By: Yves Pierre-Louis - Haïti Liberté

"We are now paying the price of a policy applied during the past 20 years," declared President Rene Preval in a national address to the Haitian people on Wednesday, April 9, 2008. He didn't spell it out, but one can only suppose that he was referring to neoliberalism, which successive Haitian governments, including his own, have implemented to different degrees since the 1980s.

Preval addressed the nation after seven days of spectacular, and often violent, protests against hunger, poverty, unemployment, and the high cost of living. The food riots began on April 3 in Haiti's third largest city, Les Cayes, not particularly known for its political volatility and leading role. The protests then spread to cities like Aquin, Cavaillon, Petit-Goave, Gonaives, and, finally, the capital on April 7. Street demonstrations raged in Port-au-Prince for four days."We'd prefer to die from bullets than from hunger," demonstrators cried.

During these demonstrations, several businesses and banks were ransacked and looted by hungry crowds. Demonstrators even tried to tear down the gates at the Haitian parliament and the National Palace, the president's seat and Haiti's main symbol of political power. They also besieged the Prime Minister's office. Up until then, Preval had not said a word.

When the president finally spoke to the Haitian people, it was widely considered too little, too late. It was good that the former agronomist called for subsidizing domestic farming instead of subsidizing imported products, which would be a quicker way to lower food prices. "The support of national production is the lasting solution," he said. "The government is willing to subsidize the production and sale of rice production in Haiti through distribution centers... Today, the country imports 360,000 tons of rice per year at $ 750 per ton. So, in one year $270 million are leaving the country to buy imported rice. Today, Haiti produces 90,000 tons of rice. If we produce four times as much, and it is possible, we will replace imported rice with rice grown here. Thus, the $270 million per year spent on imported rice will remain in the country, in the hands of the peasants." He made the same argument for eggs.

The problem is that Preval presents the policy choice as merely technical, when it is deeply political. Truly promoting national production challenges not only Haiti's big landowners (grandons) and comprador bourgeoisie, but also the imperialists who benefit from dumping their subsidized food on Haiti and driving the peasantry off the land into cheap labor ghettos like Cite Soleil. Challenging the neoliberal agenda requires not just great political will and courage (the backlash will be fierce), but a complete overhaul of Haiti's property relations, a social revolution, beginning with nationalization of much of the country's farmland, ill-gotten by the grandons and their ancestors. While periodically paying lip-service to the peasantry, Preval has never shown any inclination to take such radical steps as we have seen in, say, Venezuela today or Cuba in years past. This leads one to doubt the sincerity of his words.

In his statement, Preval also promised to meet with Haiti's principal rice importers, which he did at the National Palace on Apr. 12. Jean Michel Cherubin representing Boul Rice, Joseph Tchaconte of Tchaco Rice, and Marc Antoine Acra of Mega Rice all agreed to take $3 off the price for each 50 lb. sack of rice, while the government will give a subsidy of $5 (just what Preval said he would not do). The deal brings the cost of a sack of rice from $51 to $43 on the domestic market, a cut of $8 representing almost 16%. But the deal only lasts for 30 days and the population does not consume only rice. What will or what can the President do for other basic necessities such as corn, beans, sugar, flour, vegetable oil, and milk? His approach appears to be pure demagogy, just to calm the people's fury.

Parliamentarians are also threatened by the uprising, during which demonstrators denounced their corruption. For example, earlier this month it was revealed that Fusion's Belle-Anse deputy Maxo Balthazar had requisitioned 87 tires for two of his vehicles (the quota is five per vehicle) (see Haiti Liberte, Vol. 1, No. 38, 4/9/2008). This kind of corruption does not go over well with starving people.

Immediately after Preval's April 9 speech, 16 out of the 27 current senators held a meeting at the Legislative Palace to draft a letter to Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, demanding he resign within 48 hours. If he did not, they said, they would fire him. The Senators from the Hope (Espwa) alliance, under whose banner Preval ran, did not participate.

"The calamitous management of the social turbulence of the last few days requires strong measures to restore the people's confidence in these leaders," the senators wrote. "It is obvious that Haitians no longer believe in the ability of the government team headed by you to take courageous decisions for the relief of their misery on a daily basis. A large portion of our countrymen are hungry and have let us know it by shouting loudly in the streets of our cities and villages."

Alexis did not step down, preferring instead to face the Senate's vote of censure. He'd weathered a similar vote on Feb. 28 (see Haiti Liberte, Vol. 1, No. 33, 3/5/2008). On April 11, in a special session chaired by Senate President Kelly C. Bastien, representing the HOPE alliance for the North department, the senators summoned Alexis for a censure vote the next day. As expected, 16 senators - Edmonde Supplice Beauzil, Judnel Jean, and Michel Clerie (Fusion); Evelyne Cheron (MIDH); Rudy Heriveaux (Lavalas); Eddy Bastien (Alyans); Evaliere Beauplan, Rudolph Joasil (Pont); Andrice Riche, Melius Hyppolite, Pierre Ricard, Jean Joseph Pierre-Louis (OPL); Carlos Lebon, Gabriel Fortune (Union), Youri Latortue and François Fouchard Bergromme (Latibonit An Aksyon) - unanimously approved a no-confidence motion against Alexis on April 12 at about noon.

It should be noted that most of the parties to which the senators belonged had ministers or secretaries of state in the Alexis government. However, the senators realized they had to take a distance from Alexis if they ever wanted reelection. To save themselves, they had to sacrifice him. Sen. Youri Latortue said after the vote: "I hope this will satisfy the people."

Preval must now nominate a new PM to be ratified by the Parliament. Among the names rumored that he is considering are: Paul Denis, a close friend, former senator and current secretary general of the Struggling People's Organization (OPL); Ericq Pierre, a long-time InterAmerican Development Bank official whom Preval unsuccessfully proposed twice for PM in 1997; and Evans Lescouflair, former Secretary of State for Youth and Sports during Preval's first administration (1996-2001) whose alliance KONBA, with Central Plateau peasant leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, sponsored the presidential campaign of arch-reactionary assembly industry owner Charles Henri Baker, the Group of 184's second-in-command.

Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government airlifted 364 tons of food to Haiti on April 13. That day, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the shipment at a rally in Caracas to mark the sixth anniversary of the failed April 11, 2002 coup in Venezuela. "Brotherly and heroic are the people of Haiti who are already suffering from the attacks of the empire's global capitalism and the lack of true and profound solidarity from all of us," Chavez said. "It is the least we can do for Haiti."

Having faithfully followed the dictates of the occupying powers and international financial institutions, Jacques Edouard Alexis is now also a victim of neoliberal policies, which brought down his government. Of course, the real victims are the one dozen people killed in the recent demonstrations and the 200 wounded, as well as the hundreds of thousands that are still hungry. The next government, will it change the direction that the Preval/Alexis government was headed?