21949: (Hermantin) Sun-Sentinel-Oasis of calm dreams of attracting tourists (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>


Oasis of calm dreams of attracting tourists

By Carol J. Williams
Los Angeles Times
Posted May 18 2004

JACMEL, Haiti · The quaint, two-story villas with filigreed verandas may
need a lick of paint, and the relentless din of motorbikes and dump trucks
along the main thoroughfare is hardly conducive to a laid-back Caribbean
vacation.

But otherwise, this picturesque seaside resort known for cheerful handcrafts
and spring festivals testifies to the potential that Haiti has seldom lived
up to. An oasis of calm with a vibrant, can-do spirit, Jacmel is a glaring
exception to the national legacy of opportunity lost to outbreaks of
violence.











United in a drive to market their town of 30,000 as Haiti's cultural capital
and premier tourist destination, Jacmel's residents managed to head off most
of the looting and vandalism that ravaged large parts of the country in
recent months as a rebellion drove President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into
exile.

Jacmel's business leaders kept the people focused on the common good with
radio broadcasts urging tolerance and respect for their neighbors' property
as well as political positions.

"Only the police station was ransacked, and people even brought back some of
what they took from there after appeals went out on the radio," said Marie
Giselaine Michel, director of the Aid to Artisans project, which promotes
local crafts.

The newly constituted Group for Reflection and Political Observation has
enlisted youths to paint over pro-Aristide graffiti and spruce up the
central streets in anticipation of tourism.

Although Jacmel's main streets have potholes and its sidewalks are obstacle
courses of broken concrete, they are largely free of the sewage and
sludge-coated debris found in many parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, a
two-hour drive to the northeast.

But the only foreign visitors to Haiti these days are U.S., French, Canadian
and Chilean peacekeepers and a small contingent of relief workers.

"Right now we can't talk about tourism. First we have to focus on the
country's image," said Danielle St. Lot, whose duties as interim minister
for commerce and industry include the stillborn sphere of tourism. She
reckons it will take at least a year for the scenes of machete-wielding
looters and gunmen to fade from the memories of potential visitors.

Jacmel's boosters are more optimistic. "Many countries have had violent
events, but with time people forget," said Michaelle Craan, an artist
employed by the local chamber of commerce.

Jacmel's civic leaders are working on development plans that seek to tune
out the troubled country beyond the town limits. By building a charter
airfield and expanding the marina, they would like to spare visitors the
squalor of Port-au-Prince, whose La Saline and Carrefour slums flank the
only road leading from the capital's international airport to Jacmel.

Such improvements, they hope, will bring prosperity anew to Jacmel, which
had a late 19th-century heyday as a bustling coffee port and was the first
Haitian town to get telephones and electricity.

Many attribute Jacmel's stability amid the recent unrest to the cultural
establishment that holds sway in the town, where more than 10 percent of the
population is employed in crafts. Jacmel also enjoys a tranquil religious
environment in which adherents of the Catholicism bequeathed by French
colonialists, African voodoo and the Bahai faith brought by missionaries
share a common social vision.

During the height of the political chaos in early March, Monsignor Guire
Poulard urged Jacmel residents to keep in mind that looting and pillaging
harmed Haiti's people, not its politicians.

"He admonished people not to loot, and the radio stations played some tapes
my wife prepared about unity, prayer and nonviolence. It had a very soothing
effect on the population," said Moro Baruk, a Bahai who came from Arizona
with his Algerian-born wife, Paule, 25 years ago.

Having survived the strife, Jacmel is focused on its ambitious comeback
plans. Not only do local boosters expect to see visitors flock back for
Carnival and May Day, they also have been negotiating with a major
Miami-based cruise ship company to convert a pier to accommodate passenger
visits. And they are casting about for a sponsor for a late-summer jazz
festival.

The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Co. newspaper.

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