15222: DeSprit Marassa to Ives re Simidor and jean do (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: DeSprit Marassa <lwasauvaj@hotmail.com>

We thought it was intrastin to read Kim Ives critique of the critique.

He says:

["Lastly, I wager there'd be a lot less corruption and
mismanagement in Haiti if it weren't under assault. Cracks grow under
pressure. (Having opportunists and Duvalierist retreads in your ranks
doesn't help either, of course.)"]

We says Oh?!! We're willing to wager 500 million. The int'l community aint
willing to cuz they're afraid it will fall to that "corruption and
mismanagement" team headed by Aristide, which you just acknowledged exists,
but that you blame on the people givin the money. no agency for them Mr.
Ives?

Monsieur Ives, Y'all might want to Look where Titid lives with that art
collection and compare it with Mr. Mandela's modest 3 bedroom bungalow.
Y'all might wanna consider the millions of impoverished people who in live
in our feyre haiti who would, and do, go hungry rather than steal. Ya think
they willin to accept that argument?

Ives sez:

["You can't honestly call the OPL leadership imperialist boot-lickers
without calling Aristide by the same name," Simidor tells me. Well, we have
called Aristide that, or words to that effect. But his genuflections and
compromises were all for naught. Bush's team still won't have him. So now
he's at odds with them. So we back him. Bush supports OPL. So we fight them.
Get it? No grudges.]

We, Marassa, say that genuflections and compromises is a couple of
adjectives you might wanna re-consider replacing with thugs and drugs. And
we also be thinkin you are agreeing with Simidor when he says your logic is
to follow the tired creed of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Ain't
that the freakin' problem, Mr. Ives?

our crystal ball shows us that this week is for jean dominique. unless those
anti-imperialists manage to stall it again.

