21726: Erzilidanto: Pres. Aristide remains the only legitimate leader they have (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com

Deepening Poverty Breeds Desperation in Haiti
By LYDIA POLGREEN

Published: May 5, 2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 4 - The pile of garbage behind the spot where
Marie Joseph sells tins of tomato paste started out small, the usual primordial
goo that coats this grimy capital's streets, binding a putrid mélange.

But in the two months since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first
democratically elected leader, was forced from power by an armed rebellion, the
pile has swelled like a rapacious tumor.
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"I have never seen anything like this," Ms. Joseph said last week, squatting
near the 12-foot-high pile, wrinkling her nose at the stench beneath a pair of
gold-rimmed bifocals. "How can we live like this?"

Difficult as it may be to believe, people here say, life in the poorest
nation in the hemisphere has gotten worse in the past two months.

Mounds of garbage choke the streets. Electricity in the capital has been
scarce for weeks. The police force has fallen deeper into disarray, and crime has
spiked, including a rash of kidnappings aimed at wealthy businesspeople. The
price of rice, the Haitian staple, has doubled in some parts of the country.

A senior Western diplomat said the biggest concern was that the interim
government, led by Prime Minister Gérard Latortue, will face mass unrest over the
deteriorating conditions, which could reignite violent clashes between Aristide
supporters and rebels, who still occupy large swaths of the country despite
the presence of 3,600 foreign troops.

Other than small, symbolic transfers, supporters of the former president and
the rebels have both clung steadfastly to their weapons. If violence flares,
the diplomat said, the government might not survive the next two or three
months.

"The international community needs to help this government, we need to get
monetary support to them yesterday," the diplomat said. If this government does
not survive, it is not clear what comes after.''

But international help has been slow to arrive. The United States-led force
here is to hand over the job of stabilizing Haiti in June to a United Nations
force of about 8,000 troops led by Brazil. The brevity of the United States
military commitment and the molasses-slow trickle of aid have led many people
here to conclude that this decade's effort to rebuild Haiti will be even less
successful than the United States effort in the 1990's.

Skeptical Haitians view the unelected government and its foreign backers with
a suspicion as brittle as the clay biscuits they now eat.

"No one has ever done anything for us," said Pierre Charlestin, 24, who lives
in a grim shantytown that sprang up a decade ago on the grounds of Fort
Dimanche, the Duvalier regime's notorious political prison. "Why should we expect
anything different now?"

Officials and supporters of the former president's party, Lavalas, say the
new government is persecuting them. The party has delayed appointing a
representative to the council that will organize elections next year, a delay that
could block a crucial step to restoring democracy in Haiti.

Playing on his name, which means "turtle" in French, Prime Minister Latortue
acknowledged late last month at a donors' conference that his government's
pace had been slow.

"Some say the turtle goes slowly," Mr. Latortue said. "I need you to help us
go surely."

Today he faces an exhausted treasury, a vast corrupt and demoralized state
work force, wary international donors and lingering doubts about the manner in
which Mr. Aristide left the country.

American officials, who provided the plane that took him into him into exile,
say Mr. Aristide left willingly to avoid bloodshed. Mr. Aristide has said his
departure was a "modern-day kidnapping."

To many people here, Mr. Aristide remains the only legitimate leader they
have. "We believe in democracy, and we have a democratically elected leader,"
said Alix Jean, a Lavalas partisan, at a recent rally at the church in La Saline,
the slum where Mr. Aristide once preached his fiery sermons of liberation.
"His name is Jean-Bertrand Aristide."

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"Men anpil chaj pa lou"  is Kreyol for - "Many hands make light a heavy load."

See, The Haitian Leadership Networks'  7 "men anpil chaj pa

lou" campaigns to help restore Haiti's independence, the will of the mass
electorate and the rule of law. See,
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/haitianlawyers.html ; http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/concerns.html

and Haitiaction.net

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