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#4002: What is Mike Norton on? Arthur replies to Chamberlain (fwd)
From: Charles Arthur <charlesarthur@hotmail.com>
Dear Greg,
Your reply to my original post leaves me confused. My post
questioned whether Mike Norton was reporting on what was happening in Haiti
or whether he was just parrotting the wild exaggerations of election fraud
made by the losers. You 'answered' by raising the issue of the arrests on
anti-Fanmi Lavalas politicians and their supporters. This was not an answer
nor a reply but was plainly what is known in the English language as a red
herring.
Despite your claims to be merely a seeker of the truth, your response on
this occassion in no way furthers an understanding of what is happening in
Haiti.
To return to my original point, Chip Carey in post #3979, writes
that he saw Mike Norton "reporting diligently at the Delmas BEC, which was
in a state of chaos when he arrived." I have no reason to doubt this - my
argument is whether this observation is sufficient evidence on which to base
an AP report which clearly suggests that all the voting offices in Haiti
were, at best, in a "state of chaos", and' at worst' controlled by Fanmi
Lavalas supporters. I visited 13 polling stations on election day, I did not
see any where there
was a state of chaos, nor did I see any cases of mandataires of
non-FL parties prevented from entering.
What I did see were orderly lines of voters, diligent election
officials, plently of party mandataires from most of the main parties, many
national election observers, and a scattering of police who appeared to be
trying their best to make the election work. However, my observations were
limited by constraints of time and travel to one area of rural Haiti and as
such I would not attempt to opine on what happened elswhere, and especially
not in a news wire which, as Greg accurately notes, has the capacity to
influence the perception of what is happening in Haiti all over the
English-reading world.
As for Greg's 'red herring' - the arrests of the OPL and Espace
people, he asks me to explain "What on earth can Lavalas (the government) be
afraid of if they have just won a landslide?"
Before answering this question, allow me to put the issue into some context.
According to the information provided by the OPL and Espace spokespeople,
around 30 of their supporters have been arrested. Whether these arrests were
justified or not, let's remember that there were approximately 29,500
candidates in the 21 May election. It is possible that a handful of these
candidates committed some infringement of the everyday or election law, no?
That aside, the question is of course, were any FL people arrested for the
same offences. All I can provide here is my own anecdote from the town of
Maissade in the Central Plateau, where according to the the police in that
town, a group of people (they would not say how many) including the FL
candidate for deputy were detained on the night of 21 May by police from
Hinche and held overnight. Espace supporters charged that the FL people were
interfering with the counting of the ballots, but the exact details of what
happened remain unclear.
Another anecdote - in the town of Thomond, 5 people related to
the Espace candidate for deputy were detained overnight 21 May by police
after a dispute between partisans of the Espace and the FL. According to the
judge who authorised the detention and began the juducial proceedings, the
car belonging to the five Espace men was found to contain 27 voter
identification cards, and this was the basis for the arrests. He added that
the authorities would attempt to contact the 27 people and ask how their
cards came to be in the possession of the Espace partisans.
Finally, in answer to Greg's question, I agree that some FL
supporters have been stupidly over-zealous in making sure that what most
impartial observers see as a FL victory will be a massive landslide. This is
very unfortunate because it only discredits the FL victory. I can only
'explain' their actions by pointing to the political context of the 1991
coup against the fairly elected Lavalas government, and the more recent
attempts to interfere with Haitian democracy made by foreign powers which
have artificially inflated the importance of the anti-FL parties. These
facts do not excuse the heavy handed
instances of FL meddling with the results but should be borne in
mind.
But let's not go overboard - it seems that FL has won a big
victory in more-or-less acceptable elections. If, as seems to be the case,
the majority of the voters want FL government at national and local level,
then let them have it. Let them see what FL can or can't do. This should
have happened in 1991-96 but sadly the last nine years have been lost.
Charles Arthur
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