Please post anaonymously--Re Avril Arrest (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Bob:  don't post this under my name PLEASE.  Thanks Bob

Anne Fuller

Prosper Avril was not a good man.  He almost certainly made several million 
dollars brokering arms sales for Jean Claude Duvalier.  He took power in a 
1988 coup d'etat promising to restore democracy and then decided he preferred 
to hold on to power himself.   He flaunted the torture of Evans Paul, Marino 
Etienne and Jean Auguste Mesyeux that his subordinates carried out.  He was a 
general in an army dedicated to repressing internal dissent. 

But what is he accused of?  What are the charges and what the evidence?  
Perhaps it's there.  I hope so.  But as others have pointed out, none of the 
previous arrests of notorious Duvalierists have been strictly legal or 
advanced the integrity of the law or the reputation of the Aristide or Preval 
administrations.

Was Avril part of the Convergence?  Was he at some sort of Convergence 
meeting?  If so, might it not be a good thing that a soldier who once led a 
coup d'etat turns to politics?   In what other neighboring country has this 
happened recently?  How about Venezuela?  

Sure, he should be made to face all the charges against him, and charges 
should be filed by those who were his victims.  But if this is not the case, 
why not accept that he has joined the opposition?  Haiti would be so much 
healthier if the past was brought forward and debated, rather than used to 
smear.  What did the Duvalierists in Cherestal's cabinet and CEP do?  What 
are their political views now?  What does Aristide think about the 
Duvalierists and how did he come to view them so differently than he did in 
1991?

What about a healthy debate about the past and the present?