a888: Foreign assistance: Believe it or not (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

Fascinating to read the neo-Duvalierist, Hubert Deronceray's musings about
the International Republican Institute's visit to Haiti, as transcribed by
the BBC from Radio Metropole:
[De Ronceray] "They told us that they have not come to offer solutions and
that they only come to listen to us and see in what direction we want to
move. Certainly, if we show that same capacity of resistance. For, they
acknowledge that during the past two years the Democratic Convergence has
proved its unquestionable capacity to resist the dictatorship. But, on the
other hand, they told us that it is not enough to prove resistance, and that
we should prove that we are an alternative. We told them that we are working
to show that not only can we undress the Lavalas regime, but that we can also
dress up Haiti. They clearly told us that they will not take our place, but
that they will accompany us in terms of construction and the return to
democracy, and in terms of boosting the economy."


What can we read between these lines? That the IRI thinks it is getting good
value for its money? Did the Democratic Convergence receive US$3 million in
2000. How much in more 2001? And how much are they getting for the current
strategy of proving that they are an alternative to the current government?

Maybe it's like this - the Lavalas Family (FL)government gets no
international aid money until it reaches an agreement with the Democratic
Convergence, while the Democratic Convergence (CD) does get money for
continuing to refuse an agreement with the Lavalas Faimly government.

Meanwhile, we hear that the Civil Society Initiative Group, which has little
to do with civil society and plenty to do with Haiti's business and Christian
elites, will be rewarded for its continued failure to help broker an
agreement between the FL and the CD with the sum of 7-800,000 Euros (half a
million dollars?) from the European Commission (EC). Remember, the EC is
withholding money from the government until an accord is reached between it
and the CD.

Next they'll tell us that globalisation is good, and that the US military is
protecting  the world from evil.