23010: Esser: The dissipation of trust (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser <torx@joimail.com>

The Jamaica Observer
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/editorial/html/20040818T220000-
0500_64790_OBS_THE_DISSIPATION_OF_TRUST.asp

Editorial

The dissipation of trust
August 19, 2004

This newspaper understands the concerns of regional leaders like Dr
Ralph Gonsalves, Dr Kenny Anthony and Mr Bharrat Jagdeo about any
move by Caricom that would prematurely welcome Haiti's interim
government into the regional family.

Nonetheless, we had hoped that Caribbean Community governments would
have been able to fashion an agreement which would have allowed for a
fuller engagement of Haiti by the community, for the benefit of the
Haitian people, without the need for the region having to abandon
fundamental principles.
These principles were enunciated clearly by Jamaica in March after
the coup that ousted Jean Bertrand-Aristide.

Prime Minister Patterson warned that if democratic institutions are
up-ended and armed gangs allowed to over-run constitutional
arrangements in Haiti, then no leader or government is safe from such
extra-constitutional actions. Indeed, fundamental principles of
democracy and constitutional rule ought not to be diminished on the
basis of personality or who might have aided the efforts to undermine
them.

Jamaica, and others, however, sought to reconcile the maintenance of
these principles, the objective political situation in Haiti, the
pragmatic issue of power relations in this hemisphere and to find
constructive ways to help the Haitian people.
Unfortunately for Caricom, and particularly that group of leaders who
were inclined to an early normalisation of relations with Haiti, the
interim government of Gerard Latortue either does not care or is
incapable of understanding such nuanced political and diplomatic
issues.

Mr Latortue's administration can hardly have said to have done enough
to build confidence among members and supporters of Mr Aristide's
Lavalas party, who continue to be the victims of violence and
intimidation from anti-Aristide elements.
There is also genuine concern that Mr Latortue's government is not
moving fast enough to put in the arrangements to create the
environment in which there can eventually be free and fair elections
and a return to constitutional and democratic government.

If anyone had faith that Mr Latortue would move to build this
confidence, it would have been severely eroded by this week's
acquittal of murder of the former death squad leader Joel Chamblain
and a co-defendant, Jackson Joanis.
Chamblain was the former army member who helped lead the rebel army
that overthrew Mr Aristide in February. They were declared heroes by
Mr Latortue.

In his earlier incarnation in the early 1990s, Mr Chamblain was
leader of an organisation called FRAPH that was accused or murdering
3,000 Haitians during the period leading to the first overthrow of Mr
Aristide.
In the aftermath of Mr Aristide's second overthrow, Mr Chamblain,
Haiti's newly-declared hero, cynically announced that he was giving
himself up to answer a murder charge. After a secretive trial, he was
freed.

Mr Latortue himself could hardly believe that this was a process of
justice and honestly argue that his was a way to build trust that
Haiti is on its way to a real democracy.
If Mr Latortue doesn't believe it, who will? Therein lies the dilemma
for Caricom and others in this hemisphere.
.