8702: Re: 8687: Re: 8661: Re: 8655: Slobodan Milosevic and Aristide (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Michael Deibert <michael_deibert@hotmail.com>

Kathy Dorce writes

>>>>A Zenglendo is nothing more than a vicious criminal, preying on anyone 
>>>>who seems like they might be carrying cash, or who has something they 
>>>>want, such as a nice car.  We are not talking about politically 
>>>>motivated crimes or people who might be vocally critical against a 
>>>>regime.  We are talking about cold-blooded killers.  People who rob you 
>>>>and when you cooperate, they kill you anyway.  (Dead men tell no 
>>>>tales...)  How does this compare to pogroms or Communist bashing?  If a 
>>>>person is SUSPECTED of being a Zenglendo, they do not die on the spot.  
>>>>They probably get watched and then they feel threatened and know that it 
>>>>would be bad for their health to commit crimes against the people.   
>>>>Peer pressure can be very effective.  The day will come when the 
>>>>criminal justice system will work the way it should.  Right now, and  I
repeat,  it is better for bad people to be afraid than it is for good people 
to be afraid.<<<<

Is my point that obscure? In El Salvador, to use but one example that I am 
familiar with first-hand, activists who were labeled as subversives or 
communists were, without any chance to defend themselves, open to execution 
and disappearance at any time from their own government or the death squads. 
Once an epithet such as "subversive" was applied to them, they had 
absolutely no recourse, and no possibility of effectively countering it. 
They were leftist agitators and the only fit punishment for that, in the 
eyes of many who were looking to preserve their privileges, was death. Also 
being familiar first-hand with what is now the endemic insecurity in Haiti, 
I can absolutely sympathize with people who have reached their limits of 
endurance, and simply want to chase the lawbreakers out of Dodge. But, no 
matter how difficult it is, I don't believe that the President of a country 
has any business declaring that there are those in that country that have 
somehow forfeited the right to due process. When you decide as a leader that 
there are some people in your country who should not enjoy the same rights 
as other people, you open the door to fascism i.e. you can name anyone who 
displeases you as a "zenglendo" and then give the police carte blanche to 
execute them, a low-level law officer can declare a potential rival a 
"zenglendo" and kill them, etc. When the Lavalas mayor attacked the MPP 
meeting in the Central Plateau and shot and wounded Dieugrand Jean Baptiste 
and others, he said that he was acting in the name of "security," as well. 
All that these wild declarations do is serve to give further ammunition to 
the people who have been hammering at Aristide and trying to prevent change 
and progress in Haiti and the success of this government, something we would 
all like to see, from the start. You think he would know better.


Michael


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