22023: Stephenson: Public Letter to to the men and the women of goodwill (fwd) by L.Manigat translated by P.Stephenson (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: patrick_stephenson <patrickstephenson@videotron.ca>

Public Letter to  to the men and the women of goodwill of my country on the
economic and political situation and its new requirements

by Leslie F Manigat

Dear Compatriot and long time Friends, I appeal to you, on a purely personal
basis, as a compatriot to another compatriot,  a man to another man, because
the critical events that we have just lived, that we are still living, and
which have led to a new foreign military occupation of our country because
of the stubborness of some, invite to an upheaval of our national soul to
finally start to do politics differently at home. Truly, we can no longer
cross our arms, in a guilty wait-and-see policy, even  worse endure a
counterproductive defeatism, so that  another local Messiah or foreign
master, come to impose a new populist savior on us as if the 'holly bread'
was to fall from the electoral sky. This country will change if we,
Haitians,  are able to change it knowingly at first.  Do we have the courage
and the political good-will?

The crisis continues, with its sad procession of high cost of staple goods,
insecurity, "blackout", institutional blur, political confusion, moral
deliquency and atrocious misery for the greatest number, in a context of
foreign diktat. Is this the climate in which one will carry out a serene
electoral competition?

What has changed since February 29 in the short cycle of the permanent 'coup
d'etat' whereas all the other activities concerning the solution of urgent
problems are of hopelessly slow rate. The thick succession of  gross
illegalities, coarsely partisan-based unilateral tripartite committee
choosing a committee 'atrophied of wiseness' to give the Prime Minister and
the ministerial cabinet as a of co-optation choice dictated by 'copinage',
then the partisan-based officialization of a Consensus of Transition
discriminating between the political parties to retain an exclusivist clan,
and little after the hasty application of the aristidian formula for the
composition of the Provisional Electoral Council not brought up to date to
handle the new situation arising from the forced departure of Aristide  and
the changing political Haitian scene. An electoral Council without any base
nor legal precedent, an atrophied electoral Council not much concerned about
representativeness,an electoral Council not offering the guarantees of
equilibrium which could make one believe in its equity of principle, and
finally  the nominations that the trafic of favours and influence of all
kinds have stained with juicy partiality to the benefit of buddies dividing
the cake and getting ready to suck the udders of traditional corruption, all
these have raised to its paroxysm the inconfort, then the mistrust, then the
critical moroseness, and finally the concern of the citizens, that
unfortunately have started to tarnish the good reputation of the newly
promoted high ranking state officials. By accumulating poorly-solved
problems  or unsoved ones, the current blockade predicts dangerously that,
once more, we are likely to be misguided for lack of of an accurate compass
to give us the true North and for lack of experimented leaders to forge the
route of public salvation. Under these conditions, the men and women of
goodwill of this country must know that at the electoral horizon, serious
patriots request their intervention for, together, to take in their hands
the duty of participation in order to cleanse and to technically and morally
rectify the management of the public affairs of the country. It is a civic
duty and one should not feel intimidated, for saying and sharing - vis-a-vis
the corrupted and the mediocres who are untamed - good appetite Messieurs! -
the healthy and legitimate ambition to conquer by the ballot boxes a
capacity-service for the benefit of the entire people and primarily for the
needy greatest number. The "skilful ones" traditionally associated to the
"godfathers" of the new maffias in formation or the old ones in wakening,
and the functional illiterates are ready to take again active service,
sharing the provisional clientele of the rival camarillas. Would we, the
people have suffered so much to remain in the same thing? The more the
changes, the more be the same thing?

Things must change! It is necessary that things change! But while making a
novelty, a better novelty, the memory of the country claims, beyond the
provisional with its real merits but also its risks, its hesitant gaits and
its first unquestionable disappointments, we agree premature, a final
government ensuring the return, but for the best still, of the policy which
had started to prove successful and to show the way of the promising results
with the experiment of spring 1988, a team captain and a "TEAM" of broad
recruitment of men and women of value and character, qualified, honest,
dedicated to the common good and patriots, to apply our program entitled "To
change Life''. Of course, this party program articulated for all the
branches of national activity, must be, like any government programs
unceasingly updated and packed to ensure a greater coherence and
effectiveness to our dream for all Haitians, without exclusive nor easily
deceived.

We are known, one knows our principles, one knows our ideas, one knows our
priorities, one knows our seriousness, one knows our scrupulous true honesty
of which a whole life carries testimony. One knows our basic offers for the
modernization and the democratization of the country. Be among us "to fight
with us the good combat" according to the word of the Paul the apostle.
"Join with us , brothers, and fight with us for the same cause" said
Toussaint Louverture at the first times of the foundation of the future
Haitian state. Today, the same words must forecast and inaugurate the
"recasting" of a just and Modern Haitian state. Your passion currently
reappearing is a pledge that this time will be the one.

