13790: Kathy Grey re: 13744: Hermantin: Political Danger Is Real (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com

leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com> cites:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/editorial/search/sfl-editmshaitiansnov17.story

<<Political Danger Is Real
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board

November 17, 2002

A gang has already killed your father and brother for speaking out against the government. The same people stabbed another brother, who nearly died.  Even your 9-year-old daughter has had a lesson in local politics: a kick in the mouth to teach her to keep it shut.

Now their threats have found you, and you fear harm next. You flee...>>

Let's suppose all this is true, for a minute.  It sounds mighty fishy to me, but let's say it's true.  All this happened to you, so... you FLEE??  You so easily leave behind everything and everyone you hold dear, and just run?   You don't... go to the police, talk to reporters, join with other victims, see your depute or senator, go on the radio, you don't do ANYTHING to make your country work like it's supposed to, you can't do anything to help yourself, you can't take any action, the only thing you can possibly do is... run away to the United States?

Nah.  You wanted to go there already, if it's so easy to pick up and run.

Over and over the United States is asked to absorb anyone and everyone who is unhappy in Haiti, for any reason!  If you are part of a group of agricultural workers in Haitian orange groves unionizing to get proper working conditions out of Remy-Martin or whoever, and things get a little rough - BINGO!  You think you should get political asylum, let's get on a boat!  If you are a journalist and a politician you interview makes some cutting remarks to you, again - BINGO!  You think you should get political asylum.

You don't have to work to change your own country, you have no responsibility to do the necessary so that your courts function, your legislature functions, you don't have to demand accountability from anyone, especially not yourself, that's much to hard for Haitians, right?  Poor Haitians, they are so powerless, so helpless, they can never be expected to put their own country on track, the only thing they can do, poor dears, is run to the USA whenever there is a problem?

BAH!  I have more respect for Haitians than THAT.  Haitians are just as capable as anyone else of evolving a functioning society, and they will, once they have to.  In fact, things are getting better in Haiti, not worse, as the propagandists of the right would have us believe!  The Haitian Army is no more, the boot is off the neck of Haitians.  Freedom of speech is becoming more a thing that people expect and less a thing that people joke about.  Democratic principles are entering the popular consciousness willy-nilly!

Yes, the economic situation in Haiti is awful.  It's awful in the USA too. And it's worse in Haiti as corruption and just plain bad government siphon off and waste resources.  The answer to that is accountability, not a coup and a dictatorship!

Yes, there are demonstrations in Haiti - that's a sign of political health, not political disease.  (I'm not talking about violence associated with some demonstrations, obviously that's not healthy.)  But every time there is a demonstration in Haiti, the right wing jumps up and screams, "Oh my God, Haitian society is falling to pieces!", and that's totally false.

Yes, Haiti still has big problems.  But the old days are gone, and those of us who remember even the coup of 1991 - 1994 know what life was like then, to say nothing of the Duvalier years.

<<Fairness and basic human decency, not to mention international law, require that Haitian asylum claims be given equal treatment to those of other nationalities. Because of the growing political violence in Haiti today, the presumption can't be made that Haitian refugees are fleeing for economic rather than political reasons.>>

No one is going door to door in Haiti today, shooting people who like Hubert deRoncerey or Evans Paul!  That's what happened in 1991, the Haitian Army went door to door in plenty of neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince, shooting people who were pro-Aristide.  And I remember back then, when people really did have legitimate, totally verifiable claims for political asylum, how hard it was to get those claims respected!  Now, all of a sudden we are supposed to just take at face value a group of Haitians who claim that in the midst of a democratically elected government, with a civilian police department and a functioning press, they are victims of systematic, state-sponsored persecution?

I think we need to look deeper.  The right wing screams that the sky is falling in Haiti, they stir up violence at demonstrations, then they cry that violence is increasing!  A few of their buddies ask for asylum, and this is suddenly proof that Haiti is degenerating into chaos?

For example, we have the report filed by Michael Norton on November 20, concerning the disorder in Petit Goave:

"Anti-government protesters forced their way into a police station courtyard in provincial Petit-Goave on Wednesday, prompting a clash with authorities that left 10 people injured, four with gunshot wounds... The students were peaceful for the most part, but "infiltrators" among them opened fire, said a duty officer who did not want
to be identified.>>

Students protest over increasing fees. "Infiltrators" shoot, police respond, and the right wing dances for joy!  All of a sudden President Aristide is responsible, not the thugs the right-wingers pay to stir up violence - and all of a sudden every single person in Petit Goave who ever persecuted an Aristide supporter during the coup years, every attache and FRAPH, every corrupt anti-Aristide town politician, is now supposed to get political asylum.  It's ridiculous.

It's a defamation campaign, pure and simple, and it is intended to discredit President Aristide and get him out of his rightful place before he finishes his five-year mandate, that is all.

Sincerely,

Kathy S Grey