November 29, 1987 - November 29, 2025: 38 years later, the warning remains

November 29, 1987, remains etched as one of the deadliest days of the late 20th century in Haiti. On that day, as the population prepared to participate in the first truly free elections of the post-Duvalier era, the coordinated violence of armed groups struck down democracy and plunged the country into horror. Thirty-eight years later, this date remains an open wound and a warning that is still relevant today. *A Rise in Tensions* In early November 1987, the political climate was already heavy. Article 291 of the Constitution of March 29, 1987, which prohibited the participation of former collaborators of the Duvalier regime, had provoked the anger of several retrograde forces. Very early on, they multiplied threats and acts of sabotage. On the night of November 2-3, the house of Emmanuel Ambroise, a member of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), was set on fire. A few days later, Le Natal printing press, responsible for ballot papers, suffered the same fate.
On November 22, the Salomon market went up in flames, before communal electoral offices were attacked and destroyed in Artibonite. On November 28, a roadblock in Saint-Marc blocked the delivery of electoral material to the far North. A truck carrying ballots was set on fire there. Meanwhile, the National Council of Government (CNG), led by General Henri Namphy, prohibited the aerial transport of material.
Everything indicated that powerful forces refused to allow popular sovereignty to be expressed. *Ruelle Vaillant: The Massacre* At dawn on November 29, 1987, hundreds of voters waited in the courtyard of the Argentine Bellegarde National School, in Ruelle Vaillant. The atmosphere was filled with hope: finally, Haiti seemed ready to turn the page on dictatorship. Around 6 AM, a commando of about sixty heavily armed men burst in. The assailants opened fire on the crowd, then entered the classrooms, transformed that day into polling stations, to continue their deadly work, using firearms and bladed weapons. The toll was terrible:
dozens of victims in the capital of Port-au-Prince, particularly on John Brown Avenue (Lalue); nearly sixty dead in Artibonite; an undetermined number of injured across the national territory. Faced with national indignation, the CEP was dissolved. And General Namphy, in a phrase that became sadly historic, declared: “The democratic spree is over.” *A Broken Transition* For the first time in decades, the army lost direct control of an electoral process. The attacks of November 29 were not isolated acts but the result of a convergence of hostile forces: Macoutist paramilitary groups; reactionary elites; military sectors; external interests concerned about the rise of Maître Gérard Gourgue, considered a candidate too close to communism and threatening to the status quo. These combined forces decided to stifle the democratic transition in blood. *A Warning for Today* Thirty-eight years later, Haiti finds itself once again at a crossroads. The state has largely collapsed, insecurity ravages the country, and the prospects for credible elections remain uncertain.
In this context, November 29, 1987, reminds us of an essential truth: without strong institutions, without real security, and without the political will to impose transparency, no election can be a source of stability. More than an unhappy and painful memory, November 29, 1987, 38 years later, must be considered a signal, a call to revisit a distressing moment in our recent history to finally break with the forces that thrive on chaos. Pierre Josué Agénor Cadet