13230: Re: 13228: Hyppolite comments on Chamberlain posts (news item): Haiti minister resigns, criticizes government (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Hyppolite Pierre <hpierre@irsp.org>

I read Chamberlain's posting of Bazin's resignation with great interest.
Although I read the posting of such on Metropole's website earlier today,
this one is more detailed and sheds better light on one important issue
here.

Let's first of all hope that if Bazin's party (the MIDH) makes a more or
less substantial win in the next elections, that they do not behave like the
obstructionists of the 46th OPL-dominated legislature. After all, if one
relies on Bazin's apparent political character, and if past history is any
indication, they (from the MIDH) should behave like matured politicians who
focus on the issues and help Haiti get out of the nasty marass that it is
in.

Equally important to me is the posting by our beloved Senou. What the
Convergence (now practically defunct) should learn from their very recent
experience (political debacle) is this. If you want to zero-in on a
government, and show its weaknesses, you must become part of the "process".
That is exactly what Bazin has been able to do here in his resignation
speech (read Greg's press release below). And I can almost guarantee you
that, although I don't live in Haiti, the MIDH probably, more likely than
not, has a much better chance to challenge the government on issues, and get
the ears of the population because they can give him a minimum of credit.

It is not by bypassing the "process", that you will become prezidan, or
Minis, or Senatè. It is by jumping at the right opportunity when it arises
to become part of the process, that you will earn the respect and trust of
the people, rich and poor. It is not by personalizing a political process
that has always, ALWAYS been so personalized, (the obsession with Aristide)
that you will gain at least my trust, let alone the vast majority of the
Haitian people. This has been Senou, Joseph Alfred, the tragic mistake of an
opposition too eager to reside in the National Palace.

Let's just hope that this time when all dusts are settled, that we have a
clean election, a decent and more constructive opposition in Parliament so
we can truly begin to attain the peace that we have been all so sorely
hoping for since February 7, 1986. After all, we're seriously approaching
2004.

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


>
> From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>
>
>      By Michael Deibert
>
>      PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Haiti's minister in charge
> of bridging the 2-year-old electoral impasse between the government and
> opposition parties announced his resignation on Friday, citing frustrations
> with government policy.
>      Marc Bazin, a former prime minister who served as a minister without
> portfolio, said he had delivered letters of resignation to President
> Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Prime Minister Yvon Neptune on Wednesday.
>      "When I took this job, I gave myself a deadline of seven months to
> show substantive progress in the negotiations and, while we have had some
> small successes, the difficulties between the government and the opposition
> remain," Bazin told Reuters.
>      Aristide began his second term as president in January 2001 and his
> ruling Lavalas Family party has since been locked in dispute with the
> opposition coalition Democratic Convergence over May 2000 legislative
> elections that his opponents contend were biased to favor Aristide's party.
>      The deadlock has stalled more than $500 million in international aid.
> The Organization of American States called this month for restoration of
> aid to avert a "humanitarian disaster" in this impoverish Caribbean country
> of 8 million people.
>      A former World Bank official and finance minister for deposed Haitian
> dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, Bazin was defeated by Aristide for the
> presidency in 1990. He served briefly as prime minister under the military
> government that deposed Aristide in 1991.
>      After serving as Aristide's Minister of Planning last year, Bazin
> assumed the negotiator's role in Neptune's government in March. He
> succeeded in getting Aristide and opposition leaders to sit down together
> only once, at the papal nuncio's Port-au-Prince residence in June.
>      The government had no immediate comment on Bazin's resignation.
>      Bazin faulted the Aristide administration's record on human rights,
> corruption, economic policy and privatization of Haiti's notoriously
> inefficient state industries.
>      "We've seen a 16 percent rise in inflation, the gourde (Haitian
> currency) has lost 32 percent of value in a year and the government's
> economic policy, if you can call it that, has been absurd," the former
> economist said.
>      "We need to privatize state industries to make them competitive and
> change the system we have now, which is one of no transparency and no
> accountability. Corruption is a system and the entire system needs to be
> reformed."
>      Bazin said he would concentrate on reviving his own political party,
> the Movement for the Installation of Democracy in Haiti.
>      "There is an electoral year coming, which our party is fully prepared
> to enter," Bazin said, referring to a possible round of legislative
> elections that could begin in November. "We will push for maximum security
> for those elections, improvements in human rights, and a real economic
> policy."
>
>