23029: Esser: The Anti-Bouckman League (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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

COMMON SENSE  429     

The Anti-Bouckman League
by John Maxwell


The gang now running Haiti seem to have tired of their  “Democracy’ 
game. The charade is over, they seem to say, we can now display our
true colours –  because we know that the most important members of
CARICOM are going to recognise us  and legitimise us.

In the slaughter-house that is Haiti there aren’t too many people to
protest against the proposed actions of the governments of Jamaica,
Trinidad, the Bahamas, Barbados, the bureaucrats of CARICOM to
‘engage’ the criminal conspiracy which calls itself  the government
of Haiti. I wrote a little song for them:

The Press is squared,

P.J’s  prepared,

It’s time to end

Our Masquerade


Treacherous  and Cowardly

In deciding to ‘engage’ with Haiti the  Jamaican government, as I see
it, is guilty of  unspeakable cowardice and treachery – the  more
revolting because we could see it coming months ago –as I warned in
this column. Messrs. Patterson and Knight held in their hands  a
large portion of whatever hope for Justice the Haitian people may
have had. That hope was singed this week.

In the same week that the Haitians should have been celebrating the
spark that lit the fire of their independence, their close friends
and relatives silently, stealthily, were preparing to make a zombie
out of Haitian autonomy, independence and hope of Justice.

“Bwa Kayiman “ celebrates the occasion on August 14, 1791 –  213
years ago, when the Jamaican escaped slave. Bouckman presided at  a
meeting to plan the rebellion against the French. At a place called
Bwa Kayiman (Crocodile Forest)  delegates from all over the north of
Haiti pledged to throw off their chains and throw the French out of
Haiti forever.

Bouckman is said to have  invoked the God of the Africans, who he said,

“… takes us by the arm and guides us.

      He will give us assistance.

      Throw away the white God‘s image

      Who is thirsting for the water in our eyes!

      Listen to the call of freedom in our hearts!"

“The delegates returned to their plantations. On D Day, August 22,
1791, the orders discussed and adopted on the night of August 14,
were implemented. Thus started the great saga that culminated in the
independence of the first black nation in our hemisphere. Boukman was
killed in November 1791, in a French counteroffensive. His severed
head was exposed with this caption: "Head of Boukman, the rebel
leader!"  – (Max Manigat)    

There is controversy about whether Bouckman was a voudou priest/
obeahman, or  a literate Moslem. In a monograph, Max Manigat reports:

“ It has been said that he had been given the name "Book man," as was
the custom in the English colonies of the Caribbean, in the case of
many slaves who knew how to read the Koran.”

The only facts that are well established about Bouckman are that he
was a Jamaican and a very tall, big man of  enormous strength.

Max Manigat says:

‘Boukman gave the kick-off, others followed whose names now belong to
universal history, and slowly but inexorably, from 1791 until 1803,
the triple Haitian Revolution - anti slavery, anti-colonial, and
social - of the "wretched of the earth" of Saint Domingue triumphed
and became a reality’.

It is a raw and savage irony that Bouckman’s compatriots in Jamaicva 
should now be about tto betray Boukman’s heirs in Haiti.

Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Mr Patterson., made his intentions clear
even before President Aristide  arrived in Jamaica in April. I read
between the lines then, but I was told that I was being alarmist. We
should praise Mr Patterson, I was told, instead of attacking him. 
This is what the Prime Minister said at the time:

“I want to emphasise that Mr. Aristide is not seeking political
asylum in Jamaica. His stay in Jamaica is not expected to be in
excess of eight to ten weeks. He is engaged in finalising
arrangements for permanent residence outside of the region.

CARICOM remains committed to the goal of restoring and nurturing
democracy in its newest Member State as well as to social and
economic development of the people of Haiti.”

It was not true that President Aristide was  “finalising arrangements
for permanent residence outside of the region”. Aristide regards
himself and is still regarded by most Haitians, by South Africa and
other nations, as the  only legitimate President of Haiti, and
neither Mr Patterson nor Mr Knight, nor the US State Department can
change that.

If Jamaica were to obey international law the question would not even
arise. But Patterson and Knight  a couple of years ago followed  the
example of North Korea, and resiled from the  Universal Declaration
of Human Rights/Optional Protocol on Civil and Political Rights. With
that track record we can hardly expect them to take a  principled
view of the Haitian Affair.


 The Mask is off, the Masque is On

In  Haiti in the same week of Bwa Kayiman, the so-called government
of Haiti staged an elaborate  masquerade as part of its continuing
effort to  rehabilitate  the noisome collection of murderous
drug-dealing bandits  who gave certain foreigners an excuse to
intervene  to depose Aristide  in order “to save his life” and to
“prevent a bloodbath”.

