23006: Simidor: Stop this train! (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Daniel Simidor <karioka9@mail.arczip.com>


In one fell swoop, the Latortue team has forfeited its tenuous mandate as a government outside the Constitution, propped by a foreign military occupation.  The glaring miscarriage of justice in the recent Chamblain/Joannis murder trial is proof positive that the Boniface/Latortue regime is beholden to the military and paramilitary “rebels,” and as such lacks the political will and the moral authority to carry out the disarmament campaign that is a prerequisite to any meaningful elections in Haiti today.

The mock trial of the assassins who murdered Antoine Izmery, the threats and the violence of their associates who still control half of the country, are timely reminders that the disbanded army and their paramilitary accomplices are not the “freedom-fighters” and the “liberators” touted by Mr. Latortue, but remnants of a repressive apparatus at the service of a local oligarchy and the US military-industrial complex that spawned them 80 years ago as an internal occupation force.  Some would argue that the existence of an armed force is protected by the Constitution, forgetting that the said Constitution was written under a military junta, and forgetting as well the proven record of the said armed forces as anti-democratic and anti-patriotic.  Aristide, in disbanding the Haitian military, only responded to a longstanding demand from the Haitian democratic movement. A new territorial defense force is something that a future democratic government will decide, in consultation with the people.

For now, while the proxy UN occupation continues, the so-called rebels cannot march on the capital and cannot carry out another coup, as threatened.  But they are apt to extort concession upon concession from a weak and politically compromised government.  Each one of those concessions is a hammer blow against the frail democratic process that is the country’s only chance of survival.  We must stop this trend before it’s too late.  The interim president and prime minister, the minister of justice Bernard Gousse, and the judge who presided over this travesty of justice, must declare a mistrial.  Or they must resign. A new cabinet appointed by the Council of Wise Ones can carry the process forward.

Daniel Simidor