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6488: RE: 6266 & Andrea Medard's comments. (fwd)
From: archim <archim@globelsud.net>
Dear Andrea,
Greetings from Haiti. I would actually respond to you off-line, but
since you had this posted on the Corbett List, I thought I should
respond in the same manner so that others will be able to read what I
have to say.
Additionally, please excuse the late response, but I have been
pretty busy for the past two weeks with visitors and Christmas.
Since my initial report regarding the voting percentages in the
Nov. 26 Haitian election, there have been numerable other responses
which pretty-much support that initial report. I would only offer
several other "on-site" reports from around Petion-Ville, two of which
were "manned" by several of the young men associated with Maison
Orthodoxe and The Church here. All of them were impartial and worked
at the polling stations in order to help the country. One polling
station of which I speak was at Pelerin 2, and the other at Tet Dlo;
both of which had many hundreds of voters and both of which
experienced NO problems. The ballots were properly deposited in the
boxes and they were carried to the central counting place (The
Petion-Ville Police Station).
There have been many other "on-site" accounts of the voting from
throughout the country, and the overwhelming majority positively agree
with my conclusion, and that is that there was VERY GOOD
PARTICIPATION!
Now, I would venture to say that the word "IMPARTIAL" would not be
completely fair in describing the workers at the stations, and that is
because ALL of them were inspired to work because they support
ARISTIDE. This IS the case in Haiti...pretty-much everywhere: THE
PEOPLE WANT ARISTIDE! There are some who do not want him, that's a
certainty, but in a democracy (which the US has urged upon Haiti...and
for good reasons), the majority rules! The majority in Haiti has
spoken, and it would behoove the few "others" to pocket their pride
and begin to work together with the winner...the peoples' choice, to
make Haiti work. (Even Marc Bazin agrees with that!) L'Union fait la
Force" is the motto of Haiti, and it stands to reason that without
such union, neither Haiti nor any other association will ever be
strong.
Maybe there are some who do not like Aristide. Maybe there are some
who fear Aristide. (I'm scared to death of what is coming with the
marginal "election" of Bush!) BUT, and this is a serious "but", we all
must wait to see what happens...both in Haiti and the USA. If Bush
"goofs-up" he surely won't be elected again, and I expect the same
thing to happen with Aristide. However, I expect Aristide to be able
to do better than any of the other "contenders", and he has a lot of
persons on his side: Haitians who live here and love their country and
want to work to improve it. He will surely be better than any of the
former "leaders" of this poor country. Let's give him a chance and
help him make the dream a reality.
I feel quite third-class in my writing on this subject, especially
when we are able to read the clear and correct and well-worded
comments and analysis from Guy Antoine, Tom Driver and a number of
others who were also here "on-site" for the elections.
"Alternate governemnts" and "Parallel governments" and "Consortium
governments"; for God's sake, let's stop playing with Haiti and its
people. We don't have any "parallel people" or "consortium people" in
Haiti; and I doubt that we have many "alternative (life-style) people"
here either.
Let's get on the band-wagon and march to the same beat, and in
doing so, "together we will win"!
archim