Hundreds of angry demonstrators took to the streets in cities around Haiti this past week to demand that the Haitian government restitute the deposits they lost when dozens of "popular banks," known as cooperatives, collapsed earlier this year (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 19, 7/24/2002).

Most demonstrators held President Jean Bertrand Aristide personally responsible for their misfortune, saying he misled them into losing their money by encouraging people to invest in the cooperatives, which he endorsed as "peoples’ capitalism."

Many demonstrators even felt that he profited from their loss. "People used to say that Aristide stole money and I didn’t believe it," said one angry man in front of a closed cooperative in Port-au-Prince. "But now I do, and if he doesn’t give us back our money, he will soon be out of this country!"

In recent weeks, Henriot Pétiote, director of the government’s regulatory agency, the National Council of Cooperatives (CNC), has assured cooperative "shareholders," as depositors are called, that they would be reimbursed by Sep. 2, the start of the school year. Aristide promised as much on Jul. 3.

But now there is a new official stance. "Neither the CNC, nor President Aristide, nor anyone else sent anybody to deposit their money anywhere," Pétiote responded. "If Aristide wants to be the good-hearted father, to carry out this reimbursement operation, people have to realize that here in the CNC we cannot deal with 27,020 cases in three days. This is something that will take some time."

Furthermore, only "part" of the money allocated for the cooperatives’ bail-out would go to depositors, Pétiot said. The other part would go to the cooperatives themselves "so they don’t close, so they stay afloat," he said. Most cooperatives have already closed their doors and many of their directors have fled Haiti.

Pétiote also claimed that reimbursements had begun, but only with a handful of depositors.

On Aug. 30, the National Coordination of Victim Depositors (CONASOVIC) marched from the U.S. Embassy to the National Palace, stopping in front of the Port-au-Prince civil court along the way. The court and the CNC are both charged with receiving depositor claims.

Along their route through the capital, the demonstrators reproached Aristide bitterly, saying that he had done nothing to oversee the often shady cooperatives. "I now see that Aristide is an expert ‘zenglendo,’" yelled one demonstrator into the microphone of Radio Métropole, using the Creole term for an armed robber. "I have never seen a chief of State do what Aristide has done to us. He took in one day what it took us years to gather. We want our money this very day!"

CONASOVIC spokesperson, Rosemond Jean, sharply criticized the government’s compensation program, calling it "a diversionary move aimed at calming the spirits of the victim depositors."

"When the government prosecutor commissioner admits that he has put out warrants to prevent cooperative directors from leaving the country and then they are able to flee with our money, the head of State should say something," he said. "It is pure theater when they say that the depositors have started to receive their funds."

Meanwhile, in the South of Haiti, protesters led by the Association of Victim Depositors of Cayes threatened to paralyze school openings if the government does not reimburse them at least half of their funds. The association, with over 2000 members, gave the government one week to deliver, saying that authorities were dragging their feet. "We did everything that they asked us to do to reclaim our money," said Duquerès Mathieu, the Association’s spokesman. "We have children who have to return to school. We are sending an urgent message to the government to give us our money before Sep. 9, otherwise the return to classes will be impossible here."

Trouble is likely since Elma Ezechiel, the region’s CNC head, told the Cayes depositors that they will not receive their money during September. According to him, the South’s cases are only now being studied in Port-with-Prince.

In the southeastern city of Jacmel, depositors are also threatening to obstruct the start of the school year if their claims are not satisfied. They charged that the CNC’s compensation program is neglecting the provincial towns and focusing on the capital. Warlike Dieuseul, the CNC’s Jacmel regional manager, has washed his hands of any responsibility in the matter. "My only job is to transmit the claims of victim depositors to Port-with-Prince," he said.

On Sep. 2, depositors massed in front of the Coeurs Unis credit cooperative in Port-au-Prince, which had promised on that date to pay "shareholders" interest on their deposits. But depositors were unable to enter the bank, which was surrounded by and filled with security guards and policemen. Coeurs Unis spokesman, Yves Penel, claimed that the cooperative was ready to honor its promise to pay out interest payments, but was asked not to do so by the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH) and the CNC.

Pétiote denied and admitted to the charge. "Neither the CNC nor the BRH asked Coeurs Unis to not open," he said. "It is a law that just passed. The law says that now it is the BRH which will control all the cooperatives. And the BRH and the CNC still have preliminary work to do before things can get underway."

Penel also denied rumors that the Coeurs Unis president, David Chery, had fled the country. Recently, several of the bank’s vehicles and other assets were taken at gunpoint by "men dressed in police uniforms," according to Chery. "They took assets worth 30 or 40 times the value of their deposits," he said.

In a Sep. 2 press conference, the BRH, announced the creation of a Directorate of General Inspection of Popular Banks (DIGCP), which is called for by Article 146 of the new law on cooperatives promulgated on Jun. 26. According to the BRH vice-governor, Hancy Pierre-Louis, this law appoints the bank to supervise the cooperatives on the basis of information received from the CNC. (Under Duvalier era laws, the CNC was already supposed to oversee all cooperatives, but clearly did not do so.) This supervision, however, is not due to begin until Jul. 2003. "The Central Bank has made no decision yet about the credit and savings cooperatives," Pierre-Louis said.

Meanwhile, it was announced this week that the government deficit has soared to 2.5 billion Gourdes (about $100 million), up from 1 billion Gourdes ($40 million) last year and 900 million ($36 million) the year before. This has fueled ever-accelerating inflation, making the circle of popular demands and government broken promises ever more vicious.