by Isabelle Papillon
For
the second consecutive week, thousands of people of all ages and
walks of life took to the streets of Cap Haïtien, Haiti’s second
largest city, on Sep. 21 to protest against President Michel
Martelly and Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe.
They denounced high-level
corruption, the high cost of living, Martelly’s “hijacking” of
the electoral council, and government attempts to evict peasants
from plots of land on which they have lived and farmed for
almost two centuries.
After rallying at the Samarie
roundabout in the morning, thousands of people from Cité Lescot,
La Fossette and other Cap-Haïtien neighborhoods marched through
the city, rallying in front of the central government’s offices,
known as the Delegation of the North, and at the Courthouse. In
front of the Delegation’s offices, pro-Martelly partisans hiding
inside the government building threw rocks at the protesters.
The demonstrators threw rocks back at them. The Haitian National
Police (PNH) and UN occupying troops (MINUSTAH) fired tear-gas
canisters to disperse the protesters, with only partial success.
When they met the marchers,
some people were seen to theatrically take off their pink
bracelets, meant to signify allegiance with the government, and
throw them on the ground.
"Martelly, Martelly, pèp Nò
a pap jwe," the demonstrators shouted. (The people of the
North do not play around.) "We do not want imported rice, we
want to work," they chanted. "We want to live in peace in our
country."
To ease spiking food prices,
last week Lamothe announced that the government would import
300,000 bags of rice.
Despite some brutality from the
PNH and MINUSTAH, the demonstration ended without major
incident.
However, during the afternoon
after the march had ended, helmeted-policemen of the Security
Unit to Guard the National Palace (USGPN) arrived in Cap Haïtien
from Port-au-Prince and began shooting with leveled weapons in
different parts of the city. In retaliation, the people threw
stones and bottles.
The evening before the march,
the city was also tense. Burning-tire barricades, a traditional
form of protest, went up in several roads, especially near the
neighborhoods of La Fossette, Cité Lescot, and Samarie. Police
gunfire wounded at least three people. Thrown rocks and bottles
injured one policeman.
On Sep. 17, four days before
the demonstration, the government sent a delegation headed by
Interior Minister Ronsard Saint-Cyr and the State Secretary for
Communication, Guyler C. Delva to try to buy off those
responsible for the mobilization in the North. The mission was a
failure, like a similar on to the southern city of Les Cayes the
week before as confirmed by the former Southern delegate Pierre
Etienne France on a radio in the capital this week (see Haïti
Liberté, Sep. 19, 2012).
Also on Sep. 21, in the
southern city of Miragoâne, hundreds took to the streets to
protest corruption in the Martelly/Lamothe administration and
the high cost of living. Protesters said Martelly had lied to
the Haitian people when he promised change and a break from the
past. Instead, demonstrators said, he has resurrected the
repressive policies of the Duvalier dictatorship, which was
overthrown 25 years ago.
Meanwhile, in
Port-au-Prince, dozens of people picketed in front of the Prime
Minister’s office to demand that food prices be lowered. Some
chanted: "Down with Lamothe."
On Sep. 19, President Martelly
accompanied UNESCO’s Special Envoy to Haiti, Michaëlle Jean, on
a brief visit to Port-au-Prince. The unemployed who often gather
to discuss their woes in public places quickly organized an
impromptu protest to voice their anger about Haiti’s
deteriorating economy as schools are about to open on Oct. 1.
These fathers, mothers, and youth said they were discouraged and
disappointed that the hope for change promised by Martelly is
shrinking as time goes by. "We are hungry and need jobs, not
words to put us to sleep while the gangrene of corruption
spreads at the highest levels of power," said one demonstrator.
Protests nationwide are
sharpening around these key issues: corruption, exclusion, the
high cost of living, the rise of arbitrary power, the drift
towards dictatorship, and the manipulation of Haiti’s judiciary,
legislature, and other independent institutions. Martelly
continues to maneuver in an effort to form a Permanent Electoral
Council as opposed to a compromise Provisional Electoral Council
proposed by most parliamentarians.
A major demonstration around these issues is being
planned in Port-au-Prince for the 21st anniversary
of the Sep. 30, 1991 coup d’état against then President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a coup which many officials in the
current government, including the President, either participated
in or supported. |