Scarcely had the rumor begun to circulate that Yvon Neptune might have naturalized during the years that he lived in New York, compromising his eligibility to become Haiti's new Prime Minister, than it was all over. The Parliament, dominated by his own Lavalas Family party (FL), ratified Neptune on Mar. 12, a record eight days after being nominated by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Forty-nine out of 50 deputies, and 15 out of 16 senators, voted in his favor.

The hearings on Neptune's general policy statement were tediously salutatory, with the only rancor in FL circles coming from certain affiliated "popular organizations" who felt they didn't have enough pull with the new PM to land jobs for their "militants."

Such complaisance may prove unwise. Neptune's cabinet and stated goals are little different than those of his predecessor, Jean-Marie Chérestal, who was indecorously forced to resign after crises erupted on all fronts due to concessive, laissez-faire, foreign-reliant policies (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 49, 2/20/02).

"My foremost concern will be to encourage a climate of openness and dialogue so as to arrive at the necessary agreement between the different sectors of national life," he announced during his Mar. 15 inauguration. "The watch-words remain: greater openness and dialogue, desirable and desired understanding, and total participation."

At the same time, Aristide and Neptune have kicked off the campaign for parliamentary elections whose date has not even been set. "I hope that we can settle everything with the opposition quickly so that the campaign and election can be held in November, or somewhere between January and July 2003," Aristide told a crowd in the northeastern town of Fort Liberté, where controversial "free trade zones" are soon to be opened up along the border of and in conjunction with the neighboring Dominican Republic.

But the Washington-backed Democratic Convergence opposition front (CD) is unlikely to budge from its maximalist call for a "zero option," i.e. Aristide's overthrow. Even a moderate CD component like the social democratic KONAKOM chastised Aristide's election proposal as "dilatory" and aimed at "distracting people from the country's real problems." KONAKOM said that new elections and their dates could only be formulated in concert with the opposition, but the CD shows no real interest in arriving at such an accord.

While the new government removed two controversial ministers (Duvalierist embezzler Stanley Théard from Commerce and coup collaborator Gary Lissade from Justice, replaced by cigarette magnate Lesly Gouthier and lawyer Jean Baptiste Brown respectively), Planning Minister Marc Bazin, a prime minister during the 1991-1994 coup, was recycled as a minister without portfolio charged with trying to woo the CD into a truce. 

Most importantly, Neptune shows no signs of abandoning the previous Aristide/Chérestal pipe-dream of wresting aid dollars from multinational banks controlled by an openly hostile Bush administration. This week, the Haitian government released an alarming report on the deterioration of Haiti's potable water supply, which has decreased from100,000 metric cubes daily to 61,410 metric cubes, while the estimated daily need hovers at about 220,000 metric cubes. A $54 million loan agreement from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to improve water treatment and distribution "was signed by the GOH [Government of Haiti], the president of the IDB, approved by the Haitian parliament, and had all its preconditions met," the report reads. "However, to date it remains blocked for disbursement because of a U.S.-led embargo aimed at forcing political concessions by the GOH to an obstructionist political opposition with virtually no support from the population."

Although the government supplies a steady stream of such tragic statistics and plaintive exposés, the IDB remains unmoved. In a Mar. 19 interview on Radio Métropole, Gérard Johnson, the IDB's representative in Haiti, reiterated the bank's (and Bush administration's) position that loans will not be released until "the end of the political impasse created by the controversial legislative and local elections of May 21, 2000."

Ironically, both the FL and CD share a similar fixation on Washington's manna, a servility repeatedly criticized by progressive popular organizations and the National Popular Party (PPN). The KONAKOM released U.S. Justice Department figures last week showing that the cash-strapped Haitian government spent about $329,000 in the first six-months of 2001 for lobbyists, consultants, and image-buffing in the U.S.. Meanwhile, according to the Haitian Press Agency, Hubert Deronceray, a neo-Duvalierist hardliner, admitted last week that the CD spends about $20,000 every month to a Washington lobbying firm working to sully the Haitian government's image.
 

Brooklyn: Forum and Mass Highlight Police Brutality

On Mar. 15, about 100 people gathered in a school auditorium in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn for a forum denouncing the Jan. 16 police murder of Georgy Louisgene (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 45 1/23/2002) and police brutality in general.

In addition to cultural presentations by Kongo and Feet of Rhythm and a powerful video on police brutality, the evening featured speakers who outlined the depth of police brutality in working-class and minority communities throughout New York City.

"We are not fighting a few rogue policemen, we are fighting a system," said Richie Perez, a Puerto Rican community activist. "The entire criminal justice system is rotten." With example after example of how the police have covered up their murder of youths in New York, Perez illustrated how the "blue wall of silence is not just silence but a whole web of agreed upon lies."

The evening's most emotional moment came when the parents of the many police victims assembled in front of the room, holding solitary flowers in memory of their lost children: Marie and André Dorismond for their son Patrick, 26 (killed Mar. 17, 2000); Milta Calderon for her son Anibal Carrasquillo, Jr., 21 (killed Jan. 22, 1995); Nicolas Heyward, Sr. for his son Nicolas Heyward, Jr., 13 (killed Sep. 27, 1994); José and Maria Santos for their son José Santos Jr., 22 (killed Feb. 9, 1997); Iris Baez for her son Anthony Baez, 29 (killed Dec. 12, 1994); Juanita Young for her son Malcolm Ferguson, 23 (killed Mar. 1, 2000); Saikou Diallo for his son Amadou Diallo, 22 (killed Feb. 4, 1999).

"These are our heros," said Abby Louis Jeune, Georgy Louisgene's sister, standing with the victims' parents as well as her mother, father, brother, and sister. "Our group is growing. But we are also getting stronger. And we are not going to take it anymore! We will find justice! We will stop police brutality!"

The Georgy Louisgene Justice Committee, made up largely of the family and friends of Georgy Louisgene, organized the event and plans to continue fighting for justice in his case. To date, the district attorney has not charged the two cops from Brooklyn's 67^th Precinct who shot Georgy, 23, as he asked them for protection from men who had beaten him.

The afternoon following the forum, a mass in memory of Patrick Dorismond was held at Brooklyn's St. Francis Church on Nostrand Avenue. Patrick's family traveled from Florida to commemorate their son with hundreds of people of all races and nationalities who turned out for the mass, which marked his birthday and the second anniversary of his death (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 18, No. 1, 3/22/00).

A civil trial of the officers who killed Dorismond is expected this year. "The police tried to block our access to grand jury testimony and the results of the internal affairs investigation, arguing that it was privileged information," Derek Sells, the Dorismond's lawyer, told Haïti Progrès at a reception after the mass. "Having overcome that obstacle to discovery, we expect to depose the officers involved in April and hopefully get a trial by the fall or early winter."