19783: (Hermantin)Sun-Sentinel:Haitians visiting S. Florida are anxious to fly home (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Haitians visiting S. Florida are anxious to fly home

By Alva James-Johnson
Staff Writer
Posted March 4 2004

On Dec. 29, Jean Lamenais Jean-Baptiste and his wife left Haiti for South
Florida to visit the five grandchildren they had never seen. He was supposed
to return a month later, but the country fell into chaos.

Now Jean-Baptiste is anxiously awaiting Friday, when American Airlines will
resume flights to his ransacked homeland. He will leave for Haiti three days
later.


"I feel very worried about my properties and my two sons that are back
there," said Jean-Baptiste, 63, speaking in Creole. "I have to see things
with my own eyes."

As Friday approaches, many Haitian Americans are scrambling for American
Airline seats back to Haiti, which is slowly recovering from a month of
violence. Now that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has resigned and rebel
attacks have subsided, many are getting word from loved ones that it's safe
to go back home.

"The flights are very booked," said Martha Pantin, a spokeswoman for
American Airlines. "We've been down since last week so a lot of those people
are rebooking."

Jean-Baptiste said he has to return to tend to his vegetable farm in La
Revoir, a small hamlet in southeast Haiti. He and his wife, Aneite, came to
visit his daughters and grandchildren in Oakland Park and Lauderdale Lakes.
They were scheduled to leave Jan. 29, but canceled because of the increasing
violence in Haiti.

Karele Chatel, the owner of Elka Travel, a Haitian-owned travel agency in
North Miami, said many people making reservations live in Haiti but came to
South Florida a couple of weeks ago to avoid being in the country for
carnival. She said they were afraid the event, held Feb. 21 to 24, would
draw large crowds and more violence. By the time people were ready to
return, there were no flights.

American Airlines suspended service to Haiti on Feb. 26. On Friday, it will
resume three daily flights to Port-au-Prince, two from Miami and one from
New York's Kennedy Airport. The airline will also resume its five-day-a-week
service from Fort Lauderdale. Chatel said seats are booked solid until
Wednesday.

"People are very upset because they want to go," she said. "But it's hard to
book because the flights are full."

C.A. Southerland, vice president of LynxAir International, said Wednesday
that the airline would resume services to Cap-Haïtien on Saturday. He said
the airport in Cap-Haïtien has been closed since Feb. 22, and will open
today. But the airline will have to fly through Port-au-Prince to clear
customs until the Cap-Haïtien Airport opens for international flights.

Instead of flying into Cap-Haïtien four days a week as it usually does, the
airline will cut weekly service to Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Jeanette Abraham Delatour, 49, is one of those who left Haiti before
carnival. She shut down her family's pharmaceutical distribution business in
Port-au-Prince on Feb. 19, and came to Pembroke Pines the next day.

They tried to make reservations for Friday, but couldn't get out until
Sunday.

Delatour was accompanied by her two children, her sister and brother-in-law
and their three children, and her nephew, Clifford Holley. Holley, an
anti-Aristide demonstrator, had planned to stay in the country to see it
liberated from Aristide.

Holley said he had business in Puerto Rico from Feb. 18 to 20. He decided to
skip carnival in Haiti, and come to South Florida to see his parents in
Pembroke Pines, with plans to return a week later.

Delatour said it just became too dangerous.

"I haven't been to carnival in the last six years in Haiti because there's
always violence, and this year we thought there was only going to be more
killing," she said. "Many people are on the streets and there's not enough
security, so it's always people settling scores."

She has reservations about returning, but said life has to go on.

"There's still problems in Haiti, and we have almost decided not to take the
kids back with us," she said. "If I was a housewife, I would stay. But I
have a business and I have to make the decisions. There's nobody there to do
it for me."

Jean-Baptiste plans to leave Monday, and his wife will remain until the
country is more stable. Jean-Baptiste's family is sending him off with a
prayer.

"Given the situation over there, his daughters are very worried," said his
son-in-law, Parnell Duverger. "There's no law and order there, and anything
can happen to anybody."

Alva James-Johnson can be reached at ajjohnson@sun-sentinel.com or
954-356-4523.


Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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