23325: (hermantin)Miami-Herald-Haitians seek answer for upheaval (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, Oct. 04, 2004

SOUTH FLORIDA


Haitians seek answer for upheaval

Haiti's bicentennial city has been at the epicenter of a year of change,
some of it devastating. To explain it all, South Florida Haitians turn to
science, politics or even the Vodou tradition.

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES

jcharles@herald.com


Hundreds are dead or missing. Tens of thousands are homeless. For Haitians,
what began as a year of bicentennial celebration has disintegrated into a
year of death and disaster, rebellion and revolution.

Watching the tragedy in this historic year, South Florida Haitians wonder
why their homeland can't seem to avoid disaster. Talking in person or on the
radio, some turn to history, politics and science for answers. Others look
to what they call mysticism and even to Vodou belief.

They note that the epicenter of it all is Gonaives, the birthplace of
Haiti's independence, where a revolutionary hero declared Haiti free from
French rule 200 years ago.

Long known as being in the forefront of political change, Gonaives is where
the uprising against former dictator Jean-Claude ''Baby Doc'' Duvalier
ignited in September 1985. And months before Haitian President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide was forced into exile on Feb. 29, the city, led by armed rebels,
had already turned on him.

LONGTIME CURSE

Some Haitians ''are saying Haiti has a curse and that curse has been there
since 1804 because of Bwa Kayiman,'' said Carl Fombrun, a popular South
Florida radio commentator.

Bwa Kayiman is the Vodou ceremony that is credited with launching the
Haitian revolution against French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's army.

Tony Jeanthenor, a Miami resident and member of Veye Yo, an Aristide support
group, points to the role of France in pressuring Aristide before his
ouster.

''People are thinking about whether this is something we are paying a price
for because the French have returned. The people's elected president has
been overthrown by a bunch of thugs to satisfy the French, and suddenly you
see all the waters coming from nowhere to invade the city of Gonaives,'' he
said.

``So many things have happened in Gonaives in the last year, you have to
believe mysticism is going on.''

Such talk outrages others, who point out that the waters didn't come out of
nowhere. They came down the barren mountains where Haitians for decades have
cut trees to make charcoal for cooking. The most frequent sight in the city
markets is the merchant women, drab in the stains of charcoal, calling out
chabon, Creole for charcoal.

''People who ask where God was when the floods took place, I tell them God
was right there, because 50,000 people should have died because of the bad
management of the environment that we have done,'' said Ed Lozama, a
Haitian-American radio host on 1700 AM Planet 17 who refuses to entertain
comments from callers about mysticism.

''We were so busy politicking all those years that we forgot to take care of
the environment,'' he said.

STATE OF FEAR

Myriam Nader, a Haitian American who owns Galerie d'Art Nader in Coral
Gables, agrees.

''I think that mysticism is what had contributed to keep the Haitian people
in such a lesser mental state that can never find a logical or scientific
explanation for whatever problem they confront,'' said Nader, whose father
was born in Gonaives. ``This severe ecological problem has existed for
years.

''For 200 years, mysticism has always been used by most of our leaders to
manipulate the Haitian people by creating in their mind a fear state. That
way they can better control the people and stay in control,'' she said.

Robert Fatton Jr., a professor at the University of Virginia, doesn't hold
out much hope that the new government will be able to get a handle on the
problem to prevent future disasters.

''They have inherited a lot of this,'' he said, adding that he believes the
government has taken too long to act. ``But there are certain things the
government can do or pretend to be doing.''

As for those Haitians who have sought solace in the tapestry of Vodou,
Fatton said such an explanation ``tends to mask the realities of what the
Haitian government has done to the country, which has contributed to the
destruction of the country.''

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