Coup Leader Names Self Haiti Chief : Namphy Installs Military Cabinet; Manigat in Exile

Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy, swiftly gripping power after escaping house arrest to stage a dramatic overnight coup, formed a solidly military government Monday, naming himself president.

At the same time, civilian President Leslie F. Manigat, ousted after the Haitian strongman’s surprise occupation of the presidential palace Sunday night, was secretly taken to Port-au-Prince airport and flown with his wife and children to the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Unconfirmed reports said that three members of Manigat’s Cabinet, including Information Minister Roger Savain, have been jailed. With one notable exception, the other members of Manigat’s ousted government slipped from public view in the early hours Monday, when it became clear that Namphy was firmly in control.

The exception was Maj. Gen. Williams Regala, who took leave from his army post as Namphy’s right-hand man last February to serve as Manigat’s civilian defense minister. Regala’s role during the six-day crisis between Namphy and Manigat that led to the coup had been unclear until he appeared beside his victorious army commander Monday to accept the No. 2 job in the new military government as minister of interior and defense.

After a night of heavy gunfire but no confirmed casualties around the massive, double-domed palace, it became clear that Regala was not the only military man whose loyalty to Manigat evaporated with Namphy’s unexpected escape Sunday night from house arrest at his residence just north of the capital.

Controversial Col. Jean-Claude Paul, the powerful commander of Haiti’s toughest infantry unit, apparently did nothing to halt the coup, although he had backed Manigat through last week’s confrontation with Namphy.

Smiling Embrace

Paul, under indictment in the United States for drug trafficking, was shown on national television Monday morning ceremonially emerging with a smile from his unscarred barracks to embrace a senior officer of the presidential guard that helped Namphy capture the adjacent palace. It clearly was not a surrender ceremony. One of Paul’s officers said that his unit, the Dessalines Battalion, did not fire a single shot during the night.

The palace also appeared from the outside to be unscathed by the night of gunfire, which occurred during a deliberately staged power blackout over much of the capital. On Monday, it was guarded by two artillery-mounted armored vehicles, a half-track and a pair of anti-aircraft guns.

“If Paul’s soldiers didn’t shoot and no bullets hit the palace or the Dessalines barracks, then what was all the shooting about?” asked one skeptical Port-au-Prince businessman. He speculated that Namphy’s own loyalists, who freed him from the house arrest ordered by Manigat and escorted him into the palace, raised the din themselves by firing into the air for effect.

“It looks as if the old shoot-up was pure theater,” one Western diplomat said.

Frightened Workers

The most visible effect of the unnerving gunfire was to frighten most office workers and street merchants in the capital into staying home Monday. Few shops or businesses opened during the day, and the streets were virtually empty save for a few cars and pedestrians and an obviously stepped-up number of army and police patrols.

Another measure of the fear generated by the army takeover was that none among the many ordinary people questioned during the day would venture an opinion concerning the sudden change in Haiti’s fortunes.

Namphy’s action caught U.S. officials by surprise. In Washington, the Reagan Administration condemned the coup, although the United States had been far from enthusiastic about the election last Jan. 17 that brought Manigat to the presidency.

“If what took place was a straight military coup d’etat, it would represent a severe setback for the hopes for democracy in Haiti and we would condemn it,” State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley told the department’s daily media briefing. Later, other officials said that Namphy’s move was, indeed, a coup.

Assessment Under Way

In Toronto, where he is attending the economic summit, President Reagan adopted a cautious stance. “It’s something we are going to have to assess,” he said. “We haven’t had time for that.” Asked if he could do anything about it, Reagan replied, “I can’t comment. We haven’t had any opportunity. . . .”

A senior Canadian official said the summit participants briefly discussed Haiti at their morning session. But he said the discussion was primarily to compare what was known about the situation, rather than to seek a common policy.

“There was no intention to have a single statement” issued by the summit, he said.

While Namphy was a familiar figure to all Haitians as their provisional president from Feb. 7, 1986, to Feb. 7, 1988, he has never endeared himself to the population. Many in the past have expressed fear of the general and the officers around him.

