A FUGITIVE PRESIDENT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2433, 23 February 1909, Page 6

A FUGITIVE PRESIDENT.

A HAITIAN SAVAGE

General Nord Alexis, who recently fled from Haiti on board a French warship, may he described as a pocket edition of President Castro of Venezuela. Like his-confrere on the South American mainland, General Alexis, who is a black man, has on ■more than -one occasion come into collision with States somewhat larger and more powerful than his own, such as Britain, Germany, and „ America. He is an old man, a native of the north of Haiti, and highly experienced in the byways of the revolution business. The deposition of General Alexis anticipated his retirement by only six months, lor, in the normal course of events, his term of office would have ended on May..ls next. For a number of yeans before his accession the various Presidents found 'it safest to pay him a large salary and appoint him Commander-in-Chief of the -army of the North. By this means the successive Governments managed to keep General Alexis quiet —more or less. Since 1902 Haiti had been comparatively free from internal disorders until last January, when an expedition ■>f revolutionaries, commanded by Jean Juneau, 'landed and occupied Gonaives, 65 miles north-west of Port-au-Prince. By the middle of March a veritable “reign-of terror” had been established by President Alexis. Suspected persons were shot in the streets, and the foreign residents, -of whom there are very few, claimed the intervention of their respective Governmnets. British, French, and German warships hurried to Haiti, and, after considerable diplomatic pressure and show of force, order was restored. President Alexis proved Ins incapacity for civilised government by the criminal folly of liis conduct. At his orders prominent citizens were arrested and executed without trial; foreign residents were ordered to leave the island, the consulates were charged with fomenting revolution. General Alexis is thus described by an English writer who knows him well: “He is an- ignorant, brutal, senile negro, with absolutely no qualification for his position except a bulldog courage, which has made him popular with the army. On the day he proclaimed himself President lie shot four political opponents in cold blood in Port-au-Prince.” The “Republic” of Haiti is a vastly different thing from the form of government which that term implies. African barbarism is rampant; “voodoo” is practised by a great number of people, nine-tenths :of whom are negroes, and it is frequently asserted that cannibalism—as p “voodoo” rite—is not unknown. There is a temple dedicated to this savage 'cult in Port-au-Prince, and General -Alexis himself openly frequented the place. -