Istwa Nou

Jimmy Carter won the American presidency in November 1976. In the wealthier streets of Petionville the result arrived by satellite dish, and Haitians who had prospered under the Duvaliers understood at once that the understanding Washington had kept with the family since 1963 was now in doubt. There were dishes in poorer quarters too. Luc Neree, a Baptist pastor in the capital, wrote to the president elect as a fellow Baptist and set out what was being done to prisoners in Haiti. Carter answered, promised his support, and offered to preach in Neree's church. Once the exchange became known the government arrested more than a hundred people in Port-au-Prince before the year ended. In January it released ninety of them, timing the gesture to the nomination of Andrew Young as ambassador to the United Nations, which Port-au-Prince had received badly. Amnesty International went through the names and reported that most of those released had never been political prisoners, and that few of the rest had been seen at liberty anywhere.