THE HAYTIAN REVOLT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2856, 9 December 1908, Page 19

THE HAYTIAN REVOLT.

- PORT-AU-PRINCE, December 2. The people of this city rose in revolt, and formed a provisional Government, | 1 with General Legitime as President. ' . j I December 3. j The troops of President Alexis retreated i and voluntarily disarmed -when General Simon approached Port-au-Prince. The people are clamouring for General Simon as President. j The French Minister, throwing the- folds of the tricolour over Alexis's dhoulders,.i escorted him from his palace aboard a j French warship, the populace hooting ' meanwhile, and endeavouring to assassinate Alexis. The Americans and French have stationed bluejackets at their respective ' Legations. Pillaiging has begun in the market place, a butcher being killed when' defending his stall, i • - December 4. General Alexis narrowly escaped assassination. J The rioters captured one of his trunks containing £6000. i Foiled in their attempt to assassinate General Alexis, the mob pillaged the shops and houses, and then fought among themselves, four being fcflied. ' | j Ultimately General Poidevin, with a party of soldi eis and citizens, fired on the ' ' mob, killing 12. Order was then restored. The negro republic of Hayti, in the West Indies, has been in a state of revolt for many months. In March last the President and his Ministers made a determined effort to stamp out the trouble. President ; Alexis declared that he had evidence of a J plot to assassinate him, and one Saturday morning twelve suspects in the capital, Port au Prince, were dragged from their houses and shot. This act was carried out by order of General Leoomte,' Minister of the Interior. * Next day 27 other 3 were executed without trial. A reign of terror existed, and hundreds of persons fl&d to the foreign -Consulates seeking protection. It *?as an awful night. Troops were everywhere, and foreigner* were hiding, afraid for their lives. . j The 12 persons who were- dragged from j their beds and shot down in cold blood >j included three brothers — Horace, Pierre Louis, a.nd Mass ii lon Coioou, respectively artist, chemist, and author. They are j stated to have been active sympathisers with General FirmLn, loader of the late revolution, (who was himself a refugee , in the French Legation. With them were | shot Felix Salvanc, General Alluption, > Caeimer Meroveo, father-in-law of the chief of police, his son, Dr Lamotte, Paul JSaintfort, and two other persons, all accused of conspiring with.-General Firmin. All the above persons were aroused from their beds between 3 and 4 o'clock, wer« ordered to dr-ess, and on coming out of ■ their houses found a squad, of soldiers with loaded riflos. The victims were immediately hurried to the wall of the cemetery and there despatched. It is understood that President Nord ; Alexis was in the fullest sympathy with the summary and bloodthirsty measures taken by the Minister of the Interior, General Villar d'Ousin Lecomte, who thus marked hie accession to office by wholesale executions. General Villar is anti-foreign in idea 6 and totally opposed to the conciliatory views of hi.-; fellow Cabinet Ministers, Maroelin, Minister of Foriegn Affairs, and the Minister of State, Borno. When President Nord Alexis va^ a revolutionist — before ho achieved the succf^s in that branch of local industry which placed him at the head of the Government — he was 'himself a refugee at the Frond' Consulate ' both in 1887 and 1902. He then removed \ a wall separating hi« garden from that of | Ihe French Consulate, -o that he might j be ready for emorgincies | Ha3 - ti X an independent island in the Wc-i Tndie^. distanl about 150 mile-, from Jamaica, and divided into the two Repub- ' lies of S.ui Domingo and Hayti. T he latter hab a population of about 1,000,000 • npgToce of African descent, and a few • hundred whito traders. I Hayti was <Jj»oo\ ered in 1492 by Columbus, and 'wry Foon breame thf> report of white adventurer", who imported ther© ' their '" blackbirds, "' iiogro slaves from West : Africa, who ha\r> now dispossessed and alaoi'bed the aboriginal population. Hayti became a Fionch colony in 1697, and an '. independent .State in 1804, after a rising of the blacks and a massacre of Europeans. A debased French is the language i of the Haytjans, and Roman Catholicism is ' the official religion. Vaudoux snake wor- J ship and the yagan rites of Africa, includ- I ing occasional human sacrifice, still have: a I firm hold on a great part of th© popula- ' tion. Successive negro Presidents have"proclaimed: themselves Emperors of the island, | and revolutions are as common in its history as blackberries in September, politics being practically the only healthy industry of the island 1 . Hayti has an army of £QQQ men, mostly

generals, and a navy of a few ships in an advanced stage of senile decay. The present President is General NowJ Alexis, an aged negro, who for years has been' exterminating everybody who refused) to accept his protestations of loyalty to the Republic. Every suspect was rigorously dealt with. The' result was that nearly every year there was a conspiracy to overthrow a regime under which nobody's life or property was safe. Late last year and early this year a more serious revolution was organised by rival negro politicians— General Firmin* and General Jumeau, — and there was conic severe fighting, particularly round the town ol Gonaives. T.he Government troops proved successful, storming both St. Maro and Gonaivee; Jumeau was captured and shot, and Firmin with followers, sought refuge at the French Consulate, whence, they only escaped with their lives with the greatest difficulty Others took refuge at the British and German Consulates, and *he- consuls refused* to give them up, particularly as eoine were of their own nationality. As a. result of this there wae considerable friction.