|
Posted on Thu, Apr. 10, 2008
By JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com
PORT AU PRINCE -- Sixteen senators have asked for the resignation of Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis in the wake of several days of street violence over high food prices that appeared to be over Thursday.
Some public transportation resumed and businesses reopened Thursday, and U.N. peacekeepers were taking down some of the roadblocks set up by protesters and barricades set up by security forces during the violence.
But political tensions remained, as highlighted by the 16 senators who sent a letter to Alexis requesting his resignation and then asked the Senate to call a vote of no confidence on the prime minister for Saturday.
Calm returned to the Haitian capital Wednesday just hours after Préval delivered a long-anticipated address on national television. But the lack of immediate relief for hungry Haitians fanned fears that protests would soon pick up again.
Préval announced fertilizer subsidies for farmers to boost production and a government plan to promote the production of eggs, chicken and rice. He dismissed calls for ''easy economics,'' saying the impoverished country could not afford to remove taxes on imported basic food staples. And he called for reason and solidarity, asking the affluent -- including government workers -- to share their wealth with the impoverished.
''I understand your problems and your despair,'' said Préval, casually dressed in a buttoned-up blue Polo shirt as he spoke on state-owned television. ``I offer you sustainable solutions . . . the road to national production and consuming national products. But first of all, we need to get back on the road of peace and work together.''
Some in Haiti and South Florida agreed with Préval's assessment and urged quick action.
''We in the Diaspora are very concerned -- we still have family down there,'' said Miami-based Haitian radio commentator Herntz Phanord. ``Everybody is suffering, except for a few families. It's not fair.''
Phanord said the private sector hasn't done enough to bring in goods or lower food prices to help the poor.
In Belair, Evens Henry, 21, said: ``It's not all about jumping up and down breaking stuff. We have to get to work. If we get to work, we will have food.''
In his half-hour speech, Préval at times aimed his words directly at looters, who earlier in the day ransacked more gas stations, banks and government buildings. During the speech, the sounds of U.N. peacekeepers firing rubber bullets to disperse crowds peppered the background.
''I order you to stop,'' Préval told the looters. ``The police cannot accept violence, and the people will not accept violence.''
''To the people of Haiti who are demonstrating, who are suffering, I ask you to go home,'' Préval pleaded.
Some Haitians expressed frustration with the president's message.
''Nothing has stopped. The cost of living has not gone down. So the demonstrations have not stopped,'' said Sadrac Jean-Dupain, one of the thousands who stormed the streets of the capital for a third consecutive day Wednesday morning.
Equally unimpressed with the president's address was Louines Durandis, 56, an unemployed father of seven. Durandis said that while he credits Préval for pushing production in a country that has become highly dependent on imported food, the lack of concrete measures by the president made his address nothing but talk.
He had hoped Préval would announce a two- to three-month reprieve on import duties on basic food staples. When that did not happen, Durandis said, he became fearful that protesters had retreated only temporarily to ``reflect and strategize.''
''Subsidizing imported goods is not the solution,'' Préval said. ``Today, we are paying the price for more than 20 years of bad political decisions. I'd rather today, we subsidize national production.''
Both Préval supporters and critics voiced discontent at the lack of immediate action coming out of his speech. Many said it was long overdue and did not go far enough to quell the demands of protesters who have been calling for Préval's government to resign.
''It was time for him to speak about national production, but he did not speak about what he is going to do about tomorrow,'' said Pierre Leger, president of the Chamber of Commerce for the Southern Department, where protests first erupted last week week.
A one-time friend who has become one of Préval's harshest critics, Leger long warned the president about the impending social explosions, as did others.
But the president has shown an aversion to pressure. Even after Parliament tried but failed to oust Alexis in February, and after several warnings, Préval did not speak to the nation about the challenges his government was facing. When he did address the rising cost of food in public forums, he offered tongue-in-cheek responses such as a now-famous admonition to Haitians: ``If there is a protest against the rising prices, come to get me at the palace and I will come demonstrate with you.''
His words came back to haunt him Tuesday when protesters tried to storm the palace gate's, and U.N. peackeepers had to be called in. Special correspondent Jean-Cyril Pressoir and Miami Herald staff writer Trenton Daniel contributed to this report.
|
