18656: (Hermantin) Miami-Herald-EDITORIAL EXCERPT (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sun, Feb. 15, 2004


EDITORIAL EXCERPT


On the uprising in Haiti

>From The Jamaica Observer, Kingston:


The Haitian opposition must be told, and be made to understand, that it will
not be rewarded for violence and for any antidemocratic or unconstitutional
seizure of power. Which is what it seems that events in Haiti are leading
to.

Whatever any one of us, including the government of the United States, may
think of Haiti's president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, and even with the flaws
in the Haitian electoral system, there is no doubt that Mr. Aristide's
election in 2000 was legitimate. It, by and large, re- flected the will of
the Haitian people. . .

Now, armed thugs have taken over several Haitian towns seeking what was not
achieved via the ballot box -- the departure of Mr. Aristide two years ahead
of the completion of his term.

It seems to us that the stage is being set, with the tacit if not overt
support of the Haitian official opposition, for a coup against Mr. Aristide,
which would be a repeat of what happened in the early 1990s. And in the
shadows lurk the same types who backed the previous anti-Aristide putsch and
who have backed the more recent dictatorships in Haiti.

All this is not to suggest that we approve of Mr. Aristide and everything
that he has done. Not by any means. Indeed, we believe that he has moved far
too slowly and has been too inflexible. . .

Nonetheless, what is taking place in Haiti represents neither the basis or
the form for the removal of an elected leader and has the imprint of an
attempt at oligarchic ascendancy.

We cannot, and we will not, support this unfolding opportunistic approach to
democracy, backing it when our friends are in office and playing fast and
loose with it when those who we dislike, or do not approve of, are the ones
being turfed out.

This kind of candy-store democracy must not be countenanced and those who
attempt to practice it must hear the echoes from all around, that they will
not be welcomed at the table of democrats.

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