13879: Nadal: President , but insane (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Olivier Nadal : o_nadal@bellsouth.net

President, but Insane

by Serge Pierre Louis

The economist and columnist Claude Beauboeuf heralded the Haitian currency
(the gourde) hit the fatidic and critical bar of G 30.00 for one US dollar
and foretold that can attain in the coming months the unthinkable fifty; the
very same day (27th of September 2002) Jean-Bertrand Aristide called a few
of his cronies to the ranch (known as Jean Claude Duvalier ranch) to attack
the Haitian and the international media. Not a word about the slump of the
currency; not a word about the biggest rip-off ever taken place in our soil:
the so-called cooperatives impoverish a large portion of the population.

That recalls us Papa Doc, in his highest moment of craziness, which stated
without hesitation: If you
want to destroy Duvalier, you want to destroy Haiti. Such megalomania had
cost us the bagatelle of 29 years of obscurantism, stagnation and
backwardness; and today it is Father Aristide that assimilates and
amalgamates any media reporting and any citizen denouncing the wrongdoings
perpetrated by his regime
with. denigration of Haiti.

I know the psychiatrists do not agree with the word "crazy" they prefer
using other vocables such as
schizophrenic. That fits well our concern about Aristide. Schizophrenia,
being a state in which the
patient lost touch with realty. The insane creates his own world with his
own phantasms, his own beliefs. No way such persons can comprehend or accept
that others do not buy their pretences.

I would say there is a kind of new world with the New Technologies of
Communications and Information, the Internet, the sophisticated digital
cameras, satellites, cell phones etc., with all that existing it is hard to
imagine that Aristide to prove his popularity spends crazily (from national
treasury) high amount of money: 500.000.00 in Gonaives, 200.000.00 in
Martissant.

If it were a regular situation, if it were question of a normal person, one
would think that beats it all,
for there is more: Many neighborhoods of the Capital city could not sleep
the night of 21st of November
because heavy sound of heavy weapons and the heat of tires burning were on
the air. Aristide, evidently,
has paid his militia to act that way. And the 22nd, just like it was the
17th of December 2001 and others
similar events including electoral ones (understand?), pick-up trucks of
TELECO (the national company of
telephone), cars of ONA (Office National of Insurance) drove and dropped
chimè to different locations, with their material to terrorize the people. I
am saying cars with logos that I have seen around Champ-de-Mars and other
places. Yes, I saw. Everybody saw. Then, what Aristide is trying to make us
believe?

It has been quite a time a great many people, including myself, are sure
that Aristide is one the craziest guy that managed himself through the top
of a nation. President, a second time the 26th of November 2000 the way we
all know it, he substitutes daily the prime minister (see Yvon Neptune), the
Finance minister (see Gustave Faubert), and the police chief (see Jean-Nesly
Lucien). By the way, do you know there is a head-director of TNH, the state
television? Doctor Démesmin, known as such. He and the others see directly
Aristide for whatever the reason. It is not only the TNH. Same for all
Directors, Ministers, Prime Minister, Secretary of State, chefs de service
of DGI, the General Direction of taxation (!!) who receive orders from
Aristide. Why? Because Aristide takes care in his manner all cases and he
does that everyday. It is not surprising when you watch the state
television, before any 15-minute time you will see lot of pictures
and jingles of Aristide.

Wait! Aristide makes himself also a hero of the Independence. I saw Saturday
the 17th, in the route national # 1 and in Carrefour, the national # 2, long
decorative ropes in one package of Haitian flags,
pictures of Capois-la-Mort and pictures of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Does he
care about the national Constitution? We read articles 7 and 7.1:
Personality cult is absolutely forbidden. Effigies, names of living people
cannot figure on currency, stamps, vignettes. Same for public buildings the
streets and the artworks.- To use effigy of deceased persons, one must
obtain approval of the legislative body. Encore. I saw once around Jacmel
(Raymond-les-Bains) a signboard saying: Centre d'Alphabétisation Mildred
Trouillot Aristide. Oh! Boy. Long live to dictatorship and megalomania!

Since I can confirm to you that any event can take place at 3 meters of TNH,
no reporter would dare cover
or report it. until Aristide intervenes. However, the same Aristide has no
shame talking urbi et orbi about
freedom of press in Haiti. Freedom of press, mon oil, when a head-director,
a news director, a reporter of a
state media cannot air a news that is already well-spread all over the
world. When more than ten
press people are in exile and others living in constant fear. Never mind,
Aristide feels no shame, no fear to make discourse about democracy, freedom
of speech, press liberty and all that jazz.

I am sorry. I have no right to expect ''shameness'' from somebody insane. I
have the right, though, not to
accept the idea of my country being led by a crazy. I wish there were a
college of psychiatrists in Haiti to
take the right decision, the way that happened in 1920 in France with Paul
Deschanel. Dommage! But the
Haitian people can't take anymore the lies, the imposture, the caprices and
the crimes of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Serge Pierre-Louis
Haïti, 23. 11. 02