12237: THE NEW POLITICAL CIRCLE By Jean Baptiste (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

THE NEW POLITICAL CIRCLE
By Jean Baptiste

            Nowadays, it is very interesting to hear on the radio, or read
on the Internet the statements made daily by political leaders, human rights
activists, and ordinary citizens who, not long ago, had seemed to be
resolved Lavalassians.
            Today, they keep blaming the Lavalas regime in power.
            For them, Aristide is a dictator. His corrupted regime is
supported by drug dealers. The judicial system is subservient to the
president, who dictates his will.
The law and order forces are a band of criminals who regulate drug
trafficking, sponsor kidnapping, organize the trading of stolen cars, plan
and execute armed robberies.
            Grassroots organizations tuned into armed mobs by the regime,
under the name of “chimeres,” impose their law of terror on citizens,
businesses, political parties, and public institutions.
            In a nutshell, for them the country under Aristide’s rule has
come to present the darkest possible image. Most of them are calling for the
dictatorship to resign, while voicing as strongly as the can their wish for
the advent of a truly democratic regime, this time.

            We, of the silent majority, have a simple question for them:
“Is there a single one of you who can remember that the Lavalas regime was
at any time different from what it is today?”

            What name should we use for this new political circle, which
gesticulates either on the radio or while addressing the Organization of
American States?

Let’s try a few names:

The Circle of the Disappointed ?
            Of course not. They knew Aristide and supported him, from the
time he was giving his fiery speeches as a priest until his return from
exile in 1994.  If their idea of power and their vision for the country was
different, they did not express it then, and they did not distance
themselves from Aristide.
            Now, in 2002, they are asking Aristide to respect the
Constitution. Aristide has always said and repeated clearly that the
Constitution does not matter to him. In 1987, he called on the people to
boycott the vote about the Constitution. On March 29, 1991, he stated that
he would only refer to the Constitution because of its Article 290. He
dismissed the other articles, and ignored the constitutional norms while
governing. From 1991 until 2002, he has been consistent with his beliefs.
Why would he obey the provisions of the Constitution today?
            He voices his indignation about arbitrary arrests by Lavalas.
Ordinary citizens, judges, women, and soldiers were arbitrarily thrown in
jail during 1991, 1994, and the subsequent years, without the right to
contact an attorney. During those times, not a word of protest was heard
from those who are protesting today. That’s how the judicial system has
always worked under the Lavalas regime.
            They are complaining because their house, their business, and
their party headquarters were looted and burned by Lavalassian mobs. Terror
has always existed under the Lavalas regime. There has always been those
doing the uprooting, and those being uprooted. It is only now, however, that
they are echoing the suffering and despair of those who have seen their
work, their hope for the future, and their children’s heritage go up in
smoke.
            It is with a sad smile that we listen to them today, speaking
about the Army. They had wished its destruction, as did Aristide. Perhaps,
they helped Aristide destroy the Army. Aristide was in exile when bodies
were pulled from the morgues to be thrown in the streets, for the benefit of
foreign journalists accusing the military of the worst crimes. Who were the
ones doing that dirty work inside the country? Some of those individuals
were involved in the vast operation aimed at destroying the image of the
military institution. That institution who was alone in 1991, facing the
totalitarian Aristide. That institution who was slapped in the face by the
Lavalas regime and the U.S. army, while those individuals were applauding.
Would they now dare to ask from other sons of the Nation that they offer
their cheeks to be slapped again?
            They speak against corruption in the government. Since the
beginning, Lavalas officials had been filling their pockets with money from
the public funds. Public funds accounts were manipulated everyday. They
should make an effort to look in the records or in their memory. They should
try to find out how many millions were spent from the public funds by the
exiled president on the border of the Potomac. They never asked for an
account of those funds. Why, then, today?
            They ask that human rights be respected. Those rights have
always been violated by the Lavalas regime. Do they have any doubt? They
should listen to the cries of despair from the children of those many
soldiers burned alive, that prisoner murdered in jail, that young female
attorney whose body was riddled with 45 bullets. Maybe, at the time, they
were not sure whether those victims were human beings too, and, above all,
individuals having human rights.
            Should we then call them the “Disappointed Ones”?
            We are not sure since, just like us, they knew about the crimes,
thefts, looting, corruption, drug trafficking, and destruction of
institutions favored by the Lavalas regime, and orchestrated by that regime
since its very beginning. They were the first ones to fight those who spoke
against Lavalas.

            We think that they should be called by another name, instead.
How about:

“The Circle of the Uprooted ”?

            They are certainly disappointed, but only because today they are
among those who can be uprooted.
            They are certainly disappointed, but only because today they are
excluded from power by the Lavalas regime.
            They are certainly disappointed, but only because today they are
the target of the destructive terror of the “chimeres.”
            They are certainly disappointed, but only because today they are
among those who can be thrown in jail.
            They are certainly disappointed, but only because today they are
the next targets of the Lavalas henchmen.

            If this new political circle wants to gain a minimum of
credibility within the Haitian society, it must apologize for having
condoned the horrors of the Lavalas regime, and affirm that today it
embraces new values, those democratic values which are the basis for any
modern society.
            We cannot accept their claim that Aristide has changed and that
they are disappointed. No, ladies and gentlemen, he is still the same man.
You, yourselves, may have changed. If that is the case, we, of the silent
majority, shall call you, from now on:

“The New Democrats”.