20089: (Chamberlain) Misrule still denies Haiti its freedom (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

(The Observer, UK, 28 Dec 03)


Misrule still denies Haiti its freedom

200 years after winning independence from France, the first black republic
remains in the chains of poverty

By Jacqui Goddard in Môle-St-Nicolas, Haiti



It is a rutted, rocky track that leads across Haiti's northern peninsula to
Môle-St-Nicolas, a historic coastal community where Christopher Columbus
came ashore more than five centuries ago. Few vehicles come here, and the
town - the oldest in the country - has a desolate air. The remote location,
lack of electricity and absence of a road mean that contact with the
outside world is limited.

Its 4,000 people scrape a living growing bananas, making charcoal and
fishing the picturesque Caribbean bay, but most live in utter poverty.
Instead of celebrating its place in history, the place Columbus dubbed
'Maravillosa' - meaning 'wonderful' - is now in ruins, epitomising Haiti's
woes as the country prepares to mark the bicentennial on 1 January of its
foundation as the world's first black republic.

'Some people here cannot even afford food for their families,' says
Elissaint Saintange, 37, a shopkeeper who sells basic supplies and fuel to
the few who can afford it. 'They have to beg every day from others.'

The decay of Môle-St-Nicolas provides a dramatic illustration of how social
and economic opportunities have been lost in years of political rot.

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, accused of brutally repressing dissent
and rigging elections to keep his Lavalas party in power, leads a nation of
7.5 million people now desperate to shed Haiti's image as the poorest
country in the Western hemisphere. Impatient for democracy, jobs, education
and health care, anti-government protesters have been taking to the streets
in recent days with increasing regularity, engaging in bloody battles with
Aristide supporters and riot police as they use the 200th anniversary of
independence from France as an occasion to call for his overthrow.

'Aristide has this biblical vision of leadership whereby he is the shepherd
and his people are the flock who must follow where he leads them,' said
Stephen Johnson, a specialist in Caribbean affairs at the Heritage
Foundation in Washington. 'But in a democracy, it is the people who should
be the shepherd. They are increasingly coming to realise that.'

The point at which Columbus stepped ashore on 6 December, 1492, is now
strewn with old tin cans and rotting coconut husks. Weeds grow from the
cracks in Môle-St-Nicolas's fortresses, built after independence in 1804,
and plans to turn its beach into a paradise for cruise-ship passengers have
been sunk by the government. Unable to realise its potential as a lucrative
tourist haven, the town has become one of several points from which
desperate Haitians launch perilous voyages to Florida. In the past 12
months, US Coast Guard vessels have intercepted 2,709 Haitians on rafts and
in boats - almost 1,000 more than the number of Cubans picked up at sea
fleeing the Castro regime. Many more are picked up by US military patrols
and sent back to Haiti.

The region around Môle-St-Nicolas is awash with people who have tried, and
failed, to reach Florida, 600 miles away.

Benel Louis, who lives in the town of Dame-Marie, was 26 when he first
tried. He used to farm, but rain is sparse and he earned little money. So
his father sold one of his plots to raise the 5,000 gourdes (Ł70) fare for
him.

There were 173 people packed into one sailboat, some as young as a year old
and most sitting on each other's laps, he recalls. With no shelter from the
sun, and little food or water, people became ill. 'People died - about 20.
The bodies were lying among us, on top of each other,' he says. 'We were so
weak.'

After three days, the boat fell apart. 'People were falling into the water,
there were many deaths,' says Louis. 'A US military plane threw inflatables
out to help us, and those of us who were still alive started to swim.'

A US military patrol plucked survivors from the water and returned them to
Haiti. Louis laughs when asked if he will try again. 'Of course,' he says.
'I will only stop trying when there are job opportunities in Haiti, when I
can provide for my family.'

Local non-governmental organisations such as Graf, backed by the British
development agency ActionAid, run projects to bring change to the country's
poverty-stricken north and to give people reasons to stay. Food-for-work
schemes have helped some communities to begin the recovery, while the
introduction of soil conservation techniques has improved farming prospects
in the region.

Merneus Orneus, 32, who has tried three times to reach the US, says: 'The
President doesn't care about us. The people who try to make life better are
not from the government, but the NGOs. We hear we have a government, but we
see no sign of it.'