19269: Lemieux: BBC: Haiti's dreams lost among the rubble (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>


Haiti's dreams lost among the rubble
2/24/04
By Claire Marshall
BBC correspondent in Port-au-Prince

The reds and blues of a faded fresco can still be seen on
the greying crumbling walls. The buckled iron spiral
staircase is missing several steps.

You can stand on dusty cracked floor, look out across the
remains of a balcony and through a jagged hole where there
was once a bay window.
>From here, the view of Port-au-Prince and its wide curving
bay is spectacular.

This is the hotel Castle Haiti.

Picture it 10 years ago: tourists sitting on stools at the
circular bar, attended by waiters in black bow-ties, and
sipping cool rum punches.

What was once a 1950s art deco-style five-star hotel now
stands here as a decaying sentinel, symbolising Haiti's
degeneration.

What should have been a multi-storey car park for all the
paying guests is now a makeshift football pitch for gangs
of disillusioned students.

They have made this wreck of a hotel their hang-out.

Big dreams

Some come here and pace around the decaying corridoors
reciting their studies. Others appear to have just given
up, and look moodily out across the valley smoking joints.


When you think about what is happening here it makes you
want to cry, but you just hold all the anger inside you
Jack
Remy Fritz Gerald is a communications student at the city
university.
He and his friends all used to support Jean-Bertrand
Aristide in the early 1980s when the young priest was then
emerging as Haiti's shining light after the dark Duvalier
years.

"He was so charismatic; he was mystical. We believed that
he was our hope for the future. Now, the whole country is
destroyed."

Remy is intelligent and articulate. For the interview, he
buttoned up his shirt to make himself more presentable.

His eyes shone when he spoke of the aspirations of the
Haitian students.

"We don't want any more violence. We must give the youth
here a chance. We have such big dreams for our country -
our dear Haiti," he said.

Others are not so optimistic. Another of the group did not
want to give his last name, or to be caught on camera.

Anger

Also extremely bright, Jack spoke in fluent English.


"You don't feel safe here unless you have a gun. We are
living like cannibals. This is a terrible thing to talk
about," he said.
"When you think about what is happening here it makes you
want to cry, but you just hold all the anger inside you and
you just don't want to express certain things."

"The problem here isn't Haiti, it's the people who are
running the country. We have to learn how to govern
ourselves."

Nearby was Rupert, who had just been exiled from the US. A
gold tooth glinted in his mouth, and he moved his arms
around like a gangster rapper.

"I'm leaving here as soon as possible. There is nothing for
me here. I mean, I'm 32, and I am having to depend on my
family for money. I'm getting out of here."

With universities closed and no work available, being
interviewed was the most interesting part of the day for
these groups of young men.

As we left, they went back to sitting among the piles of
rubble in the shell of the Hotel Haiti.

Trying to imagine this place re-built and running again is
as difficult as imagining a better future for this country.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/3518845.stm

Published: 2004/02/24 22:46:47 GMT

© BBC MMIV


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