12783: My last reply to Simidor on this issue (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Hyppolite Pierre <hpierre@irsp.org>

I was hoping for a final answer from Daniel Simidor, on his definitive
statement that Haiti lost 10 percent loss of its territory, due to the
Lavalas government misdeeds. Perhaps he will write us one; perhaps he won't.
In the meantime, I wanted to write this, regardless of what his answer will
or may be.

While Simidor and I were debating this important issue of territorial
integrity, something crossed my mind: it's called, the process. In our
Haitian political culture, we all tend at times to let down our guard, and
let emotions overcome the rational side of us. All of us it seems, at one
point or another, have fallen for easy and inaccurate subterfuge to make a
point. It is so, even with those of us who are striving for a modern Haiti.
Well, what we must always focus on is, first and foremost, the process. Thus
our analyses based on facts and not fiction, will have more strength and
legitimacy, and will help us build a modern and transparent State, based on
democratic rule.

I didn't get an answer to my single question from Simidor and quite frankly,
I didn't expect to. Neither he nor I, are privy of such information,
although as concerned citizens and/or friends of Haiti, we should. The heart
of the problem then becomes, the issue of transparency.

Depending on whether or not one adheres to the values of a market economy,
the Government may have, under the present circumstances, stricken the best
deal that it could, for job creation in Haiti. Yet, because the details of
that deal are unavailable to the larger public, it is difficult for us to
make a clear determination of such. This happens because the democratic
process of transparency in this case has not been completely followed.

Under such circumstances, perhaps mindful citizens should build up
organization that requests answer from the proper authorities. They could do
so by respecting the process. By that I mean, using Haitian laws and
regulations that first allow them to build such organization, and also
compels the government to be more opened about the intricacies of that deal.

By the same token, those, who also seem to think that only the government is
to blame, should look at the present reality of Haiti. For instance, how
does one justify the call of the opposition to strike for the outright
overthrow of a legitimately elected government? This is a complete rejection
of the democratic process, by "would-be-democrats", desperate to get to
power.

That sector in the opposition has been arguing that only between 5 to 15
percent of the electorate went to the polls on November 26, 2000, and
elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president of Haiti. Therefore, according
to them, he is not legitimate.

This has been such a used and overused argument that finally, about a year
or so ago, I called and asked a friend of mine from High School in Haiti who
is a university professor in New York, and also who studied and teaches
Statistics. I asked him because first of all, I know how he dislikes
Lavalas. However, I also know him as a man whose focus has always been on
facts whenever he decides on, or explains a situation. He simply answered
the following.

"Aristide, for better or worse, is the legitimate president of Haiti.
Statistically speaking, regardless of how many more people went to the
polls, he would have still won. As a concrete example, when Gallup or other
polling organizations take polls in the United States, they only choose a
sample of the population to reach a conclusion. That is how they predicted
that Bush was ahead, and that the race was tightening by the end, when it
indeed was; that Clinton was ahead in the polls when he indeed was. So the
opposition's consistent call for the removal of Aristide to power is based
on a fallacy which is in direct violation of the democratic process."

We must learn to respect the process. We must also learn to analyze, not
based on our liking, or disliking, or hatred of a leader or his political
party, but on facts and the legal provisions that relate to those facts.
After all the 1987, Haitian Constitution was written by Haitian legal
experts, and adopted by the great majority of voices from all walks of live,
through a normal democratic process called, a referendum.

We could go on and on, with this debate over the lack of respect for the
process by all sides, which should be quite a concern to all of us. For
instance, on the issue of corruption, everyone talks about it. But yet, some
political parties, civic and religious organizations, and politicians who
are not in power, may be planting the seeds for corrupt government, if they
ever get to power themselves.

If it is indeed true that those parties are paying poor and desperate people
from the masses to demonstrate, if they were ever to succeed through such a
strategy, they would also be governing over a corrupt state. This is so
because after all dusts would be settled, those who would have taken the
risks of demonstrating for them not because they believe in the movement,
but because they were paid to do a job, would go back and ask them for
payment through some kind of a job, which they may not even be qualified
for, or more kickbacks. In the process, the corrupted machine which they had
set up themselves, would keep on going, and Haiti would continue on that
vicious cycle.

Rather than focusing on individuals, we should all focus on the issues, and
study how we can resolve them by adhering to the normal process of
democratic government used in a modern state. Sad but true, some in the the
opposition seem oblivious to the fact that everyday that goes by is one less
day for Aristide to be president of Haiti, and that they should prepare
their party nationally to win victory in the November 2005, presidential
elections. Instead, they are desperately disrupting the normal democratic
process by trying hard to remove him from power unconstitutionally.

Because of their attitude and political behavior and language, Haiti seems
far from effective democratic governance, with the electoral process as the
determinant. Again sad but true, some of Haiti's brightest sons and
daughters focus so much of their energy on their hatred of one man and the
political party that he had helped bring to victory, that they're willing to
bypass the normal process to remove him from power. Meanwhile, because their
emotions have overcome them, they may not even realize that they are further
damaging the very institutions they claim that they wish to protect. The
question then becomes, how do they intend to govern, if they are damaging
the very institutions and processes that they are supposed to respect and
protect?

Hyppolite Pierre
IRSP
http://www.irsp.org