The Seeds of Fiction by Richard Greene, Bernard Diederich Read Free Book Online Page B

The family finally realized that they were lying. This became a Macoute racket to extract money from other families of the “disappeared”.’
    â€˜But he was dead.’
    â€˜Yes, very dead. Riobé was an only son. He decided to fight against Duvalier, and the Macoutes turned him into an enemy. He took his Ford pick-up and welded steel plates all around it, turning it into an armoured car. He assembled a flame-thrower and attached it to the car. His plan was to take over the police station in Pétionville.’
    â€˜I heard about Riobé in Haiti,’ Graham said. ‘I would like to hear what you know of his fight, which would seem to be driven solely by courage. It sounds like he had no chance of success.’
    â€˜Yes, he was courageous, but it proved to be a suicidal attack,’ I said and told him what I knew. Late on the night of 16 July 1963, as the celebration over the corpse of Clément Barbot was winding down, Riobé and his partisans drove the deserted streets of Port-au-Prince in his armoured vehicle. Halfway up the hill to Pétionville the vehicle overheated. The driver, Demas, jumped out and went to a house to ask for water. It turned out Riobé had welded a steel sheet in front of the radiator, blocking the truck’s cooling system. But it was too late to fix. It was done.
    When their makeshift tank finally reached Pétionville the overheated engine coughed and died in front of the small police post at the corner of the Pétionville market. They were only a few blocks from their target.
    The policeman on duty offered to fetch some water. Another policeman walked around the strange vehicle, which resembled a Mardi Gras float. He pulled himself up to see what was in the back. Four men with 12-gauge shotguns and a .22-calibre rifle lay on the bed of the truck. The unarmed policeman ran away as the men jumped out, firing in all directions, waking up the market women sleeping beside their stalls and sending them screaming for cover.
    The group abandoned the vehicle. Two of the youths figured the mission had been aborted and walked home. The other three, Damas, Riobé and Jean-Pierre Hudicourt, regrouped further up the road. They decided to make the police post in the small holiday village of Kenscoff their alternate target. They stopped a car driven by a well-known Syrian-Haitian merchant Antoine Izméry and ordered him to drive them up the mountain.
    They attacked the police station, killing three policemen and two militiamen and making off with arms and munitions. The little town was in turmoil. The road was blocked, and the militia began a house-to-house search; then they began to comb the mountains. As they neared the summit of Morne Godet they were greeted by gunfire.
    Near the top of the mountain there was a strategically situated cave, easily defended. Within hours government reinforcements arrived in Kenscoff and moved into battle positions, but every time a soldier or member of the militia got close to the summit and became exposed a shot from the cave sent him reeling down the mountain dead or wounded.
    The authorities believed the cave was defended by a group of well-trained sharpshooters. As the number of casualties grew, the US Marine-trained Casernes Dessalines battalion was ordered to join the war with mortars and grenades. It was becoming an embarrassment to the Palace. The entire country was alive with exciting rumours of a battle that Papa Doc was actually losing.
    The firefight continued for three days. Then on the afternoon of Friday 19 July the cave fell silent. The government feared it was a trick. The soldiers didn’t dare approach the cave. The following day the police arrived with Hector Riobé’s mother. They put her on a horse and made her ride up to the cave calling out her son’s name as they followed close behind, using her as a human shield. There was no reply.
    When Papa Doc’s forces finally reached the cave they