19073: Pierre Jean: On democracy and the Lavalas plundering of the Treasury (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Pierre Jean <pierrejean2004@yahoo.com>

We have read time and again the assertion that US
taxpayers financed the Haitian Opposition to the tune
of $70 million. It is quite an indictment of the
capacity of the Opposition to gather support from its
would-be power base if it has to rely on outside
funding for its survival. In that respect, critics are
quite right to question the legitimacy of the many
Opposition parties that are to be one-man shows. And
my fear is that, with an Aristide gone, these will be
the only political structures left standing, which
does not bode well for representation.

But one of the greatest untold stories throughout this
crisis is the plundering of Haitian taxpayers money by
the Lavalas government. Of course, Lavalas supporters
on this list who are in the know would never suggest
that their party engaged in such shenanigans. Lavalas
backers from the United States and Canada either do
not know or prefer not to know that such nefarious
things occurred. And the press could not care less.

What is so important about this issue is not that it
is simply a question of corruption but that it attacks
and undermines our attempt to establish a democracy
and institute the rule of law.

Just like the Duvaliers and the governments before,
Lavalas used the Treasury for its own purposes and
cheated the Haitian people by misallocating the meager
resources that it had at its disposal.

Lavalas backers have argued time and again that the
International Community placed an economic embargo on
Haiti by not releasing the $500 million that Haiti was
supposed to receive. If we ignore for a moment the
lack of transparency surrounding the original signing
of these LOANS (because that is what they are, loans
which will have to be repaid by Haitian taxpayers), we
have to ask ourselves: what has the government done
with the funds that it managed.

Consider this:

- Lavalas engaged in a systematic extortion scheme
where it required each ministry to make available to
the National Palace (i.e President Aristide) a monthly
allocation that he could use at this discretion. This
in effect hampered the Ministers in implementing their
objectives because their thin budgets were further
squeezed by those requests;

- A close analysis of the last two budgets submitted
to Parliament reveals that the National Palace
controlled an inordinate amount of the country's
budget. In the most recent one, the amount of funds
that was made available DIRECTLY to the Palace was
five times that of the previous budget, which was
already significant. Questions are:
- what did the National Palace do with these funds?
- were they used for the betterment of the Haitian
population?
- why starve critical ministries such as the Ministry
of Education and the Ministry of Public Health of the
funds that went instead to that great black hole
called "les petits projets de la Présidence". I can
assure you that there was nothing small about such
projects.

- It became routine under Aristide II to finance
events organized by the PARTY from taxpayer funds.
Apparently, this was such a normal occurrence under
the Duvaliers - remember CONAJEC (Comité National
d'Action Jean-Claudiste) and its sources of funding? -
 that people did not see anything wrong with Lavalas
demanding AAN or ONA or TELECO they finance its Party
conventions. But that is exactly what we as a people
did not want to see again. How about Lavalas doing its
own fundraising? Couldn't the "confiscated" funds be
better used to improve health care and to strengthen
our educational system? And what happened to those
Taiwan checks that were paid directly to Lavalas
instead of being paid to the Haitian government? Were
these monies stolen? Who pays Jonas Petit's salary?
And from what funds?

- Leaders of Lavalas OPs, who work for Lavalas and not
for the Haitian people, got on the payroll of state
institutions as a reward for their loyalty to Lavalas.
The same was true of some Senators and Congressmen,
whose travel expenses were paid by Ministries or
state-owned institutions even though the Senate and
the Lower House had a budget for that.

- Last but not least, how does the government explain
its runaway budget deficits? Why the deficit in the
first place? And where were those monies spent? There
is NO visible investment in public infrastructure, no
visible improvement in health care structure, no
visible improvement in the education sector, so what
did Lavalas do with the money that it spent above and
beyond what was in the budget? And did it respect the
budget allocations in the first place?

Let me close on this topic with a very simple
question: can any Lavalas supporter in the know detail
for the list members each source of funding of the
following institutions for the past 5 years:

a) Fondation Aristide pour la Démocratie
b) Radio Ti-Moun
c) Tele Ti-Moun

Again, Kathy Dorce chided me for focusing on the fine
points of democracy while the country is in a state of
emergency. Yes, these may be "fine points" but they
are CRITICAL to understanding the lack of trust in
anything Lavalas and the fact that there is not that
much support for it in rebel-controlled areas. If
Lavalas had done its part in showing the Haitian
people that it was sincere in its efforts to build
this democracy that SO MANY DIED FOR through fiscal
responsibility and a focus on solving priority isseues
with the available resources, the Opposition would
have no constituency whatsoever, and the rebels would
have found a population determined not to accept them.
Lavalas by its unfair and corrupt ways squandered the
unique opoortunity the Haitian people gave it. It dug
its own grave.

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