October to December 1991 · Haitianspan
The junta finds a judge, a prime minister and one foreign friend
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Three officers ran Haiti after the coup. Raoul Cedras, aged forty five, was its public face. Major Michel Francois was widely thought to be the man driving it. General Biamby made the third and was said to owe his place to family ties. The deputies who had backed Aristide went into hiding, and the rump of parliament that remained declared the presidency vacant, handed it to a Supreme Court judge named Joseph Nerette, and then confirmed the agronomist Jean-Jacques Honorat as prime minister. The rural section chiefs got their confiscated weapons back and were placed under army command again, and they spent the following months settling scores from Aristide's seven months. Lavalas organisers went underground. An improvised network moved as many as 300,000 internal refugees around the country and smuggled some prominent targets abroad. Recognition came from one government in the world, the Vatican. In Washington the press secretary Fitzwater said that the United States supported democratic rule in Haiti and did not know whether Aristide would return to power.
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