a12003: Re: a2000: This Week in Haiti 20:8 5/8/2002 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Fr. Michael Graves <harchim@yahoo.com>

   I, along with thousands of others in  Haiti, have
stopped buying Haiti Progress.
   There are surely enough political "alternatives" in
Haiti without another one being created. What the
world doesn't know is how easy it is to gather a
"mass" of protesters in Haiti to protest anything.
Give them a free t-shirt and a straw peasant's hat,
and they will pretty-much rally to whatever cause the
donor is supporting.
   FL may have made some mistakes in the past and even
in the present, but the remedy for those mistakes is
not another "alternative" movement. The new Prime
Minister has already gotten rid of some of the old
Duvaillerists; give them a little time to do even
more.
   Remember: "l'union fait la force!" Together we can
overcome; divided we will fail...alternative or no!
   harchim

--- Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu> wrote:
>
> From: "[iso-8859-1] Haiti Progrès"
> <editor@haiti-progres.com>
>
> "This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI
> PROGRES
> newsweekly. For the complete edition with other news
> in French
> and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel)
> 718-434-8100,
> (fax) 718-434-5551 or e-mail at
> <editor@haitiprogres.com>.
> Also visit our website at <www.haitiprogres.com>.
>
>                            HAITI PROGRES
>               "Le journal qui offre une alternative"
>
>                       * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *
>
>                          May 8 - 14, 2002
>                           Vol. 20, No. 8
>
> IN MAY DAY MARCH, PPN OFFERS AN ALTERNATIVE
>
> For the past two years, Haiti has been paralyzed by
> a power
> struggle between the ruling Lavalas Family party
> (FL) of
> President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Democratic
> Convergence
> (CD), a Washington-backed opposition front of 14
> tiny parties.
> Despite the constant comings and goings of
> diplomatic "mediators"
> from Washington and the Organization of American
> States (OAS),
> endless rounds of negotiations have gone nowhere.
>
> Hoping to appease Washington, the FL has moved
> steadily to the
> right, abandoning all the principles articulated by
> the broader
> Lavalas movement when it burst onto the world scene
> in 1990. One
> movement slogan then was "Haiti is not for sale,
> either retail or
> wholesale." Today, the FL is selling some of Haiti's
> most fertile
> farmland to Dominican capitalists who are setting up
> a "free
> trade zones" along the border between the two
> countries. Precious
> state enterprises, particularly the phone company,
> electric
> authority, and airport, are also on the auction
> block.
>
> Another cardinal rule in 1990 was "Macoutes are not
> included,"
> meaning the new popular government should not
> incorporate
> politicians who collaborated with the Duvalier
> dictatorships
> (1957-1986). Today, the FL has integrated
> Duvalierists and
> supporters of the neo-Duvalierist coup (1991-1994)
> into its ranks
> and the government in some of the most key
> positions.
>
> Meanwhile, the FL-dominated Parliament has
> distinguished itself
> above all in corruption and chronic dereliction of
> duty, except
> when they gather to facilitate neoliberal reform,
> obstruction of
> justice, or the trampling of national sovereignty.
>
> Hunger and misery have deepened to unthinkable
> levels, as schools
> disintegrate, state workers go unpaid, and garbage
> piles up. This
> is because Aristide and the FL, just like their
> counterparts in
> the Convergence, see Washington's "manna" as the
> country's only
> salvation. Aristide's countless promises have
> foundered since he
> took office 15 months ago because his government has
> been blocked
> from collecting a half-billion dollars in pledged
> international
> aid, a treasure which the Bush administration
> clearly intends to
> never let him have.
>
> The FL's deluded obsession of obtaining the aid has
> wasted
> precious time and millions of dollars to Washington
> lobbyists. In
> an effort to prostrate himself even further,
> Aristide agreed in
> March to allow a new OAS mission to be deployed in
> Haiti, with
> the power to enter any office, seize any document,
> and
> interrogate any official.
>
> The FL's betrayal of founding Lavalas principles has
> sown
> confusion, discouragement, and demobilization
> throughout Haiti
> and its diaspora. Now other progressive currents who
> were part of
> the original Lavalas uprising are fed up with the FL
> and are
> looking for an alternative to fulfill the democratic
> nationalist
> project aspired to in 1990.
>
> On International Workers Day, May 1, the National
> Popular Party
> (PPN) organized a march of some 4000 of its
> militants and
> sympathizers through downtown Port-au-Prince,
> offering itself as
> just such an alternative.
>
> Founded as front of grassroots organizations at
> Port-au-Prince's
> St. Jean Bosco church in 1987, the National Popular
> Assembly
> (APN) was a leading popular organization throughout
> the turbulent
> years following Duvalier's fall until it established
> itself as a
> party in 1999. It supported the generally
> anti-neoliberal
> platform of Aristide's presidential candidacy in
> 2000 and
> defended the FL when the OAS meddled in Haiti's
> electoral
> process, trying to undo FL victories.
>
> But the PPN began to move away from the FL after
> Aristide's
> inauguration on Feb. 7, 2001 as he placed
> Duvalierists in high
> government posts, reneged on campaign promises, and
> embraced
> neoliberal reforms.
>
> For years, the PPN has focused its work in the
> Haitian
> countryside, where 80% of Haiti's population lives.
> Therefore,
> most of those in PPN's May Day march were peasants
> from all
> corners of Haiti demanding agrarian reform. They
> wore straw hats
> and a white T-shirts emblazoned with the PPN's logo
> and the
> slogan: "National production = agrarian reform."
>
> The marchers carried signs calling for "Justice for
> Peasants" in
> Bokozel, Piatre, and Jean Rabel, the sites of
> Haiti's three most
> notorious peasant massacres since 1986. "The Free
> Trade Zone Plot
> Will Not Succeed" and "Lafanmi and Convergence Are
> Twins" were
> also among the placards.
>
> PPN demands also called for OAS to stop meddling in
> Haiti and an
> end to corruption and to neoliberal reforms.
>
>
> The march started at the Place d'Italie, near the
> capital's
> waterfront, and marched up through the city to a
> warm reception
> from onlookers. Although the marchers carried a long
> rope around
> their perimeter to prevent infiltration by
> provocateurs, many
> people managed to join the march anyway.
>
> The action had been announced to the public only two
> days before.
> The PPN organized the march in near secrecy,
> suspecting that the
> government would attempt to sabotage it.
>
> The march had planned to terminate on the Champ de
> Mars square in
> front of the National Palace. But when the PPN
> marchers arrived
> there, they found the square barricaded and several
> dozen
>
=== message truncated ===


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