18157: Conde: Re: 18112: Simidor adds to Louis re: Drugs at St. Jean Bosco

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Alix Conde <alixconde@yahoo.com>
----------------------------------------

I have read your comments on the use of crack among Chimeres and I would
like
to make a couple of points. . As we may all know,  intoxicants are
commonly
used during episodes of political violence in Haiti. No respectable "head
dechoukeur" will forget to provide the drink, especially clairin and rhum
or
even whiskey as was the case during the flourishing days of the black
market.
Political violence is almost proverbial in our country. The use of
clairin,
tafia during such episodes is as  old as the days of the colony. This is a
telling reflection of the multiple places and purposes of those
intoxicants in
the political economy of a sugar producing country. Well, a former sugar
producing economy, I should say.
If one were to trace trajectory of the tafia from the factory of the
producer
to the perpetrator of the given acts of politacal violence, one could
typically
identify the "grand don" whose plantation produced the cane and continue
down
the line, noticing the big merchants who store barrels of the stuff, and
so on
and so forth, until we finally get to the guy who drinks a copious shot
before
administering a pe lebrun to his victim. I am not arguing that the
producer is
the instigator. I am only noticing that there is no need for external,
foreign
 participation at least in the  enactment of the traditional mob violence,
regardless of its cause.
 Crack use on the other hand is a recent phenomenon with global
proportions. High rates of criminality among "Crack heads" ravaged
American
inner cities in 1986-87 as well. Criminality is the key word here
however.There
is a wide gap between criminal violence and political violence. Besides,
does
not your contention that the US was "doping the rebellious youth" argue
against
the use of narcotics as a viable fuel for political violence? .Although it
is
not impossible that the drug could acquire this new attribute in Haiti, it
is
worth noting that drug use  does not create political violence.
Politicians
order them, may they from one side of the fence or the other.
 This is nonetheless a very interesting issue. Just like I hinted at the
networks that made possible the distribution and consumption of tafia
during a
dechoucage, we can argue that not only networks that reflect class and
status
echellons must also exist in the case of crack,  but also   that their
roots
are probably global rather than local. Are we looking at the onset of a
new era
political violence where the dechoukaj or "rechoukaj" apparatus is now
modeled
after  a stereotypical  "American gang"  instead of the traditional "
Woulo
komprese" or a militia? Why these differences? If such is the case then
why or
even more important,  how is it possible?  What changes are taking place
in
Haitian political economy? How do they allow for such developments? Is it
a
reflection of the impact of globalization on local manifestations?  A
closer
look at this phenomenon provides an aditional perspective from which we
can
gain a better understandidng of the political crisis that is devastating
our
country.
Alix Conde