21241: Esser: Hartford City Priest blasts Haiti elite (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Club Haiti
http://www.telepark.de/clubhaiti/start.html

April 10, 2004

Hartford City Priest blasts Haiti elite 

Father Hosey, who has been assigned to the John XXIII Retreat &
Conference Center in Hartford City (east central Indiana, USA) for 37
years, has made several trips to Haiti to help Haitian parishes
connect with American counterparts. In a recent interview with The
Star Press he did not mask his views that "the United States is
backing the wrong side in Haiti." During his many visits, Hosey got
to know a young Catholic priest named Jean-Bertand Aristide who was
raised in a Catholic orphanage and would later become Haiti's
president. "He is a man of high principle, high ideals," Hosey said
of Aristide "I got to know him over the years, and he impressed me
very much." Poverty in Haiti borders on the unbelievable, the
unemployment rate hovers around 70 percent. "The poor just don't have
access to fresh water," said Sister Maureen Mangen who has worked
with Hosey for 32 years and has also been to Haiti. "They have to
walk miles for fresh water and they are doing laundry in the river
where they get their water to drink." And Hosey adds: "Most of the
millionaires in the Caribbean live in Haiti. About five percent of
Haiti's population are millionaires. They have been able to force
peasants to sell their crops cheaply to them, and they, in turn, sell
the crops elsewhere at extreme profits. The wealth is extreme and the
poverty is extreme." The wealthy do not pay any taxes, according to
Hosey, and they want to keep it that way. "That's why they ousted
Aristide," Hosey said. "He wants to do things for the poor, but he
has to tax the wealthy to get the money to do it, and they do not
want to pay those taxes." It's the poor - 95 percent of the
population - who voted Aristide into office, Hosey said, "and it's
the wealthy that gets him ousted because of his efforts to help the
poor." There is no middle class in Haiti, Hosey said, "and it's the
middle class which makes it possible for democracy to exist."
[Source: The Star Press]
.