8793: Haiti: Exiled Lavalas OP leader denounces Aristide's government (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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


BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jul 28, 2001

Text of report by Haitian Metropole radio on 27 July

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has lost one of his main supporters among
the People's Organizations [OP]. Yvon Bonhomme, who was a leader of
Operation To Save Haiti [OSA], is now in exile in the United States.
Bonhomme has denounced the persecution he faced from the Lavalas power
before he left the country. While in the United States, Bonhomme affirmed
that he would not return to Haiti as long as Aristide remains in power.
Bonhomme declared that the Lavalas power does not do anything to improve the
living conditions of the Haitian people. According to him, the priority of
the ruling power is drug trafficking and the holding of fraudulent
legislative elections. The following is an excerpt from the statement made
by the former Aristide supporter:

[Bonhomme - recording, in Creole] If the Lavalas power thinks that it can
arrest me and cause me pain today, the only thing they could blame me for is
the fact that I contributed to lying to the people and brainwashing them, as
a lot of other people did, in order to drag them into the situation that
they are in now.

I want to let the Lavalas power know that I still stand firm and remain a
consistent political militant who believes in the establishment of a state
of law in the country. I believe in the law of my country and in the
application of Articles 19 and 22 of the constitution, which are in the
interests of the masses. I want to remind them that I am not Jean Dominique;
I am not Father Jean Pierre-Louis; I am not Mireille Durocher Bertin and so
on. I want to let them know once again that they will not shed my blood and
that they have shed enough blood in the country. It will probably be Dany
Toussaint's turn soon but they will not find me and I shall not change my
position. I shall not stop defending the masses.

I believe that one day the people will wake up and realize that they are
mistaken. I recognize that a lot of members of grass-roots organizations who
fought, as I did, and who are family men, as I am, do not have the
opportunity that I had to flee the country and that they remain in
suffering. I know that there are a lot of them who are opportunists and who
will be used to say things against me.

But I shall be ready with the same rigour that I used to defend them,
because I used to defend the ruling party with all the lies I was telling on
its behalf. I shall use that same rigour to denounce them. I shall continue
to use the same microphones to defend myself.

Haitian people, open your eyes! You lost the 16 December elections and you
have lost them forever. Ideology does not stand anymore. It is a matter of
people who are making money. And that is one of the things that caused me to
be persecuted, because I refused to speak in their favour on the radio, hold
demonstrations or do other things. Therefore, that is why I am in a
difficult situation today.

I have chosen to go into exile over a government for which I shed my blood.
I have chosen to go into exile over a regime for which I did things I should
not have done. But today, I am facing an awful situation. I declare that I
shall not return to Haiti as long as Aristide remains in the country. I give
up.

Source: Radio Metropole, Port-au-Prince, in French 1145 gmt 27 Jul 01

/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC