19290: Leiderman: about interventions (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stuart M Leiderman <leidermn@cisunix.unh.edu>

Dear Readers:

I'm glad to see Monika Kalra's post from the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial
Center for Human Rights.  I admired Kennedy and I've known his family.
If there is a Haitian equivalent to RFK anywhere in the world, I would
support him or her for Haiti's next president.

A few plain-English steps toward a peaceful and honest Haiti are much
better than hundreds of speeches "deploring" aggression.  There are so
many national and international leaders, official, bankers and
celebrities deploring conditions in Haiti that I want to throw up every
time I hear the word.

For intervention, I propose a major role for the Haitian Diaspora,
because hundreds of thousands of Haitians never chose to flee their
country over fifty years or more -- they were forced to flee.  This is
the time to redress that injustice.  More than 200 years ago, "Chasseurs
Volontaires" sailed to America.  Today, would ten thousand or more return
to Haiti to separate the factions, sort out the grievances, protect the
country's assets, and teach how to live by the Constitution?  Or is this
a job for the citizens of Prague, Copenhagen, Kiev, Bristol, Madrid and
Tallahassee?

Thank you,

Stuart Leiderman

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Platform for "New Haitian Chasseurs Volontaires"

1.  provide an immediate "show of peace" by sending a ship to Haiti for
an on-board summit and reconciliation among all factions;

2.  conduct a worldwide search for candidates who will run for President
and Parliament of Haiti in its next elections;

3.  create a Haitian Literacy Corps with the goal of teaching everyone in
Haiti how to read within the next five years;

4.  create a Haitian Conservation Corps to employ one million people to
reforest and restore Haiti's countryside and village life.

5.  create a Haitian Life Corps to provide health and social assistance to
every Haitian with a life-threatening illness;

6.  redesign Port-au-Prince as a thriving national capital that is clean,
safe and honestly governed;

7.  take steps to protect Haiti's national assets -- roads, ports,
airfields, water supplies, power plants, farms, forests, marketplaces --
until peace returns to the country;

8.  work with international relief organizations to prepare and protect
coastal "safe zones" for receiving and caring for internal refugees;

9.  frame a new economic assistance strategy where, for example, the U.S.
Government matches Haitian remittances on a dollar-for-dollar basis, with
a major role for Haitian-Americans in determining funding priorities and
monitoring effectiveness.

10. establish a presence at the United Nations to advocate and conduct
official business with U.N. agencies, international organizations and
national missions.

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