A Clandestine Interview from Haiti: Resistance in the Slums of Port-au-Prince

October 14 2004 Issue 109



Backed by United Nations so-called peacekeepers, the U.S.-installed

Haitian regime continues its siege of poor neighborhoods in the

capital, Port au Prince, in an attempt to crush ousted President

Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas party. The following is the result

of a clandestine interview with a woman called Nancy, conducted last

Sunday in the slum of Bel Air.


Nancy is a member of the Cell of Reflection of Family Lavalas. The

interview took place under extremely difficult and dangerous

conditions. Nancy’s remarks were then edited to safeguard her and the

journalist’s anonymity. BC stands behind their credibility.


First you should realize that they have been trying to starve the

poor in Haiti since President Aristide was kidnapped on February

29th. Do you know how much rice and beans cost now in the market?

Families are starving while a few families that import goods are

getting rich off the pennies we have to spend on food. They have

killed us since then and driven us into hiding. Have you ever tried

to feed your family while you are running from the police and you

have no job? They have arrested our leaders or driven them into

exile. They have cornered us and taken our dignity away so that now

we realize we have no where left to go.


We see that the situation in the streets, our situation, we who are

part of the Cell of Reflection of Family Lavalas, we see that in all

the poor neighborhoods there is not a day that goes by that the

government does not squeeze us. The repression is much worse. And now

the de facto Prime Minister [Gerard Latortue] has said he is going to

sign a contract with the former military to kill us one by one. In a

secret meeting he had with the Minister of justice, a friend inside

heard Latortue estimate that it would be necessary to kill 25,000

people in the capital, in the capital alone to stop the calls for the

return of President Aristide. September 30th was the beginning of

this initiative where Latortue unleashed his forces that are

comprised of new units of SWAT, USP, CIMO and the police where the

killers of the former military had already been integrated. It was

they who began firing on unarmed demonstrators while the Brazilians

and the United Nations stood by to let them kill us.


This was only one part of their strategy that day. On September 30th

they had extra squads of former military work hand-in-hand with these

militarized forces of the police to enter Bel Air, Cite Soleil, La

Saline, Grand Ravine, Delmas 2, Martissant and many other poor

neighborhoods to kill a lot of people. On September 30th many people

were killed, especially in Bel Air. The former military had already

set up operations in Bel Air and Cite Soleil without our knowledge

before the demonstration had started.  We did not know that they had

quietly entered certain houses very early in the morning and held the

occupants at gunpoint waiting for the right moment to strike. After

the killing started they broke into many more houses shooting and

beating people who had stayed at home. They also broke everything

they could and stole anything of value while we were running from the

bullets of the police. Later in the afternoon the police entered the

poor neighborhoods and arrested everyone they could get their hands

on.  This is how the violence of September 30th began and it became a

question of defending our neighborhoods and our community from the

violence of Latortue’s police and the former military. What do we

have to lose by defending ourselves since they are determined to kill

us anyway?


In the days that followed we would not allow them to enter our

communities and continue the killing. They tried several times on

their own and we would not let them enter. So they set up on the

outskirts of our neighborhoods and began to arrest everybody in

sight. Outside of Bel Air we have seen them force three year-olds and

four year-olds to the ground. There are many people here who do not

know where they have taken their family members after they arrest

them. All of this because Latortue and Bush were afraid of the

numbers of people they knew we would mobilize to demand Aristide’s

return on September 30th. There is no other explanation.


Since then, Latortue has made it clear we do not have the right to

live and we are no better than animals that deserve to be

slaughtered. We are not counted as human beings in Haitian society

because we are poor and uneducated even though we are the majority of

the population. With President Aristide this was not the case and for

this reason we are determined there will never be peace in Haiti

until he returns. Our brothers, our sisters, our fathers, our sons

and our cousins are all willing to die before we will accept this

misery caused by a government that was put into power by foreigners

and that does not accept us as human beings. We will never stop and

there can be no peace until President Aristide returns. They can call

us bandits and thieves all they want but they know the truth and this

is why they are in a process of exterminating us today.


Bush and the United Nations know the truth as well. They know that

without the Brazilians they could not have entered Bel Air. They know

that without the Jordanians they could never keep us from the

National Palace. Without the UN forces this phony government would

not last a week. That is why we call them occupation forces and it is

criminal for them to prop up this killing machine that is trying to

destroy us. It is an insult to see them occupying the streets in

front of our National Palace to keep in place a government that was

not chosen by the people. They should be ashamed of themselves and

wonder how they would feel if the same thing were done to them in

their country. We believe that if the people in their countries knew

the truth they would ask them to come home. We pray we will not have

to fight them but they are part of the killing machine right now and

it is a question of survival for us. We have no choice but to defend

ourselves and our communities against their tanks and their guns.


It is clear they will kill many more of us in the weeks to come. The

streets of Bel Air and Cite Soleil will turn red from all the blood

Latortue intends to spill but we will no longer just stand like

zombies and let them kill us. We will continue to demand the return

of our elected president and we will defend ourselves against them

when they come to kill us. We are not animals, we are not bandits and

we did not start this killing. They did.


Take this to the American people and let them know we think that what

Bush is doing in Haiti is criminal. He had a choice of supporting our

democracy and our votes but he chose to throw them away. He sided

with criminals and the rich against us instead of choosing dialogue

and reconciliation. We do not blame the American people and it is a

lie that we intend to harm them in Haiti. We love our children and we

love life as much as they do but we must defend our right to exist in

the face of these criminals who are determined to exterminate us.