12816: Re: Lavalas and corruption; Simidor responds to Pierre (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: karioka9@cs.com

In his most recent post on the subject, Hyppolite concedes the general corruption within Lavalas, but then proceeds to trivialize the whole thing with claims that "Haiti is indeed a corrupt country," that corruption "is now a very deeply entrenched culture" and that it "is in virtually every active facet of society."  In other words, everybody is corrupt, so no one is responsible.  This train of thought leads to sophistry, so please let's not go there.

Is Haitian culture corrupt?  Are all Haitians guilty of corruption?  There is strong evidence of corruption and theft among the predatory strata that historically control the state and the economy (the 6,000 thieves of Manno Charlemagne's song).  This, by the way, includes the Convergence opposition and all the "politiciens traditionnels" who litter the country's political landscape.  Haitian culture, that is the culture produced by the people, doesn't fall into that category, and I challenge anybody to show that the people are corrupt.

Aristide himself was not corrupt before his rise to power. (Whatever paintings he owned then were probably given to him by the artists themselves.)  I still recall Aristide's first visit to the UN in August 1991, before he started dressing in Armani suits.  People who observe such things noticed then his cheap, off-the-rack, ill-fitted suits.  I remember shaking his hand with conflicting emotions at a reception in Harlem.  But the writing was already on the wall: the system would either corrupt him or destroy him.  Aristide came close to losing his life in 1991.  Since then, he acts as he is still suffering from the Stockholm syndrome (identifying with and fronting for your former captors).

Let me clarify something, once and for all: the people on the left I'm acquainted with do not hate Aristide -- although many of us are bitterly resentful of his many betrayals. People on the left generally understand that IT'S NOT THE MAN, IT'S THE PLAN. For Aristide's "archenemies," look among the rightwing "elite," the comprador bourgeois types who hold him in contempt for his skin color, his humble origins and his past radicalism.

Hyppolite puts great faith in elections. The truth is that you can have elections from now until Kingdom come, nothing will ever change in Haiti, unless you eliminate the present system of government and the power of the corrupt strata.  I'm not preaching revolution on this list, just pointing out the obvious.

On the subject of a market economy, I take note of Hyppolite's apology for Pinochet, but I doubt that our host will entertain a detailed discussion of that subject.  Suffice it to say that Hyppolite's views ain't mine, and that people on the left are not necessarily against foreign investments.  Even assembly jobs are better than no jobs at all.  It's just that the bits and pieces of Aristide's deal with the DR that have come out in the open thus far speak of a major betrayal of the country and its people.

As for the claim that my first and last posts on the free zone scandal contradict each other, it is simply not so.  The truth is that Aristide and his Dominican counterpart did sign a free zone agreement. Remember Maribahoux?  Aristide's trip to the border last spring?  The US on the other hand promised but hasn't signed yet on the debt reduction proposal put forward by the Mejia government.

Daniel Simidor