  While the  world press is busy spreading flimflam about Aristide’s
“resigning amid a popular revolt” it should be remembered that the
“popular revolutionaries” were able to enter Port au Prince only
under the auspices  of foreign troops.  While they had employed their
brand-new military issue M-16s to terrorise and murder unarmed
policemen in Gonaives add Cap Haitien, they were unable to take Port
au Prince –  fearing that  the so called ‘chimeres’ who supported
Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas were waiting to greet them with their
ancient muskets and soul force.

Foreign  intervention made it possible for Louis Jodel Chamblain
and various other criminal gunslingers to enter Port au Prince
without challenge.

Now that perhaps as many as  3,000 Fanmi Lavalas supporters have
been murdered,  hundreds illegally jailed,and  thousands more  on the
run or in hiding  since March 1, – the Zombie government and its
leaders, Messrs. La Tortue and Gousse, can set about restoring
‘respectability’ to convicted assassins like Chamblain and  bring
them into the bosom of the Zombie regime.

And all will be ‘legitimised’ when their fellow Zombies across the
Caribbean get into serious ‘engagement’ with them. The cowardly and
treacherous attitude of  the major Caribbean governments cannot have
been better or more diplomatically expressed than in an editorial
this week in the Barbados Nation:

“ IT WOULD be most ironic should the historic unity of the Caribbean
Community (CARICOM) be jeopardised because of disagreements among
some Heads of Government on the basis for the interim Haitian regime
participating in the business of CARICOM pending the restoration of
constitutional governance.”

I wonder if they or Messrs. Knight, Patterson, Arthur, Manning and
Knowles would consider ‘ironic’ what happened in the Haitian Palace
of Justice this week.?

“In the early hours of August 17, a sham trial in Port-au-Prince  
acquitted notorious Haitian rights abusers Jackson Joanis and Jodel
Chamblain of the  1993 murder of businessman Antoine Izmery.  
Neither the judiciary nor the  prosecution made even the minimum
effort required by law to pursue this  important case.  The absence
of effort combined with top Haitian officials' public  support for
Chamblain and his colleagues compels the conclusion that Haiti's 
interim government staged the trial to deflect criticism of its human
rights  record without alienating its military and paramilitary
allies.  The trial is an  affront to the thousands of people who have
worked and sacrificed for justice in  Haiti over the last fifteen
years.”

Brian Concannon, an American lawyer who had been one of those helping
Aristide restore democracy and law and order in Haiti, continues:

 “Antoine Izmery, a prominent supporter of President Aristide, was 
murdered on September 11, 1993, during Haiti's de facto military
dictatorship  (1991-1994). Mr. Izmery had organized a mass at
Port-au-Prince's Sacre Coeur church, to commemorate the anniversary
of the 1988 St. Jean Bosco Massacre.  

 “Soldiers and paramilitaries dragged Izmery out of the packed
church, in full view of the Haitian and international media, the
diplomatic community in Haiti, and  UN/OAS Human Rights Observers,
and shot him on the sidewalk outside.  Both  Joanis and Chamblain
were convicted, in absentia for murder at the 1995 trial of  the
Izmery killing.”

Anyone convicted in absentia, under Haitian law,is entitled to a
formal retrial whenever he returned to Haiti. The so-called trial
was a travesty. The procedure itself was illegal in several
respects,   

 “The trial began on Monday, August 16, and ended before dawn on 
Tuesday, August 17. Only one prosecution witness appeared, and he
admitted that he  was not, in fact, an eyewitness.  The prosecutor
was obviously unfamiliar with  the file, and appeared to be going
through the motions, with no attempt to  present a convincing
argument to the jury.  Many observers and journalists left  the trial
in the early evening, afraid of venturing out on the capital's 
streets after dark.

Amnesty International referred to the trial as "an insult to
justice" and a "mockery."   

 It would be interesting to hear the comments on this case by two
of our   leading legal luminaries. Messrs. Patterson and Knight,  are
both Queen’s Counsel, and Mr Patterson a member of Her Majesty’s
Privy Council and therefore an adviser to her Majesty.

If they ever give their opinions, it would be educational to hear
what the rest of the Privy Council, especially the Judicial
Committee, would have to say.

A Busted Trifecta

Somebody, somewhere, must be ‘tearing up’ – in the American
sense of the word – for a busted Trifecta.

 In Venezuela, President Chavez was overwhelmingly  endorsed – for
the third time  straight, by  his people. In Iraq. Mokhtada El Sadr
is still alive and on the loose – as I write, having apparently
escaped martyrdom – so the civil war is postponed, and  nearer home,
Caricom has so far been prevented by three brave men, Ralph
Gonsalves, Kenny Anthony and Bharaat Jagdeo – from certifying the
regime of the Turtle and the Goose.

How sad, especially since I hear there is a big party convention
next week in New York at which these developments, had they gone the
other way, would have been greeted with rapturous applause and would
have made big news, at least on CNN and Fox.
Such a pity.

Copyright©2004
maxinf@cwjamaica.com
.