Depi Lavalas desann...tout bagay sal.
DeSprit Marassa







>From: Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>
>To: Haiti mailing list <haiti@lists.webster.edu>
>Subject: 15216:  Ives, re Simidor review of Ives review of Dailey review
>(fwd)
>Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 08:44:01 -0600 (CST)
>
>
>
>From: K. M. Ives <kives@toast.net>
>
>Daniel Simidor's diatribe against my piece is as filled with inaccuracies
>as Dailey's review, which is really all he is defending. But of course he
>has to defend it, having unwisely praised it to the heavens early on.
>
>But I really had expected the kind of ad hominem attack which sometimes
>greets my pieces to come from a quarter other than a would-be leftist. When
>will I ever learn?
>
>First, I'm not saying Dailey is "soft" on US imperialism. I'm saying he
>_defends_ it, for Chrissakes. And Dailey can't "counter" that he was not
>treating "US predation" but Haitian, as Simidor argues. Simidor knows, or
>should know, very well that any analysis of Haiti which leaves out the
>central role of the U.S. is preposterous.
>
>Furthermore, Simidor faults me for not expounding on "Lavalas corruption
>and mismanagement as two key factors pushing the country to the brink."
>First, my main concern was correcting some of Dailey's most egregious
>fallacies. Second, these problems, as in most of the world,  cannot be
>solved overnight, especially in a country where the educational system is
>in distress. Lastly, I wager there'd be a lot less corruption and
>mismanagement in Haiti if it weren't under assault. Cracks grow under
>pressure. (Having opportunists and Duvalierist retreads in your ranks doesn
>'t help either, of course.)
>
>Simidor also has to back up his Dailey-esque charges. He cites "the mammoth
>thievery that the Titid-Mildwèt couple" (give me the evidence of the
>millions stolen) and "the corruption of the democratic process" (show me
>where would-be winners lost). As for "the rapacious and murderous gangs
>associated with Lavalas," let's also be concrete. The violence which
>Dailey, the Convergence, the OAS, and Washington decry is that of lumpen
>associations - yes, sometimes anarchic, arbitrary, fanatical, and
>dangerous - which are seeking to defend the government they elected against
>clear attacks (like that of Dec. 17, 2001), having been terrorized, beaten,
>and shot up themselves during the neo-Duvalierist dictatorships and coup.
>They want no return to those reigns of terror when the "rapacious and
>murderous gangs" of the bourgeoisie and grandons ruled. When Daniel and his
>cohorts chant "pouvwa popilè," this is what it looks like. It's messy,
>clumsy and sometimes misguided because it isn't disciplined, organized, or
>checked by strong state authority (something Daniel dislikes). No, Aristide
>is not "a nasty little dictator." Haiti's violence today has more to do
>with destabilization-assisted chaos and Aristide's inability to "restore
>state authority," as Préval promised to do.
>
>But the essence of Simidor's arguments is that "Ives clearly holds a grudge
>against the OPL gang for causing Aristide to give his side the cold
>shoulder." This is just silly amateur psychology. I don't hold grudges
>against anybody, whether it's Gerard Pierre-Charles, Jean-Bertrand Aristide
>or Daniel Simidor. The world of politics is so filled with reversals and
>fluidity that if one did this (as some super revolutionaries I know often
>do), one would quickly find oneself in a sterile, little ivory cubicle,
>castigating everyone for their impurities. My assessment of a person or a
>party is based on many factors, including the history of their political
>positions, their present position (both in words and practice), and finally
>the larger political context. If I criticize OPL, it is on these criteria.
>
>Ramsey Clark, Stan Goff, and Phillip Agee all switched sides. So did Jerry
>Rubin, Eldridge Cleaver, and Karl Kautsky. So you see, Daniel, grudges are
>useless.
>
>Daniel comes with a lot of club-house "zen" that Ben Dupuy "hates [OPL]
>with unrelenting passion" because it "kept him out of the limelight" and
>"away from subsidies." Puh-leez! This is the kind of immature gossip that
>has kept a particular sector of the Haitian left so irrelevant. It's as if,
>unable to comprehend ideological differences, certain people must reduce a
>conflict to the level on which they operate: the personal and petty.
>
>So when Simidor turns in circles trying to figure out whether Dupuy broke
>from Aristide or vice-versa, I can only scratch my head. Dupuy resigned as
>Ambassador when, with OPL's prodding, Aristide signed the letter requesting
>the U.N. Security Council to take up the case of Haiti, which, Haïti
>Progrès predicted, would lead to the second U.S. occupation of Haiti.
>Aristide chose a course which he had vowed he would never take. So APN and
>Haïti Progrès took their distance. It's that simple. And many other groups
>opposed U.S. intervention and criticized Aristide harshly, among them many
>smaller popular organizations, Tet Kole, and even Simidor's cherished
>now-OPL-affiliate MPP (at least in words and at first).
>
>Simidor knows very well that Gerard Pierre-Charles was championing U.S.
>intervention to restore Aristide all along. He helped organize an event
>featuring Pierre-Charles in late 1992 at Clara Barton High School in
>Brooklyn. The audience was aghast as Pierre-Charles made the case that only
>U.S. imperialism could deliver Haiti.
>
>"You can't honestly call the OPL leadership imperialist boot-lickers
>without calling Aristide by the same name," Simidor tells me. Well, we have
>called Aristide that, or words to that effect. But his genuflections and
>compromises were all for naught. Bush's team still won't have him. So now
>he's at odds with them. So we back him. Bush supports OPL. So we fight
>them. Get it? No grudges.
>
>As for Eddy Moïse and his FMR, he seems to me some kind of "agent
>provocateur," or else crazy. His take-over of the Canadian Embassy in 1992
>was very suspicious, particularly since his crew was given extensive
>coverage and interviews by TNH, which was tightly controlled at that point
>by one Col. Michel François.
>
>Simidor is self-appointing himself "left spokesman" even more unfairly than
>he alleges I do when he claims that "progressives across the board abhor
>Aristide." I think many members of this list, as well as listeners to WBAI
>99.5 FM in New York where we sporadically co-host a radio program, hold no
>"grudge" against Aristide and yet consider themselves progressives.
>
>Finally, concerning Simidor's search for "the hosts of PPN members," it's
>no surprise he hasn't found them. They're in Haiti, not New York.
>
>Kim Ives
>
>


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