23473: Press & Sun-Bulletin - Binghamton,NY,USA: By helping Haiti, we will bring hope (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

10/16/2004

Cohen: By helping Haiti, we will bring hope to an
old friend

ELIZABETH COHEN Close to Home

When I was a little girl, my father had a friend
and colleague named Gerard Latortue. We met him
first when I was in the fifth grade and my father
taught at a university in Puerto Rico and again
when he visited our family in Albuquerque. He had
a memorable face, round and large, and spoke with
a thick French accent.

"He escaped his country in a boat from a bad
government," my father explained to my little
sister and me. "He had to leave his family
behind."

That made an impression. We could not imagine our
father running away from anyone, in a boat or any
other way, or ever being away from us.

We called Latortue Mr. Turtle, which our father
told us was the translation of his name from
French, the language they speak in his country,
Haiti.

My memories of Gerard Latortue came cascading
back to me this March when I heard on the radio
that he was the newly appointed prime minister of
Haiti. I immediately called my sister.

"Does this name sound familiar -- Latortue?"

"Mr. Turtle!" she exclaimed.

We could not believe that our father's friend was
back in Haiti and that he was now the prime
minister. Especially poignant was the fact that
we could not tell our father about it, because of
his advanced Alzheimer's disease. It seemed to be
just something he would never know about.

In recent weeks I, like many people, have been
saddened and shocked by the stories of the
Caribbean nation that has suffered two hurricanes
and mass social unrest. Maybe it was because I
was thinking about Latortue, or maybe it was just
the power of the disturbing images, but, I called
the Haitian embassy in Washington to ask how
people in our community could help. I spoke to
Ray Joseph, the embassy director, and told him my
father, Sanford Cohen, had been a friend of
Latortue. The next day he called me back and told
me Latortue would like to speak to me.

This is how it came to be that I spent about an
hour on the phone with the Haitian prime minister
this week. The conversation rambled. We talked
about my parents and sister; his wife, Marlene,
who taught Spanish at my school in Puerto Rico;
his three daughters, now grown, and his first
grandson, a boy, born this year.

"Elizabeth," he said, "I remember you as such a
small girl, and your sister, even smaller. How
old are you now?"

"45," I said.

"Impossible."

And then we spoke about Haiti. "We have not been
good to Mother Earth in this country," he told
me.

While the political situation is unstable and
damage from the hurricanes was great --
especially to his hometown of Gonaieve, Latortue
believes deforestation and poor environmental
practices have wreaked the worst havoc upon much
of the island nation.

"Haiti is at the eve of ecological disaster if we
are not careful," he said. "Right now I am
working on a project with the World Bank to
accomplish an environmental assessment."

Latortue, who is now 69, is an economist who
specialized in economic development and in labor
and industrial relations like my father. Since he
came to visit my family so many years ago, he
briefly served as Haitian foreign minister in
1988 for former president Leslie Manigat. He
worked for the United Nations doing international
development work in the African nations of Togo
and Ivory Coast.

When the government of former Haitian prime
minister Jean Bertrand Aristide began to collapse
-- some say it was overthrown -- Latortue, who
was an Aristide critic, came back to his country
again to serve as prime minister.

I asked him how democracy could be restored to
such a chaotic nation.

"I was the one chosen to put this country back
together, and it was an honor and I came," he
said. With his academic background and reputation
for integrity, he certainly has the qualities
necessary to undertake this hard task.

But in recent weeks the task has become harder.
Aristide supporters have taken to the streets,
fighting in the capital of Port Au Prince. The
nation is so dangerous that Latortue said he told
his own daughter not to visit him.

"The biggest challenge now is to build a
democratic society in a very poor country where
corruption is the rule," he said. "You can buy
anyone here. Very few people believe in
democracy; people are just trying to survive."

He said he pleads with the Haitian community
abroad to return to their country to help develop
it into the healthy, democratic nation he
envisions.

"I ask them to come back and participate in
building this nation. Haiti will need foreign aid
but also the skill, talent and experience of the
Haitians abroad."

As for how we can help, Latortue suggested making
donations to the Red Cross, earmarked for the
disaster fund.

"Things are very bad in Haiti," he said. "The
Aristide people are killing people, burning
businesses, and we have had two terrible
hurricanes (and) mud slides. Now we are scared
whenever it starts raining."

I tried to imagine what it would be like to be
afraid of rain, as I scrambled through the
drizzle this week at the Veteran's Home in Oxford
to visit my father. I hugged him, and he patted
my head, kissed my cheek.

"Daddy," I said, excitedly. "I talked to
Latortue. He is the Haitian Prime Minister now."

I waited for my father to say something, show
some sign he heard me, that he understood.

For a moment I thought he would, too. There was a
sound in his throat, maybe the beginning of a
word trying to form. But it never came.

We just stood there, 37 years and a lifetime
after we had spent time with Gerard Latortue, the
brilliant academician I remember who is now the
besieged leader of Haiti, and he just kept
patting my head.

Cohen's column appears Sundays. E-mail her at
ecohen@pressconnects.com.




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