HAITI FLASHBACK
HAITI: WHY WAS THE PORT-AU-PRINCE CATHEDRAL BURNED DOWN?
(cries.regionews from Managua January 19, 1991 165 lines)
By Gregorio Selser from "La Jornada", Mexico City. January
10, 1991.
International news agencies reported that the diplomatic
corps accredited in Haiti protested to the provisional
government about the aggression committed against the
Vatican embassy in Port-au-Prince which was sacked and
burned by demonstrators during the popular uprising against
the attempted coup d'etat of Roger Lafontant on Jan. 7.
During the incidents, the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe
Leanza, was humiliated by the demonstrators who forced him
to remove his trousers and shoes. His secretary, Monsignor
Leon Kalenga, was beaten and wounded in the head with
machetes. The Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Christian
P. Latortue, sent a message to the Vatican in which he
regretted the aggression against the religious institutions.
In a radio broadcast to the nation, president-elect Jean
Bertrand Aristide condemned the "horrible spectacle" of the
torching of the religious institutions stating he "shared
the pain of the religious authorities and the diplomatic
corps" and also called on the people to show discipline.
By
mid-week, the army began to repress the demonstrators and
Haitian authorities managed to stop the looting and calm the
disorders.
The question arises as to why there was such a strong and
violent reaction by popular sectors against institutions and
persons identified with the Catholic Church in
According to news dispatches from Haiti, the old colonial
cathedral of Port-au-Prince was reduced to ashes by a fire
set by a mob that was looking for the local prelate,
Archbishop Francois Wolf Ligonde. They didn't find him
because he had already taken refuge in the suburb of
Carrefour. So they burned his personal residence in the
Nazareth neighborhood. Also the building of the Haitian
Bishops Conference (CEH) was set alight, and the residence
of the Papal Nuncio and house of the Salesian Sisters were
sacked and destroyed. The Haitian people continue to be, in
the majority, Catholic, however, in spite of the persistence
of voodoo rites, the growing presence of Protestant
churches, and a variety of religious sects.
It is fitting to ask, then, why was this popular anger
directed against Catholic institutions and figures.
The
triumphant presidential candidate Jean Bertrand Aristide
continues to be a priest in spite of his suspension "a
divinis", and in all his electoral speeches, he called for
peaceful solutions and an end to all forms of violence,
including in his public exhortations to gynecologist Roger
Lafontant and his hordes of "tonton macoutes".
There is a long history of resentment and a more recent
history of provocations by the CEH, in which the principal
figure was Ligonde. In his first homily of the New Year on
January 1, he launched a violent diatribe against Aristide
which came at the same time as the reports about an imminent
coup d'etat by Lafontant. Said in another way, Ligonde, an
ultraconservative prelate and first cousin of Michele Benet,
the wife of Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier, put his money
on the Lafontant coup, as did the majority of the bishops
and a part of the army, including its commander-in-chief,
General Herard Abraham, who permitted the Palace to by taken
and the supposed arrest of the provisional president. Then
he declared himself to be legalistic when the people began
to mobilize and react.
The CEH is made up of 10 high prelates, but the people say
that in reality there are only one and a half, because
although they recognize this high quality in the elderly
bishop Willy Romelus, from the city of Jeremie, all the rest
don't add up to "half a bishop". The CEH members are the
archbishops Ligonde of Port-au-Prince, and Francois Gayot,
of Cap Haitien, the bishops Leonard Petion Laroche of Hinche
(president of the CEH), Joseph Lafontant and Joseph Kebreau,
auxiliaries of Port-au-Prince, Francois Colimon of Port du
Paix, Emmanuel Constant of Gonaives, Alix Verrier of Les
Cayes, and Guire Poulard of Jacmel.
These high churchmen were born and/or grew up in the shadow
of, or by decision of, the Duvalier dynasty, and at
difference from those of Panama, they are all Haitian. Their
appointments were agreed upon with the Vatican after a harsh
confrontation which resulted in the expulsion from Haiti of
all the members of the Jesuit Order whom Francois Duvalier
accused of being "communists". In the last days of Baby Doc
and in light of the reigning unrest, the CEH observed an
attitude of "prudent criticism" of the regime, but when he
fell and fled, Bishop Laroche, who was named by Papa Doc,
warned against the "temptations to violence" in allusion to
that which broke out at that time against the "tonton
macoutes". Meanwhile, Archbishop Ligonde called for
"immediate reconciliation".
At the same time, the CEH, acting jointly, censured the
activity of the Salesian priest Aristide who had been one of
the main forces behind the popular mobilization. The bishops
demanded that he not step out of bounds, that is, that he
confine himself to his specific religious mission. The
polemic that began in this way concluded in 1988 with the
expulsion of Aristide from the Salesian Order and the
related suspension of his condition as a priest. Aristide's
appeal to the Vatican has still not been resolved; but the
controversy had the advantage of winning him many more
followers, because the episcopate, with the exception of
Romelus, was discredited for their attitude of silent
compliance during the time of Duvalierism.
Aristide did not put himself up to be a candidate for the
presidency or for any other political office. However, when
a convention was held in Vertaillis on October 13-14, 1990
by the "tonton macoutes" and they created the Union for
National Reconciliation (URN) and designated Lafontant,
their historical leader, as candidate, the association of
parties and popular organizations grouped together as the
National Front for Change and Democracy (FNCD) interviewed
the priest and literally demanded that he accept their
nomination. On October 18, Lafontant, who continued to be
subject to an arrest warrant by authorities, personally
presented his candidacy to the Provisional Electoral Council
(CEP) without being arrested. That same day, Aristide
accepted his nomination. The electoral campaign was summed
up as "the `tonton macoutes' versus democracy", but while
the priest talked about peace and fraternity among all
Haitians, Lafontant - whose candidacy was finally vetoed by
the CEP - was characterized by his calls to violence and the
threats he made.
On November 24, Bishop Laroche attacked Aristide obliquely,
reminding him of article 285/3 of the Code of Canon Law.
On
December 5, at the end of a political meeting in the
Petionville neighborhood, the "tonton macoutes" attacked
with machine guns and bombs and left five dead and more than
50 seriously wounded. Two days later, a CEH document
distortedly declared: "How did this come to happen? Is it
not because they have tried to divide Haitian society into
two camps, that of the good and that of the bad?[...] Thus,
violence becomes a necessary instrument for the construction
of the new political system, of the new regime of
government. What is being prepared is definitely a State
founded on the cycle of violence."
The dead and wounded were all from the FNCD, but the bishops
put the blame on Aristide. He had asked for an interview
with Laroche in order to explain his program for peace. It
was granted to him as "a brother in the faith, and not as a
politician". Aristide triumphed with more than 68% of the
votes on December 16 in the only fair elections in the
entire history of Haiti. Days before, Lafontant publicly
declared that he would not allow him to assume the
presidency. On January 1, Archbishop Ligonde, without any
reason, attacked Aristide who at all times has shown himself
to be prudent and conciliatory. On the 7th, after midnight,
Lafontant began his coup.
Maybe this makes it possible to
understand why Ligonde was sought out and why the church and
ecclesiastical buildings were burned?
