17459: Blanchet: PRINCE SONSON PIERRE -- Of Aristides Party, But Threatened with Death (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: maxblanchet@att.net

IN THE PRESS

Of Aristide’s Party, But Threatened with Death
Source : Ouest France, November 25, 2003

“Everybody will know it was Lavalas if they kill me. My only protection is
the press.” Senator Prince Sonson Pierre belongs to the Lavalas party,
President Aristide’s party, and he is a dissident, and in the Haiti of the
former curate of the slums, this is the cause of a death penalty. Shortly
ago, he was told of a comment made by Aristide: “This one is still alive?  I
had given instructions”!

“Aristide lost his way in the United States, he explains, and then he
recruited former putschists. I am talking about the mafia-like wing of
Lavalas. There is also a healthy wing, the silent majority that is caught in
terrible poverty and is forbidden to speak in meetings."

Prince Sonson Pierre speaks on behalf of that majority. He skewers a
budget “controlled to the extent of 60% by the President” as a result of
which “all excesses are possible.” He boycotts the constitutional amendment
that enables Aristide to have his wife succeed him in 2006. He denounces a
system such that “a big drug trafficker can take care of the budget of the
police for 3 months.”

But he remains in Fanmi Lavalas. The surgeon from Jacmel belongs to this
class of doctors close to the people. He feels better even today and in spite
of threats in Fanmi Lavalas, which is popular, than in the opposition, which
is in its majority bourgeois. He dreams that some day, people from both sides
will unite “to form a left-leaning party, but many obstacles must be
overcome.”

Prince Sonson Pierre published on November 21 a book entitled, “ Haiti: the
State of shock” in which he explains how Haiti’s woes are rooted in its
history. How long will it take to free itself? Currently the country remains
the hostage of its elites, often of "bad faith," of an extremely rich
minority that represents 1% of the population and controls 70% of the wealth
and of a president who sees himself as the messiah. “He cannot change,”
affirms Prince Sonson Pierre and this is the major obstacle. “He is a priest,
and after the sermon, everyone must say amen. I understood this rather late,”
the senator says jokingly. Perhaps this is his way of dealing with the danger
that has forced him to lead a semi clandestine life in his own country.

Haiti Press Network