HAITI: Fighting Words

The Dominican radio station Voz Dominicana has always had a big Haitian audience for its 8 o’clock Spanish music broadcast. One night last week, the station changed the program without notice. Instead of Spanish rhythms, startled Haitians heard a bland, firm voice calling for the overthrow of “that bloodthirsty, dishonest, cowardly assassin,” Haitian President Dumarsais Estimé.

The voice was that of Haitian Colonel Astrel Roland, accused by the Haitian government a fortnight ago of heading a Dominican-backed plot against the regime. The coffee-colored colonel denied that there had been any conspiracy. He promised to return to Haiti. He also promised to restore the mulatto rule which Estimé’s blacks had supplanted.

Next night, the Haitian government angrily broadcast a reply to “that unnatural Haitian, that degenerate criminal, that monster of unfilial sentiment, that anti-patriot.” By his broadcast and by “seeking refuge in enemy territory,” Roland had proved that he was a conspirator. But just for the record, the government quoted from incriminating correspondence it had found in Roland’s secret files. What would Roland say to that?

At 2 p.m. next day, Roland said plenty —but not about the correspondence. “If the Dominicans are your enemies,” he slyly demanded, “withdraw your ambassador and declare war.” At 8 p.m., the Haitian government answered “that loathsome beast” by announcing that it had already recalled its ambassador. But Roland was hardly satisfied. The following afternoon he sneeringly challenged the Haitians: “I give you a rendezvous at the border, gentlemen, which I know you will not dare to keep, cowards that you are.”

That did it. Two hours later, egged on by a wildly cheering crowd, Haiti’s Chamber of Deputies met in extraordinary session at Port-au-Prince to “force the chicken hawk of the East to pull in his claws.” The Deputies passed laws which 1) authorized $3,000,000 for national defense, 2) revived military service, 3) created a committee to investigate subversive activity by anyone over 16. The crowd yelled itself hoarse when Deputy Philippe Charlier cried: “We’ll fight them with machetes and penknives if necessary. No Haitian is afraid of a Dominican even if they have destroyers and bombers.”