14065: Chamberlain replies to 14054 from Arthur (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

> Arthur wrote:

> By omitting any reference to my point about the "four dead" people in
> Petit-Goave who were wounded but not in fact dead, you do make me appear
> ridiculous, and without that part of my original post you are quite right
to
> comment, "So this "beggaring belief" bit is over the top."


The "four dead" was a point you validly made in a post a week ago (13918).
It wasn't mentioned in the one I replied to (14037), where the Miami Herald
error wasn't a big deal, and I did anyway say some errors had been
inexcusable (alluding to the "four dead").  But even if you had mentioned
that again, it's still over the top to say "the number of inaccuracies in
news reports about Haiti beggars belief."  Just ain't so.


But to your points of history (though do Ameri-Corbetteers know what
"anoraks" are...?):

> As for your numbers of deputies, please allow me to say that your maths
are 'bonkers'.

You are right.  I misread a passage about that confused period when, as you
know, alliances among the deputies shifted daily, even hourly sometimes, so
it was always hard to make out who was on what side, or even what a "side"
was.

What I should've said was that up to 27 Aug 97, when the pro-Aristide "Bloc
anti-libéral et anti-occupation" (25 deputies) was announced, the main
groups of deputies were the OPL (33), the pro-Aristide "Groupe informel"
(about 40) and the "Groupe des parlementaires indépendants" (about 10),
which adds up to around the required 83.   A year later, as you say, it
may've been reduced to 76 "functioning" deputies.


> I don't accept your characterisation of all the non-OPL,
non-anti-neoliberal bloc deputies as being pro-Aristide

My recollection is that almost certainly all the Bloc anti-liberal deputies
were pro-Aristide and that many if not most of the Groupe informel were
because they saw the way the wind was blowing and hastened to climb aboard
the future gravy train in time-honoured fashion.


> To me it seemed much more like it was the OPL that was paralysing the
Parliament.

Yes, the OPL were more obstructive than I implied, but the multiple
obstructions going on at all levels of the state and government
(inefficiencies, in-fighting and corruption) made clear reponsibility hard
to attribute, if you remember.


> (The OPL) enjoyed a majority in the Senate - thanks to its refusal to
accept the results of the partial April 1997 Senate elections which meant
only 18 of the 27 Senate seats were occupied.

But only a paper majority.  If you remember, in practice it hardly ever met
because it was usually inquorate, and even when it did manage to meet, it
took no action of any importance.  So I don't think they got much
"enjoyment" out of it !

I repeat that Aristide and his supporters and henchpersons in and out of
parliament had real and perceived control from 1995-2000.


> The OPL (...) used (their) power (...)  to push through legislation for
the privatisation of state-owned enterprises in 1997.

But this was simply doing what the Préval govt was asking them to do.
Hardly opposition.  If the OPL is to be pilloried for this, let's blame
Préval too, and also Aristide for advocating it in 1995 (and of course he
will say he was "forced to" -- wouldn't you?), only to drop the idea _just_
before his term was ending, so poor old puppet Préval was left to do the
"dirty work" of reviving it a few months later, while Aristide (brought
back by foreign invaders after saying shortly before in the US that he'd
"never, never, never" allow himself to be restored that way) was able to
play the diamond-hard ideologue opposing it from his position of holding no
official post.


>> (GC wrote): " (OPL) which dropped the Lavalas from its name in January
1998, not 1996 as you said."

> Can I point you to the OPL web site:
> "La distance et les contradictions entre les deux tendances ainsi
apparues
> furent evoques au Premier Congres de l'OPL, en janvier 1997. Aussi, le
> Congres, prevoyant l'inevitable rupture avec Lavalas, decida-t-il
d'adopter,
> en vue d'une prochaine substitution du nom "Organisation Politique
Lavalas"
> l'appellation "Organisation du Peuple en Lutte.".
> My French is not fluent, but doesn't that mean the OPL changed it's name
at
> its January 1997 Congress?

Yes and no !  It says they adopted the name at the congress so they could
change it some time in the future.  I find a quote from top OPL leader Paul
Denis on 18 December 97 saying that the OPL "did not rule out" dropping the
Lavalas in the OPL name because of the behaviour of "degenerate elements"
among Lavalas supporters.  In January 98, Denis said the change would now
be made because "the Lavalas movement had been perverted" from its course
("dénaturé").  After that it used the new name.


        Greg Chamberlain