January to 13 March 1989 · Haitianspan
The constitution comes back thirty seven articles lighter
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Prosper Avril spent the start of 1989 trying to satisfy the opposition, the Duvalierists and the Americans at once. He proposed a forum to build a new electoral council. Marc Bazin, Hubert de Ronceray and others were willing to work with it. Sylvio Claude and Louis Dejoie demanded that he leave instead. In February his government announced measures against the smuggling that was starving the treasury, and demonstrations promptly broke out in Cap-Haitien, Gonaives and the Goaves, the ports that lived off it. Marchers chanted a pun on his name: Avril verra-t-il avril. Will April see April. He then brought a former Leopard commander into the interior ministry while exiled Duvalierists quietly came home to their money. On 13 March he reinstated the constitution Namphy had suspended, minus thirty seven articles he found incompatible with military government. He had taken the form and left the substance. On television he complained that a year of good behaviour had bought him only a resumption of wheat shipments.
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