12707: RE:12695: Why Do We Punish the Haitian People? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com

 Tracy Kidder's article says:  "The plain fact is that our foreign policy
establishment
despises Haiti's very popular president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, and wants
to make sure his popularity wanes."  + the title "Why do we punish the
Haitian People?"
HE HAS IT ALL WRONG:  IT'S THE HAITIAN GOVERNMENT THAT PUNISHES THE HAITIAN
PEOPLE.
I think the US should forget about witholding the money and let Aristide
continue to cook his own goose without having  the US government to blame.
Considering how rich the US is and how much is wasted in many other ways, it
really doesn't matter if they release the money and watch what Lavalas does
with it.  Even Taiwan does give out the money to Lavalas anymore, they insist
on doing the projects themselves when they offer funding.
The Haitian people are held hostage by the Haitian government.  Nothing is
reliable in life in Haiti and all government agencies blackmail the
citizenry: Teleco, Camep, EDH, customs, Circulation...  In addition, for the
last few weeks there have been police or swat team or police look-alikes
everywhere to hassle cars.  Much gas and time is wasted in traffic jams
created by the government from Nationales Routes to neighborhood street
corners.
Everything is much harder to take care of than it has ever been.  The
government employees cause trouble on purpose so that you have to pay someone
to get the most basic services.  Places that used to have running water no
longer have any, electricity sometimes doesn't come on for 3 days, there is
no public transportation to speak of (the famous blue and white buses seem to
have disappeared).  If there was so much love and respect from Aristide for
the bulk of Haitian people why would the common working person have to suffer
so much trouble to get work, get to work, get an identity card, afford food
etc...  Why would the peasants stop working the land  because it's no longer
worth the trouble?  Why do the bannann planter have to write his name on each
banana to attempt to keep thieves away?  Why would each driver have to take a
new driving test imported from Canada (which asks questions about driving
after the snow-plow has gone through) or pay the gov't employee to skip it?
Tracy Kidder has it wrong, the issue is hardly related to the US government,
it's really all the Haitian national institutions that are attacking the
Haitian people.  And since Aristide recommended that Haitians invest in
Cooperatives (the poor man's capitalism, he called it) he has hit everyone
with a big blow since the cooperatives have disappeared with the Haitian
people's savings accounts.  How could this president be popular?  I'd like to
know how they measure that popularity.