21623: Esser: Pastor laments U.S. impact on Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

The Journal News [NY]
http://www.thejournalnews.com/

Pastor laments U.S. impact on Haiti

By KHURRAM SAEED
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: April 30, 2004)

SPRING VALLEY — Two months ago, Americans saw Haiti descend into
mayhem. Angry citizens denounced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide for
corruption and abuses of power, and armed rebels closed in on the
capital.

Aristide soon fled the country, international troops moved in and a
coalition of opposition parties took over power in the interim.

To some, Haiti has taken a pivotal step toward modernization and
prosperity. To others, the recent events are another example of
outsiders interfering in the political affairs of a democracy.

The Rev. Angela Boatright, pastor of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in
Spring Valley since 2002, decided to find out for herself.

Boatright, a former reporter and editor, recently returned from a
six-day trip to Port-au-Prince to investigate what role the United
States and other foreign powers played in Aristide's Feb. 29
resignation. Many Aristide supporters have blamed the United States
and France for pressuring the democratically elected Aristide to step
down.

Boatright represented the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a Nyack-based
international peace group, on the fact-finding delegation. The trip
was organized by the Ecumenical Program on Central America and the
Caribbean, which supported Aristide's administration and has called
for the Haitian president's return.

Boatright said she made the trip without preconceptions.

The delegation, she said, met with 50 people, including members of
Aristide's Lavalas party, members of the opposition, business owners
and poor people. She left feeling that Haiti, despite having its own
constitution and government, was not given the chance to determine
its future.

"I came back with the sense that we have participated in a sin
against the Holy Spirit, whether wittingly or not," Boatright said.

"Our presence has helped create an environment in which people have
to go into hiding, where teenagers are shot in the back fleeing from
soldiers who don't speak their language," she said.

Jennifer Hyman, a spokesman for the Fellowship of Reconciliation,
said the group was troubled by reports that the rebels who had taken
control had been trained and armed by the United States.

"The footprint of the United States was very present before, during
and after the ouster" of Aristide, Hyman said. "We asked ourselves,
why was the U.S. not willing to let democracy take its course in
Haiti?"

Haiti achieved its independence from France 200 years ago. In 1994,
President Clinton sent 20,000 troops to Haiti to end a brutal
military dictatorship and restore Aristide to power. Aristide, a
former priest who ministered to Haiti's poor, became its first freely
elected leader on a wave of hope in 1991 that he would finally lift
Haitians from grinding poverty.

Not everyone condemned the recent events. Members of a loosely knit
platform of 184 opposition parties told Boatright that Aristide had
failed to deliver promised reforms, lined his own pockets and fixed
the last election.

They welcomed the presence of 3,800 international troops from the
United States, Canada, France and Chile. United Nations troops are
expected to replace them in June. Elections are scheduled for late
2005.

Gray Orphee, a Rockland Community College economics professor and the
author of the recently published "Economic Implications of CARICOM
for Haiti," said this might be the opportunity for the new government
to take stock of the nation and transform itself. CARICOM is the
Caribbean Community, an organization of states.

"People may have a bone of contention with the way it was done, but I
would say that most people are thinking about how Haiti can become a
modern country, a modern economy," said Orphee, who came to the
United States from Haiti as a teenager and now lives in New City.
"Some people are hopeful, and I'm one of them, that Haitians should
get rid of these archaic ways of doing things.

"You have to create an environment where people feel they have a
stake in the system and they can have the basic necessities," Orphee
added. "A good chunk of the population has a sense of hope that
things might finally change."

On Tuesday, James B. Foley, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, said the
country must overcome massive challenges that include drug
trafficking and a deep divide between the rich and the poor.

"The current situation in Haiti is disastrous," Foley told more than
200 Haitian business leaders.

"Everything must change: the government, the society, the private
sector, the political parties," he said. "Especially, mentalities in
general must evolve profoundly so that Haiti can become a modern
nation."

Despite the "enormous number of reasons to be pessimistic," Foley
said, the United States was optimistic, committed to help transform
the country in the long term, and would announce "considerable aid"
at a June donors' conference where he would appeal for others also to
be generous, specifically naming the European Union.

After he was ousted, Aristide was given temporary asylum in Jamaica.
Foley has denied that the United States engineered a coup against him.

The political divide is being played out in Rockland, which
officially has about 11,000 residents of Haitian origin, although
community activists believe the actual number is closer to 30,000.

Bobbie Compas, a Garnerville resident who has been back to Haiti once
since moving to the United States in 1980, said the recent crisis had
left people guarded about what they say and where they say it.
Compas, for example, won't discuss what's happening in Haiti with
people she doesn't know.

"If it's not a friend, I don't talk," Compas said. "I still have
family there. You don't jeopardize them. I have been more reserved."

In fact, several county residents from Haiti declined to be
interviewed for this article, fearing possible repercussions against
them or their families in Haiti.

Olivia Burlingame Goumbri, co-coordinator of the Ecumenical Program
on Central America and the Caribbean and who also made the trip to
Haiti, said there were accounts that Aristide supporters and
unionists have been imprisoned or gone into hiding, fearing beatings
or execution. At night, the names of Aristide supporters are read on
national radio stations, she said.

"We realized there is a serious untold story going on right now, that
even folks who have ties to Haiti don't know about," said Goumbri of
Washington. The seven-member delegation, which included a journalist,
an economist, a foreign policy lobbyist and a student organizer, met
with a 16-year-old boy who was shot in the back by foreign troops
while on his way to buy bread at the store, Goumbri said. The
incident, along with others like it, has left Haitians feeling
betrayed by the international community, she said.

The Ecumenical Program on Central America and the Caribbean is
expected to release a report on its findings next week.

While Haitians welcomed the international military assistance a
decade ago, Boatright said, many whom she talked with didn't
understand the troops' role this time around.

"They want to govern themselves," Boatright said. "They are a
sovereign state. They want to be respected as that and be given a
chance to have the process work."

The Associated Press contributed information to this article. Reach
Khurram Saeed at ksaeed@thejournalnews.com or 845-578-2412.The
.