 Since the safety of the country must emerge directly from the elections, it
is a requirement of the situation that our vigilance of each day that those
are not spoiled and misled by the trafic of influence and the installations
of the first hour such as the one that take shape already, because the
spirit and the practices of fraud does not wait for the day of  elections to
distort the citizen vote and "couillonner" the voters. More specifically as,
this time, the play of certain money forces (pressure and lobbys), obvious
in plain day, endanger the balance and equity of the conditions of the
collective vote casting which should reflect the primacy of the true general
interest over particular exclusivists interests and let us say greedily
masked behind misleading apolitical unanimists slogans. Democratic pluralism
is a conquest and a guarantee. We should safeguard the chances of democratic
pluralism in Haiti, against a unique thought although weak with a unicist
vision of "contractual" constraint of the numerical majority by a minority
consciously disguised as sociological majority. There is no such thing as
deception in distributive justice. But healthy profits and just dividends
from the more profitable and productive capital as it intentionally
generates and is a natural provider of "jobs" and purchasing power on the
local economy. The role of a class of true entrepreneurs is irreplaceable.

Thus it is obvious that each one of us must decide to do something to take
an active part in the victory of the greatest number in a fight which will
be hard because it will be social as much as political, and that will be
carried out by us in any case, in order to guarantee the  triumph of the
true union of the sons of the same indivisible Motherland, over an exclusive
minority of another age which are already unfortunately reprofiling in
ostracisms fortunately prematurely unsealed. Patriotic solidarity to change
the life of the national majority will be our great watchword. As we like to
say , in fact the brooks make the streams, the streams  make the rivers, and
the rivers which make the lakes. We are in the electoral battle to win and
we are not isolated because the RDNP does not make lone ridings, but learned
by experience how to choose its allies of the future in a constructive
spirit of long duration. The hour has arrived, indeed, for all conscious
patriots- refusing the colourist dichotomy , cause of our past misfortunes,
like all dichotomies economic, social and cultural in this country being the
expressions of Bi-secular social inegalities-to commit himself to truly work
for the triumph of the good policy. Somebody of your weight and  influence
in your community will surely constitute an example of good citizenship
which is requires from us all. Good elections this time to be concretely
guaranteed, will allow reshuffling of the cards and the opening of the
valves of the majority mainstream carrying to an exit solution to a much
awaited crisis. It is known that with us, like another of our slogans says,
there will be no loser. One speaks much about regrouping, well, the
Gathering of the Progressists National Democrats-, our RDNP, is an authentic
regrouping. It is its vocation as of its origin and it will remain faithful
to its mission. I thus ask you, dear Compatriot and Friend, in addition to
your personal engagement with our joint undertaking of national rescue, your
most complete dedication so that together, we can make that the phoenix
reappears of its ashes. A Team Leader known, experimented and responsible,
respectable and respected, and a team technically, socially and politically
diversified in her cohesion and especially fully qualified, truly integrated
and completely dedicated to the common good defined in a progressist
program, diversified in his cohesion to be representative, such is our plan
to engage employers and workers in an effort of production and equitable
distribution without which we would be condemned to plow the sea. Let us
cease being the cemeteries of plans and development projects all more
alienating that the others. With the welcome solidarity of an international
cooperation agreeing to be technologically revitalizing, endogenously
conceived and operationally haitiano-centered, the New Haiti of our dreams
and our projects will 'fara da se". The best Utopias have the destiny to be
finally tamed by the realistic will of the verb being made flesh, because
the verb can be made flesh. I want to be able to count on you, as you can
count on me, because the RDNP says to you: there is a country to save and
people who incontestably deserve better than the unjust fate which is still
imposed to them by the stateless people  which the other one was not the
only to call ''patripoches''. Us, We have chosen our camp since always: we
are men and women of goodwill, a gathering of the compatriots of all the
social layers in a national intergenerational project associating personal
freedom as a requirement for equal opportunity, basis of a still remote
ideal of true fraternity between all haitians. As democrats of conviction,
we cherish to privilege our social sensitivity with regard to suffering
people. Thus I take pleasure to greet you the unifying slogan of the RDNP:
For a great national start, together, together, together, until the final
victory! God is Great! May God Bless Haiti!

Leslie F Manigat
Secretary-General and Political Leader of the RDNP,
Former Constitutionnal President of the Republic