Siege of The Sergeants

By John Greenwald

The jeeps that arrived at army headquarters in Port-au-Prince last week were greeted by incredulous stares. Seated handcuffed and rigid inside were more than 30 commanders who had been ousted by junior officers in barracks revolts around the country. Crowds in the bloodstained Haitian capital cheered as the manacled prisoners were set down before the two-story headquarters building, which quickly became known as the "parking" because of all the senior military men who were being "parked" there. Some slept on cots inside the building while waiting to be discharged.

The extraordinary purge reflected the discontent that has seethed within the lower echelons of the armed forces since the 1986 ouster of dictator Jean- Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier. Two weeks ago, the unrest exploded when noncommissioned officers toppled Lieut. General Henri Namphy as Haiti's leader and installed Lieut. General Prosper Avril as President. The coup grew out of grievances that ranged from bad food to military tolerance of the murder of civilians by thugs and members of the Tonton Macoutes, the secret police who terrorized Haitians during the 28-year dynasty begun by Duvalier's father Francois ("Papa Doc") Duvalier.

Troops who earned just $100 a month bitterly resented having to bribe senior officers up to $300 for a promotion. Others complained of secondhand shoes and uniforms. At the same time, junior officers were cut out of the lucrative drug profits that commanders received from cocaine dealers, who in recent years have made Haiti a key transshipment point between South America and the U.S.

After concluding that conditions would not improve under Namphy, a group of young officers led by Sergeant Joseph Hebreux, a 27-year-old medic in the Presidential Guard, began plotting to remove him. Namphy learned of the coup through a defector and planned to arrest about 75 guardsmen. But on Saturday, Sept. 17, two tanks and some 650 troops surrounded the National Palace. Desperate, Namphy called for help from Colonel Jean-Claude Paul, who commands Haiti's main military barracks. Paul hurried to the scene but without mustering his men. When Namphy finally grabbed a megaphone and tried to persuade the rebellious troops to leave, they responded with M-60 machine-gun fire. Namphy then surrendered and was flown to exile in the Dominican Republic, where he remains holed up in a heavily guarded hotel suite.

Triumphant junior officers wanted to name Hebreux the new President of Haiti, but the young medic reportedly became agitated and declared that he was not prepared for the post. Only then was Avril, 51, a senior Presidential Guardsman and a longtime associate of the Duvaliers who had nonetheless helped oust Baby Doc, selected to lead the country.

But when Avril stood before his new civilian Cabinet in the National Palace last Monday, Hebreux was at his left, a manila envelope in one hand, an Uzi submachine gun on his shoulder. And when Avril appeared before Presidential Guard troops the following day, Hebreux handed him a statement to read.

Yet it is the powerful Paul who holds the key to military stability. The mutineers had wanted Paul to be chief of the armed forces, but the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince objected to that plan because he was indicted in Miami last March on drug charges. Paul denies the allegations. However, U.S. Customs agents in Miami found 1,100 lbs. of cocaine valued at $8 million aboard a Haitian freighter last month and followed the shipment to a delivery point in the city. There they arrested two Colombians and five Haitians, one of whom carried a handy "get-out-of-jail" card that read, "Legally constituted authorities are requested to give aid and protection to the bearer." The signer of the card: Colonel Jean-Claude Paul.

Paul commands the allegiance of the 700 elite troops at the Dessalines barracks, Haiti's toughest fighting unit. Without his support, the new regime might be unable to withstand a possible countercoup by deposed army officers and remnants of the Tonton Macoutes.

With reporting by Bernard Diederich and Cristina Garcia/Port-au-Prince