Haiti A New General Takes Command

By Jill Smolowe

The political turmoil that has gripped Haiti ever since the overthrow of Dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986 has taken another dramatic turn. A military coup last Saturday night ousted Lieut. General Henri Namphy as the country's leader. He and Franck Romain, mayor of the capital city of Port-au- Prince, were taken to Haiti's international airport to be put on a Sunday flight to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, where they have been granted political asylum. Brigadier General Prosper Avril, a Haitian power broker who had close ties to Duvalier, declared himself the new President of Haiti.

Namphy had spent Saturday afternoon with Romain on a tour of poor neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince. But when Namphy returned to the presidential palace, soldiers blocked his way and arrested him. Throughout the evening, sporadic gunfire could be heard in various parts of the capital, as rival army factions fired warning shots at one another. For now at least, Avril seems to have persuaded the various factions to accept his leadership.

The coup marked the end of a tumultuous tenure for Namphy, who took over after Duvalier fled the country in February 1986. The general had surrendered nominal power to a civilian President, Leslie Manigat, last February, but Namphy and the military seized control once again in June. Ironically, Avril was widely believed to be the guiding force behind Namphy's regime. But Avril may have decided that growing public outrage at the heavy-handed tactics of Namphy's government made the time ripe for a change in leadership. Both Namphy and Romain had been blamed for brutal violence directed at opponents of the military.

The most shocking incident occurred on Sunday, Sept. 11: a band of thugs rushed into Port-au-Prince's St. Jean Bosco Church, where the Rev. Jean- Bertrand Aristide, a staunch opponent of the government, was preaching a message of revolutionary faith and defiance. Wielding machetes, revolvers and long, sharpened metal skewers known as fwen, the attackers struck at anyone in their path. As members of the congregation scrambled through doors and windows, several parishioners hustled Aristide out a side door and into an adjacent school. But eleven people were killed in the melee, and more than 80 wounded. Among the injured: a badly skewered woman who, six weeks ahead of schedule, delivered by Cesarean section a baby girl bleeding from multiple wounds.

Eyewitnesses, who charged that soldiers at an army compound across the street from the church had watched the assault without interceding, identified many of the attackers as men who work for Romain, a tough former colonel who told Radio Metropole that Aristide was a rabble-rouser who got what he deserved. Haitians now hope that Avril's new government will put a stop to the bloodletting.

With reporting by Bernard Diederich/Port-au-Prince