6020: Fuller responds to Pina on Leon Manus (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Affuller@aol.com

 No more than most do I have the final truth about Leon Manus, but Dorce
and Pina's accusations left a bad taste in my mouth.  I would have
responded earlier if not for the Thanksgiving holiday (and a few server
problems).

 I interviewed Leon Manus several weeks after his arrival in the U.S.  He
 struck me as a man of moral character.  At 78, he is sharp and vigorous,
 and I think, rather proud of the role he played, of his refusal to bend
 to pressure and political expediency.  But he was more than generous
 toward his former colleagues at the CEP, declining to criticize any of
 them for going along with the manipulation of the senate results.  They
 were probably not in the same position as he, at the end of a career,
 with children living outside Haiti, well able to support him.

 Manus described several days of meetings where the President respectfully
 urged him to certify the results proffered by the CEP's technical
division, to which he responded politely but firmly that it was wrong to
publish false results and no great shame to admit that the method of
calculation had been an error.  He said the President contended over and
over that "the people had voted;" and there was no going back.  It
was at his final encounter at the Palace on June 15 that President Preval
and subsequently former President Aristide made what he read as serious
threats to his safety, threats that the following morning seemed to be
materializing when he awoke to a city of burning barricades manned by
Lavalas partisans denouncing him by name.

If he had been a younger man, Manus reflected at the end of the
interview, perhaps he would have gone along with the operation,
anticipating that life would present him with other opportunities for
good deeds to wipe away a bad one, but at 78, he couldn't count time as
on his side.

For myself, I wish Leon Manus very well.
 
Anne Fuller