20484: Lemiuex: BBC: Haiti begins to pick up the pieces (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

Haiti begins to pick up the pieces

By Stephen Gibbs
BBC Correspondent in Haiti
3/16/04

It takes about 45 minutes to cross from one side of Port au
Prince to the other by car. It is a depressing journey. You
pass straight through the city slums.
And see for yourself, close-up, the images which have
poured out of Haiti over the last month. Poverty, squalor,
and quite probably, violence.


By the time you have completed the journey it is difficult
to avoid coming to a bleak conclusion. That this is a city,
and a country, without hope.
But keep going, leave the capital, and another side of
Haiti begins to emerge.

As the winding southern road heads into the mountains that
surround Port au Prince, the city's ugly breezeblock
buildings give way to wooden ones, painted in bright
colours. Gentle reminders that this country is in the
Caribbean.

Drive on another two hours and you will even see a palm
tree. On the outskirts of Jacmel.

This seaside city is so different from Port au Prince that
it feels like another country.

Its atmosphere is distinctly laid back. Its architecture is
grand. French ironwork adorns its elegant townhouses.

Above all, it seems a calm place. And that is very rare in
today's Haiti.

Looting

So what has been going on in Jacmel, during the chaotic
days surrounding President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's
departure?


This city did not entirely escape the violence. But it did
deal with it in a different way.
When news that the president had gone reached the city,
armed men took over the police station, like they did all
over Haiti. There was some looting.

But then Jacmel's citizens went out onto the streets and
called for calm. They even made an appeal on the local
radio station, asking the looters to take back what they
had stolen. Almost everything was returned.

Patrick Boucard, a Jacmel artist in his late forties, was
one of the residents that helped to calm things down in
those precarious hours.

"Things are a bit more civilised here," he said, sipping a
beer in a converted 19th Century coffee warehouse,
overlooking the pale blue Caribbean.

"The community is more intertwined in this city so
everybody learns to rely on each other and there is a lot
less hate."

He said Haiti would be far better off if its leaders did
something to stop people flooding to the slums of the
capital to find work, and instead encouraged them to stay
within smaller communities like Jacmel.

Creative spirit

He hopes this city could become a pilot project for the new
Haiti. He is doing his bit - setting up a small art school
to train local artists to develop and sell their work.
Haitian art is renowned throughout the world, and is one of
this desperately poor country's very few exports.

Jacmel is a seductive place. But it is not a pure paradise.
It operates on a semi feudal system, with most of the
houses and land owned by a few rich families.

And some of its wealth undoubtedly comes from drugs. All
along this coast cocaine shipments from Colombia are
discreetly dropped off before being sent on to the US.

But its people do have something which is conspicuously
lacking across this country. Pride.

Cleaning up

It was in Jacmel that I saw the first rubbish collection
truck I have ever seen in Haiti. When I went to have a
closer look I met Chery Dieumaitre, a mechanic, who was
also watching the men pick up the waste.

"They do this every day, you know," he said.

The pride he felt for that small detail, was tangible.

After a month which has left the only president they have
ever elected in exile, and foreign troops patrolling their
streets, many Haitians have abandoned all pride and
resorted to the anarchy of looting and violence.

Maybe something can be learnt from the story of Jacmel.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/3515694.stm

Published: 2004/03/16 21:58:29 GMT

© BBC MMIV


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam
http://mail.yahoo.com