Indeed, Namphy’s army-led provisional regime--which was supposed to guide the country toward democracy after the fall of the Duvalier family dictatorship--was iron-fisted, unimaginative and appeared more absorbed in defeating democracy than in promoting it, according to Haitian critics.

November Massacre

Many Haitians, for example, blamed Namphy for the massacre at the polls last Nov. 29 that derailed the country’s first attempt at free elections in 30 years.

The general also was severely criticized for organizing what many believed was a sham election in January that elevated Manigat as the army’s choice for president but was boycotted by most Haitians.

Haitian and Western analysts said that the army commander had used his power to destroy free elections and create a puppet president because the army feared that a freely elected candidate would curtail military privileges and prosecute officers for abuses committed during the 28-year dictatorship of Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude (Baby Doc).

Manigat’s attempt during the past week to reorganize the armed forces and unseat Namphy from his self-appointed three-year commission as commander in chief seemed to demonstrate that he was not a puppet of the military--but it did so at the cost of his presidency.

The deposed president had moved rapidly over the weekend to fire Namphy and to order the retirement and transfers of a number of officers loyal to the commander in chief. Typical among them was Maj. Henry Robert Augustin, a Namphy aide-de-camp and commander of a company of presidential guardsmen. Manigat reassigned him to the army laundry.

‘Insulting the Army’

“I told my wife when I heard about the laundry assignment that Manigat couldn’t get away with it, because that sort of thing is insulting to the whole army as an institution,” said a European with close ties to the presidency and the military.

As it turned out, Augustin was one of the officers who moved quickly Sunday evening to free Namphy and move on the palace.

Manigat, caught unaware and only lightly guarded at Villa Accueil, his presidential residence, was reported to have been easily overwhelmed by presidential guardsmen at about 3 a.m. Monday.

Namphy lost no time during the morning in broadcasting his achievement, appearing on national television from the palace several times, dressed in khakis and a steel helmet and with an Uzi submachine gun in his hand.

First, the military strongman delivered an emotional and somewhat incoherent speech in Creole, the national language of Haiti’s largely illiterate people, telling them “how General Namphy loves you and loves the country too.”

Later, after proclaiming the military government “to keep the public peace and the state’s stability,” the general stood with his second wife and one of his two daughters on the steps of the palace and held a long hand salute while nearby artillery pieces fired a 21-gun salute in his honor. Pedestrians, fearful that another coup had begun, scurried for cover as the guns boomed.

Old Duvalier Tactic

Namphy’s television appearances, complete with a combat-equipped army band and coteries of followers, demonstrated how injured the armed forces must have felt by Manigat’s attempt to divide and reorganize them--a tactic used successfully by the elder Duvalier after he was put in power by an unsuspecting army in 1957.

In his proclamation establishing the new military government, Namphy justified his takeover by charging Manigat with acting unconstitutionally in “an attempt at destabilization, initiated and instituted intentionally. . . .”

The deposed President, he said, “injured the army--he has shaken it . . . in order to make of it a docile instrument for his personal power.”

He also alleged that Manigat “committed himself in a way which led him irreversibly to a dictatorship in its most brutal form.”

The new Namphy government includes five generals, four colonels and three lieutenant colonels plus a lone civilian who was not given a Cabinet ministry but who will hold Cabinet rank as commissioner for national promotion and public administration.

U.S. officials conceded, meanwhile, that it was not easy to find the “good guys” in the Haitian situation. The Administration had described Manigat’s election as “flawed” and was disturbed by Manigat’s seeming alliance with Paul.

Paul an Opportunist?

But officials described Paul as an opportunist who tries to go with the winner. And despite Manigat’s tainted election, one U.S. official said, Washington was “fairly impressed” with the ability of the deposed president.

For a time after Namphy took over in 1986, he was hailed by the Administration as a model of a Third World general determined to restore democracy to his country. Secretary of State George P. Shultz visited Port-au-Prince shortly after Namphy took over to express his support for the general.

However, the Administration’s opinion of Namphy turned cold when the general made it clear that he intended to hold onto power.

Times staff writers James Gerstenzang in Toronto and Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this story.