17142: Raber: Re: 17139: Kathleen: Re: 17126: Renmen Ayiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: P&M Raber <raber@valkyrie.net>

Kathleen Burke Wrote:

>
>" I was in Haiti, in the Central Plateau, May 2000. I saw lavalas with
rifles
> leveled at prospective voters; others did too.  I heard from reliable
people
> of paid votes. The bottom line is that people are afraid to vote, or
selling
> their votes, under the eye of Lavalas.  I would treat this as a rumor if I
> hadn't been a direct witness.  The elections can't be monitored
everywhere -
> so that is why elections are not a "best" way to solve the problem."

I witnessed much of the same in the Leogane area.  In addition, the ballots
were stolen at gunpoint after dark after the international observers had
left.  Why would Lavalas be so stupid as to  steal something they knew they
would win?  Only greed.  They knew that they would not have the landslide
needed to reach their ultimate goal:  changing the constitution in order to
remove term limits.  And who knows, making it so that Mme Aristide can
succeed her husband and them he can succeed her on an on for life.  If
Aristide wants an unblocking of aid, all he has to say to the international
community is that neither he nor his wife will ever seek to be elected
officials in Haiti and that his party will not seek to alter the
constitution for the next 20 years.

I always hoped that the opposition and the foreign donors had left him steal
it all with one stipulation: no changing of the constitution.  The dollars
would have flowed into the Lavalas coffers and the people of Haiti would
have either benefited or seen the light.  Now the opposition, the elite, the
intellectuals, the press, the American, the French, are being used as
scapegoats.