17602: Lemieux: The Observer (UK): Misrule still denies Haiti its freedom (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

Misrule still denies Haiti its freedom

200 years after winning independence from France, the first
black republic remains in the chains of poverty

Jacqui Goddard in Môle-St-Nicolas, Haiti
Sunday December 28, 2003
The Observer

It is a rutted, rocky track that leads across Haiti's
northern peninsula to Môle-St-Nicolas, a historic coastal
community where Christopher Columbus came ashore more than
five centuries ago. Few vehicles come here, and the town -
the oldest in the country - has a desolate air. The remote
location, lack of electricity and absence of a road mean
that contact with the outside world is limited.
Its 4,000 people scrape a living growing bananas, making
charcoal and fishing the picturesque Caribbean bay, but
most live in utter poverty. Instead of celebrating its
place in history, the place Columbus dubbed 'Maravillosa' -
meaning 'wonderful' - is now in ruins, epitomising Haiti's
woes as the country prepares to mark the bicentennial on 1
January of its foundation as the world's first black
republic.

'Some people here cannot even afford food for their
families,' says Elissaint Saintange, 37, a shopkeeper who
sells basic supplies and fuel to the few who can afford it.
'They have to beg every day from others.'

The decay of Môle-St-Nicolas provides a dramatic
illustration of how social and economic opportunities have
been lost in years of political rot.

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, accused of brutally
repressing dissent and rigging elections to keep his
Lavalas party in power, leads a nation of 7.5 million
people now desperate to shed Haiti's image as the poorest
country in the Western hemisphere. Impatient for democracy,
jobs, education and health care, anti-government protesters
have been taking to the streets in recent days with
increasing regularity, engaging in bloody battles with
Aristide supporters and riot police as they use the 200th
anniversary of independence from France as an occasion to
call for his overthrow.

'Aristide has this biblical vision of leadership whereby he
is the shepherd and his people are the flock who must
follow where he leads them,' said Stephen Johnson, a
specialist in Caribbean affairs at the Heritage Foundation
in Washington. 'But in a democracy, it is the people who
should be the shepherd. They are increasingly coming to
realise that.'

The point at which Columbus stepped ashore on 6 December,
1492, is now strewn with old tin cans and rotting coconut
husks. Weeds grow from the cracks in Môle-St-Nicolas's
fortresses, built after independence in 1804, and plans to
turn its beach into a paradise for cruise-ship passengers
have been sunk by the government. Unable to realise its
potential as a lucrative tourist haven, the town has become
one of several points from which desperate Haitians launch
perilous voyages to Florida. In the past 12 months, US
Coast Guard vessels have intercepted 2,709 Haitians on
rafts and in boats - almost 1,000 more than the number of
Cubans picked up at sea fleeing the Castro regime. Many
more are picked up by US military patrols and sent back to
Haiti.

The region around Môle-St-Nicolas is awash with people who
have tried, and failed, to reach Florida, 600 miles away.

Benel Louis, who lives in the town of Dame-Marie, was 26
when he first tried. He used to farm, but rain is sparse
and he earned little money. So his father sold one of his
plots to raise the 5,000 gourdes (Ł70) fare for him.

There were 173 people packed into one sailboat, some as
young as a year old and most sitting on each other's laps,
he recalls. With no shelter from the sun, and little food
or water, people became ill. 'People died - about 20. The
bodies were lying among us, on top of each other,' he says.
'We were so weak.'

After three days, the boat fell apart. 'People were falling
into the water, there were many deaths,' says Louis. 'A US
military plane threw inflatables out to help us, and those
of us who were still alive started to swim.'

A US military patrol plucked survivors from the water and
returned them to Haiti. Louis laughs when asked if he will
try again. 'Of course,' he says. 'I will only stop trying
when there are job opportunities in Haiti, when I can
provide for my family.'

Local non-governmental organisations such as Graf, backed
by the British development agency ActionAid, run projects
to bring change to the country's poverty-stricken north and
to give people reasons to stay. Food-for-work schemes have
helped some communities to begin the recovery, while the
introduction of soil conservation techniques has improved
farming prospects in the region.

Merneus Orneus, 32, who has tried three times to reach the
US, says: 'The President doesn't care about us. The people
who try to make life better are not from the government,
but the NGOs. We hear we have a government, but we see no
sign of it.'



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