22151: racine125 re 21903: radtimes: In Haiti's chaos, unpunished rape was norm (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com

These accusations of rape, leveled against "Aristide people"  or "chimeres" by the new thieves in charge of the country are offensive to me.  Not because they are untrue, they are not, but because they are equally true of each and every group of men in the country!

For the right wing to accuse "Aristide people" or "chimeres" of rape is nothing but filthy hypocrisy, and for the "Aristide people" to accuse the right wing is the same filthy hypocrisy.  Rape is used constantly in Haiti as a terror tactic against women and girls, it doesn't matter if the motive is political or economic or simply the desire to keep women "in their place", and it's not as though any one group of men is more guilty than any other.

Just a month or two ago here in Jacmel, a woman who lives in my neighborhood was walking home from town in the evening - she is a "fritay" vendor and she sells fritay in the crossroads at night.  Two policemen came along in a pickup truck and said to her, "You shouldn't be out at this time of night, it's not safe, jump in and we will take you home."  The grateful woman hopped aboard, and the two policemen raped her.  The woman knows perfectly well that she will get no help from the police if she reports the crime, in fact they might even arrest her on the pretext of "false accusation" so that they can lock her up and gang rape her in the police station.

I myself have been threatened with rape dozens of times, by rural men who are offended that I raise, saddle and ride my own horses, defend my pastures, rule my household and my peristyle, make my own money and choose my own company.  They view me the same way racist white Americans of bygone years might have viewed an "uppity nigger", and to them rape is the ideal means by which to "put me in my role".  Needles to say, when I take care of my animals or ride my horses I carry my machete and bring my dog along.

Last week I went to Kabik beach as I do twice a week, formerly without incident.  That beach is where I do my La Sirene drum ceremonies, and I give away significant quantities of food there.  Most of the residents are very friendly and helpful to me, and I've never had a problem.  But last week a group of twenty-five young Haitian men threatened me with gang-rape if I did not "give them money to use the beach".   I actually had to break a Coke bottle and threaten to slice the face of the first man who came one step closer, and thus, assisted by my snarling dog, I managed to hold them at bay until some of my friends came running.  I reported this to the police, who responded, "Well, it's not their fault if they love you."

I note that white foreign women used not to be so very often threatened, but nowadays, thanks to the Aristide camp's anti-white hate propaganda, that has changed - the young men who threatened me accused me of being a "colonialist", and apparently believed that I held the keys to the bank vault containing the "French slavery reparation money".

Gang rape of majority-class Haitian women in poor neighborhoods is rampant, and very young girls especially are targeted.  Once they have their first menstrual period (or even before!) the attitude is that they have no right to refuse men the use of their vaginas.

The reason for all of this is that here in Haiti, men consider women property and women consider their vaginas their "capital goods".  Raping a woman is like stealing a man's cows, it's taking possession of a *thing* without paying.  The fact that the victim of rape is a person and not a thing is not part of the equation.  The equation of "woman = vagina" is firmly entrenched in people's minds.  When a man curses a woman, the first word is inevitably "whore" (bouzen, penda).  When a woman curses a woman, the first word is inevitably "cold pussy" (koko fret) or "stinky pussy" (koko santi), and women determine their worth by the number of men who desire their vagina.

Women here, to their eternal shame, do not band together against rape.  Instead they jeer at, humiliate and mock rape victims!  A woman who is angry at another woman may incite male family members to rape her enemy.

Meanwhile, rapists do not hide their crimes, they brag about it!  My own assistant animal keeper once bragged, *to me*, of how he raped a woman to whom he loaned 500 gourdes, as part of the "payment".  He thought I would be proud of him, because he was a "real man", he didn't let any woman get the better of him.

Likewise beatings - men sit around in the afternoon in the shade, reminscing about women they have beaten, and how much fun it was.  A man who does not beat his women regularly is not a real man.  And let's say a man owns three women - today he beats woman #1.  Woman #2 and woman #3 go to the victim's house, swear and curse at her, mock her, make nasty remarks about her vagina, even destroy her property if they can.  The idea of women working together to protect each other is not just unheard of, it is anathema.

Children likewise are considered property, not people, and raping an adult's child is just one more way of destroying the adult's property.

About a year ago a Houngan here in Jacmel was arrested, and here is why:

This Houngan, who has a lawfully married wife and any number of sexual receptacles among his hounsis, and who is undoubtedly HIV+, found a little girl with her mother, selling food at the bus station.  He bought sexual access to the little girl, who was not yet twelve years old, from her own mother!  He promised the child's mother 300 gourdes to be allowed to rape the child twice.  The mother did not feel that she was doing anything wrong, after all, the child is her property and she is using her property to generate income.

The Houngan did indeed rape the child twice, with her mother's consent.  Then the Houngan went his way, and refused to pay.  The mother took her bleeding daughter to the police, who arrested the Houngan and charged him not with rape but with refusal to pay a bill!  He was released a few hours later, and he neither paid a gourde nor was punished in any way.  The police laughed scornfully at the child's mother, saying that she should have insisted on being paid in advance.  That Houngan's name is Ti-George, and he lives in the St. Helene's neighborhood of Jacmel.  Now the mother is mocked by her neighbors for having been duped, while the Houngan is considered... you guessed it... a "real man".

This country is sick, sick, SICK!  And no amount of intervention is going to change it.  It won't change until Haitians want to change, but they don't - every Haitian thinks his fists are bigger than the other guy's fists, every Haitian woman thinks her vagina is more attractive than all other women's vaginas, and that she is better defended by her family or her powerful friends against rape and violence than other women, and thus men who desire her must pay money, and thus she is worth more.

The fact is that Haitian men are raised to be rapists, and rewarded for rape.  So please, let's not have any more accusations of rape leveled by one group of men against another.

Peace and love,

Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen

"Se bon ki ra" - Good is rare
     Haitian Proverb

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(Posting from Jacmel, Haiti)