14047: Chamberlain replies to 14037: Arthur: Inaccurate news (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

> From Charles Arthur:

>> The number of inaccuracies in news reports about Haiti beggars belief.
Here
>> is the latest one  - or the latest one that I have noticed...that
appeared in
>> The Miami Herald on Wed, Dec. 04, 2002.

>> Former Haitian leader in legal tug of war
>> BY MARIKA LYNCH

>>  between 1995 and 2000 when Aristide's party, Lavalas, was in power."

> FACT: Aristide's party - the Lavalas Family did not exist until late 1996
and
> did not hold any elected positions in the Parliament until after the
general
>elections held in May 2000.

> If any party was 'in power' between 1995 and 2000, it was the OPL -
formerly
> the Lavalas Political Organisation and, since 1996 known as the
Struggling
> People's Organisation. If the OPL was ever Aristide's party, it certainly
> stopped being that in 1996 - why else would Aristide have formed a new
party?


Charles:

You are quite right to point out factual errors in press coverage and some
have been inexcusable.  But here you are being over-picky, as well as
making your own errors.

The Lavalas Political Organisation (OPL, controlled by Aristide and also
commonly called a party) won the the June 1995 elections, so Aristide's
party was at least "in power" until he broke away (after his first big
public complaint in September 1996) and formed the Fanmi Lavalas (FL) party
in November 1996.

However, from around that time, he had sizeable groups of defectors from
the OPL in both houses of parliament whose quarrel with the OPL and
Préval's government helped paralyse operations.  A few months later, in the
disputed April 1997 senate elections (for one third of the seats), the FL
won two seats outright and was set to win seven others which, with the
sitting senators who already counted themselves as pro-Aristide, would've
given him control of the senate.  The second round of the vote didn't take
place because of the dispute between the FL and the OPL and senate
operations were paralysed.  In August that year, two groups of pro-Aristide
deputies -- the Anti-Liberal Bloc (25) and the Informal Group (about 40) --
had a clear majority over the now anti-Aristide OPL (33) (which dropped the
Lavalas from its name in January 1998, not 1996 as you said).

>From then until Aristide returned to power, Preval's government was
hamstrung both by the situation in parliament and by plenty of evidence
that Aristide was pulling the strings (the purging of the police, sacking
of Robert Manuel after summoning him to Tabarre and Préval's timidity
before his patron Aristide).

Given that anything pro-Aristide was popularly called "Lavalas" ( "party"
or "movement"), it is not totally unreasonable (though not strictly
accurate) to refer to "Aristide's party, Lavalas" as having been in power
from 1995-2000 since Aristide effectively controlled events throughout that
time.

So this "beggaring belief" bit is over the top.


        Greg Chamberlain