#4935: APPEAL: Keep the Way to Democracy Open (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>


Appeal

Keep the way to democracy open!
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Once more Haiti has missed a decisive electoral
appointment that could have reestablished and
confirmed the legitimacy of the constitutional
institutions, an essential condition for the
democratic normalization of the country.
The chaotic aftermath of the vote last May 21 with
its violence, intimidation, and manipulation revealed
that the long crisis of democratic transition had
entered a new stage.

Once more behavior that we thought belonged to the
past has resurfaced: intolerant, poisoning public
discourse, accusing, disqualifying different points of
view and forcing those holding such views to choose
between retreating or living in fear. Haitian democrats
cannot be indifferent to the development of a situation
threatening the fundamental rights of citizens and the
democratic hopes of the people. They cannot accept
the logic of power for power's sake and power at any
cost.

The undersigned, alarmed by the successive diversions
from the democratic course, by the threats of force
against the country, the attacks on the rights of citizens,
and the orchestrated violence, declare their solidarity with
the 193 petitioners of the citizens' protest. They stand with
those who defend democratic principles and work
for creation of a state of law, condemning impunity and the
seizure of state power. They protest the practices of
intimidation which are creating a climate of fear and
insecurity, demobilizing people and associations, forcing
some into exile, leading to the country's isolation and
weakening the position of the people caught in a political
impasse and economic decline.

Alarmed by the gravity of the situation after more than
ten years of tribulations, setbacks, destruction, and
accumulation of corpses, and aware of the wide scope
of the many-sided crisis that afflicts our society to its
roots, the undersigned call on all compatriots, all
democrats, the political parties, the civil-society
organizations that they oppose the manipulation and
perversion of the democratic procedures and that they
work tirelessly to promote free public discourse and
negotiation which is the only way compatible with an
authentically democratic society.

Lionel Audant; Jean-Claude Icart; Samuel Pierre;
Edwige Augustin; Gérald Mathurin; Charles Pierre-Jacques;
Laurent Darbouze; Bernadette Maugile; Lionel Prosper;
Joël Desrosiers; Nathan Ménard; Edouard Rousseau;
Fred Doura; Franklin Midy; Jean Simon; Roger Edmond;
Claude Moïse; Pierre Simon; Daniel Holly; Lys Montas;
Lucien Smarth; Etzer Flavien; Émile Ollivier