, Maj. Henry Robert Augustin, was demoted by Manigat Sunday to officer in charge of the army’s laundry and dry-cleaning unit.

Powerless Jobs

Most of the country’s district military chiefs, majors and captains who have dominated provincial and rural areas with almost dictatorial powers, were to be transferred to powerless staff jobs or to other districts far from their current posts.

One of them was Capt. Ernest Ravix, the district commander of the port city of St. Marc, who organized a demonstration of thousands of people against Manigat last month when the president, a former political science professor, sent a customs officer to the port to stamp out the smuggling of contraband. The illicit trade reportedly was controlled in St. Marc by Ravix.

Significantly, there were no changes announced Sunday in the country’s only two battle-equipped infantry battalions--the Dessalines and the Leopards--which apparently backed Manigat last week in his conflict with Namphy.

Touched Off Crisis

The Dessalines commander, Col. Paul, apparently touched off last week’s crisis when he refused to obey an order from Namphy transferring him from his powerful and lucrative troop command to a relatively unimportant staff job in the armed forces headquarters. Paul, who is under indictment in the United States for drug trafficking, barricaded himself in the Dessalines Barracks, defying Namphy to get him out by force.

When Namphy called for help from the army’s other combat-ready battalion, the Leopards, its commander, Col. Abelard Denis, refused, according to reliable sources. Denis and Paul were said to be close friends.

“That left Namphy out in the sun with no shade,” said a Haitian analyst, “and Manigat seized the opportunity to get rid of him. Now he’s finishing the job and getting rid of everyone connected with Namphy.”

It was Paul’s arrest of accused terrorists within the military that is believed to have provoked Namphy into ordering his transfer, thereby touching off the crisis. Manigat later praised the arrests.

“When we have a situation like that we don’t go and blame the person, we must go and congratulate him and be grateful to him,” the official said of Paul.

The United States suspended about $60 million in direct government aid after the failure of an attempt to hold free elections here last November. The official explained that Manigat’s actions, while laudable, were taken as part of an internal power struggle and did not necessarily represent movement toward democracy--as a fresh call for free and open elections would.

Manigat won office in a flawed election in January. The election, run by Namphy’s army, was boycotted by most Haitian voters and was fraught with irregularities. Apparently selected as the army’s choice, Manigat was declared the winner and took office Feb. 7.

Reports at the time claimed that Manigat was not Namphy’s personal choice but that he accepted him on the recommendation of Regala as a man of impeccable democratic credentials who would put the best face on a bankrupt government looking for the restoration of Western aid.