13808: Simidor responds to du Tuyau, Mambo Racine and Anonymous (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Daniel Simidor <karioka9@mail.arczip.com>

I take note of Mambo Racine’s reaction to my recent post (#12733)
but I regret that I cannot take it seriously.  For one thing, she
is so involved with her own recollection of the bloody 1991 coup
that she cannot tell the beginning of a popular uprising today
from a military putsch 11 years ago. Mr. Du Tuyau’s allusion to
far left adventurism is more a propos but equally wrong.

Anonymous finds that “the idea that Aristide would be overthrown
is a repulsive one.”  Maybe, if you can only conceive of democracy
in Haiti as a pas de deux (shuffle) between Lavalas and the
traditional opposition (Convergence, et al).  But once you
introduce the people into that equation, everything changes.

Vox populi, vox dei.  The people voted Aristide as president, back
in Dec. 1990, because they saw him as their champion.  Twelve
years and one botched election later, the gap between the poor’s
desperate plight and the Lavalas nouveaux riches is so wide that
it is sickening When a government abandons its mandate to the
extent that the people feel betrayed, the people have a right to
recall that government. By any means, even violent ones, if
necessary.   This is even written, of all places, in the US
Constitution.

In Cap Haitien, Port-au-Prince, Gonaives and Petit-Goave, the main
demonstrations last week started as relatively small opposition
protests and ended as spontaneous mass demonstrations -- with the
ti-machann and people from the slums joining in. The people are
fed up with Lavalas.

Anonymous and Mambo Racine should come to grip with the fact that
Lavalas is the only force talking and using violence today.  What
shut down Port-au-Prince last Friday was not a Lavalas mass
demonstration, spontaneous or otherwise, but the armed violence of
Lavalas gangs.  If there is a coup in the making, it has all the
appearance of a Lavalas coup against the people.

If you believe in elections, there is one clear reason why Aristide
should resign.  As long as Aristide is in power, the notion of free
and fair elections, of opposition candidates being able to campaign
safely, is just a big joke.  What happened last Friday is an
example of what will happen when the armed Lavalas gangs feel
power slipping away from them.  There is no democratic tradition
or culture of tolerance to hold them back.  Allow me to quote
points 11 and 18a and 18b from Anonymous’ very informative brief:

<< 11) financing OP activities from the budget of the
Ministère de l'Intérieur (with Jocelerme Privert
directly participating in strategy meetings on
organized protests, down to the number of tires needed
to set up burning barricades in Port-au-Prince) -
illegal.

<< 18a) Using public funds to buy weapons for the OP's -
immoral and illegal

<< 18b) Using the Police Nationale d'Haiti, in the person
of DDO Chief Hermione Leonard, 1) to distribute the
weapons to a bunch of OPs and criminal organizations
in Site Soley , 2) to ply these OPs with fresh
ammunitions on a regular basis, and 3) to provide them
with money and occasional logistical support before
"big operations" - downright criminal.>>

Aristide should resign because the people are fed up with his
inept, corrupt, and increasingly repressive regime.  Aristide
should resign in order to avoid a blood bath by the chimères and
the goons in his service.  What is to replace him in the interim
will become clear as the protests gain momentum.  My hope is that
the students and the emerging youth movement will not be appeased
by Aristide’s eleventh hour concession on the University, because
the students and the youth movement are among the sanest and most
uncorrupt forces on the scene today.

Daniel Simidor