Istwa Nou

Kebreau finished the job the same night. The cabinet went to jail along with twenty Fignolist organisers. At half past ten the next morning, with the guns of Fort National firing, the general told the press that the army had taken charge, that soldiers were the fathers of the family and not politicians, and that they wanted order and elections. On the night of the sixteenth the hammering on lamp posts started after the eight o'clock curfew and then turned into a sound people compared to the sea. Word had gone round that Fignole had been secretly executed. It was false. The slums came out anyway, breaking the street lights as they went, and the darkness was followed by fire. The fire brigade had its engines wrecked and its hoses cut. Fort Dimanche answered the attack from La Saline with machine guns. Then the army came in behind half-tracks and light tanks, firing into the alleys and into whole blocks of plank houses. This was the last time the poor of Port-au-Prince acted on their own account for thirty years.