18767: (Hermantin) Sun-Sentinel-Haitian community feeling homeland anguish (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Haitian community feeling homeland anguish
Published February 17, 2004


The tensions ripping through their native Haiti are felt in the Our Lady of
Perpetual Help Mission.

"The church is anxious. We can see that people are suffering," says the Rev.
Roland Desormeaux, administrator of the Catholic church in the Haitian part
of Delray Beach.

"In their prayers, you can hear the hurt and suffering."

Many parishioners are from Gonaives, a city engulfed in violence and taken
over by forces opposing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The news is fevered. "You don't know what's going on. Things are changing
from minute to minute, 360 degrees," says Daniella Henry, director of the
Haitian-American Community Council in Delray.

"Everyone has relatives over there," she says of the 30,000 Haitians counted
in the 2000 census in Palm Beach County. "It affects everybody here."

Tempers are growing short as opinions run hot: For and against Aristide. For
and against negotiations. For and against U.S. involvement.

"A lot of people get high blood pressure from this," Henry says. "They're
very hyper."

Haiti is sliding fast in the direction of political chaos, and the local
Haitian community isn't sure what to do about it.

"My impression is, people are feeling very helpless," Desormeaux says.

"The only thing they can do is pray."

It's easy to feel helpless about Haiti.

Here's a nation that was born in both blood and hope, whose slave rebellion
against France created the first black republic in the world. But after 200
years, it's the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, its gloomy history
wracked by dictatorship, class divides and seemingly endless violence.

Aristide, a former priest, came to power in 1990 with the hope of instilling
democracy after decades of thuggish rule by Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier.
The military ousted Aristide in a coup eight months later, but U.S.
intervention helped restore him to power in 1994.

But the country's economy has fared no better under Aristide. And a motley
opposition sees in him some of the same dictatorial characteristics of the
regime he replaced.

With armed rebels gaining momentum, pressure is mounting on Aristide to
re-establish order. But with no national army and only an ill-trained police
force, Aristide has relied largely on the muscle of armed gangs known as
chimere, whose loyalty may be less to the government than to their drug and
kidnap enterprises.

"A lot of killings are going on, people are revenging themselves,"
Desormeaux says. "People are dying left and right ..."

What to do? Desormeaux thinks the only answer is for the United States to
force the warring sides to mediate.

But others ask, why should a duly elected president have to negotiate with
those who disdain the ballot box?

"My personal opinion is, let him go the next two years [of his term] and
then don't work for that party no more," Henry says. "If we get rid of him
aggressively, there's going to be bloodshed, a big civil war."

Rev. Franck Francois of the Bethel Evangelical Baptist Church in Delray sees
it yet another way. The best way to stop the violence, he says, "is that
Aristide must leave."

For local Haitians, there are practical aspects to the unrest. Many are used
to making frequent visits to relatives in Haitian towns. Now they can't get
any farther than Port-au-Prince. Couriers who deliver money can't get
through, either.

The money that South Florida's Haitians send to the homeland is a lifeblood.
"Haiti's economy greatly depends on us," Henry says.

For the 33 years that Francois has lived in the U.S., he has sent funds to
the families of his brother (four children) and sister (nine children). Both
households are jobless.

"They can't go to the hospital, they can't send their children to school
without calling for money," Francois said.

Now, their welfare is in jeopardy.

These upheavals aren't very far away from us. Not at all.

Howard Goodman's column is published Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. He can be
reached at hgoodman@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6638.

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