23021: RE: 22984: Bell Re cruise into History (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: "Bell, Madison" <mbell@goucher.edu>

Just back from Cap Haitien where I watched the cruise into history ... sink.  People I talked to there, including many who were involved in way or another with the project, were pretty well flabbergasted by the Cruise's determination to torpedo itself-- all agreed that the cruisers had done everything they could to offend the current government to the point of losing all the logistical support they needed to get out to Milot and so on....

And what was the point?  People kept telling me, even if the BCC objects to the current government, doesn't it make more sense to enter the country, see what's actually happening, maybe make some diplomatic efforts, rather than take a rhetorical position that prevents them from coming?

Not to mention that this trip, four years in the planning was really a pilot project for a whole program of attracting Black Americans to visit the key kalfou of the Haitian Revolution-- really an excellent idea, now shot down perhaps forever.  That program really might have restored tourism in the North of Haiti, might also have produced some salubrious changes in our culture in the US.

Not to mention the loss of income and opportunity for everybody from Cap to Morne Laferriere who'd have got a piece of 500 fat'n'happy blans making that excursion.  Just for that it's a disaster.

Too bad.  Shame.  Sa bay nou won.   Man nan machwa, indeed.

msb