14193: Jean-Pierre: Op/Ed / Listin Diario (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: jean jean-pierre <louverture1803@juno.com>

Dear Mr. Corbett,
I am not a list member but have from time to time received posts from a
friend who is a member.  i would like to present my congratulations to
you for such great job for Haiti.
I would like to send to you this op/ed send by a Dominican friend.
He and I both translated it. Hope you can post it.
Thank you very much.
Jacques (Louverture) Bonaventure
___________________________________________________________

Letter to the editor
Listin Diario
December 2002


Why Haiti Is Menace To My Country

When Haitians elected Jean Bertan Arisitide again in 2000, I and a few
friends -Dominicans and Haitians- living here in New York thought for the
first time
Haiti was in the path of  democracy as she saw for the first time a
president  -Preval-
finishing his term and passing along constitutionally the presidency to
another duly elected president.
Some of my Haitian friends were very happy and were most hopeful  in
spite of the assault of the George W. Bush administration on an Aristide
they didn't like.

But on the very same day of Aristide inauguration the opposition elected
its own president.
I knew then the Haitian oligarchy and those guys at the International
Republican Institute -IRI-  ( I know of them because they are also in my
country) was about to finance another coup.  Now it is clear they don't
want Haiti to prosper as long as they can continue to be rich on the
cheap labor of Haitians peasants and workers. They want chaos which will
spill over my country the Dominican Republic.  God! And then they call
themselves elite? Frankly, I am ashamed
to have been from the same land with the Haitian intellectuals and elite.
 In fact, they represent a danger to the whole island because they don't
like their own.
Maybe it is the reason they don't like Aristide: he looks too much like
the masses.
No matter what his faults are, he was duly elected.  He should finish his
term.

We have been long accused of discriminating against Haitians.  Maybe some
of us have.  But what about those Haitian mulattoes and even the
intellectuals who hate the Haitian masses and keep creating terrible
conditions thus causing poor Haitians to
go working in -I must admit- infrahuman conditions in my country?

Many of my progressive Haitian friends used to talk of revolution in
Haiti.  But  they never worked for it.  They always meet here in New
York, but never make a plan let alone carrying it.  They used to say how
much they liked Aristide. Now those same Haitian brothers are calling for
its ouster.  Do they really know how far back they want to turn Haiti?

Most Haitian politicians want to be president, but are too lazy (or too
intellectual) to work for it.  From what I know, Aristide did work for
it.  Maybe he's not qualified.  Hey, that's the beauty of democracy.
George Bush is the president of the United States.  Is he qualified?
In Haiti, more so than the United States, the people have spoken.

My country is in great danger because Haitians are incapable to work
together and compromise.  We are not better but we're learning.

Sorry, but that's the way I see it.

Abelardo Gonzales
Washington Heights
New York, NY

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