23982: Holmstead (article) Christmas in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: John Holmstead <cyberkismet5@yahoo.com>

Full article with pics:
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/12_27_4.html

Haiti Information Project

Christmas in Haiti

December 27, 2004

Port au Prince, Haiti (HIP) - The benevolence of Santa
Claus and the love and wisdom of a prince of peace are
not likely to be associated with the Gerard Latortue
cabal’s place in Haitian history.  When the
US-installed regime took power following the coup
against Haiti’s democratically elected government
earlier this year; they made the grandiose claim of
seeking to heal the country’s wounds through
reconciliation.  Since then, Haiti has been plagued by
a petty and vengeful leadership who, along with a
vindictive elite-controlled media, have led a campaign
of political persecution against President Aristide’s
Lavalas political party. This spiteful stance only
fueled more violence by unleashing the former military
and the Haitian police to prey upon supporters of the
exiled president who in turn retaliated in what many
here justify as a simple act of self-defense. For mere
mortals, turning the other cheek is always difficult
when faced with certain death.

Reconciliation is nowhere to be found during this
holiday season in Haiti. Under the current Haitian
regime the word has become synonymous with human
rights violations, the summary dismissal of thousands
of government employees abandoned without a means to a
livelihood and innumerable political prisoners wasting
away in jails throughout Haiti. The presence of a
United Nations peacekeeping force is no more generous
as it seems to have done little other than add
legitimacy to a cynical and deadly exercise in
pacification undertaken in the name of restoring
democracy.

While Haiti’s wealthy elite returned from Christmas
shopping sprees in Miami and New York, the holiday
held little joy for the majority of poor families
barely surviving. For some, like fired employees from
the mayor’s office in Petion-Ville, it meant tempting
retribution by peacefully demonstrating on Christmas
Eve for back pay owed them so they might have a little
something to bring home to their families for the
holiday. Despite their strident spirit, it became
clear their demands fell on deaf ears as couriers
passed through the hungry crowd laden with sumptuous
holiday gift baskets intended for the appointed and
unelected mayors on behalf of their wealthy patrons.

For others, like the families of political prisoners,
it meant a long march through the streets of Port au
Prince on Christmas Day demanding to be reunited with
their loved ones. The smaller children with sore feet
were glad for the break they got from walking as they
stopped to demonstrate in front of the UN
headquarters. The large contingency of heavily armed
SWAT team and special units of the Haitian police
seemed out of place as the children broke into a
spontaneous rendition of Silent Night. The UN
peacekeepers mostly seemed disinterested and bored but
most likely anxious to return to their homes and
barracks to sit down to their Christmas dinner and
call their own families back at home via expensive
satellite phones.

All told, for most in Haiti the only gift they could
afford this year was to scrape together enough pennies
for a humble Christmas dinner to honor and remember
their loved ones. A ritual of breaking bread and
communion in misery that recalled members of their
families who are locked away in prison, living in
exile or killed in the political violence of this past
year.

Reverence and grief combined to mark the Christmas
celebration in the poor neighborhoods of Cite Soleil
and Bel Air. Under the watchful eyes of the UN
peacekeepers and the Haitian police most people were
reluctant to give their names or allow photographs.
The laughter of malnourished children and the smells
from thousands of pots of stew, made from whatever was
available, mingled with the constant buzz of flies and
the omnipresent odors of open sewage and garbage. As
families prepared to sit down to their modest holiday
meals many tables were decorated with photographs and
remembrances of absent loved ones. There were fathers
and sons, mothers and daughters, uncles and aunts,
sisters and brothers; cousins were there too. Most
tables also included at least one small picture of a
smiling President Aristide who is still revered among
Haiti’s poor majority despite all the attempts to beat
and starve it out of them.

In the midst of this uncertainty save for their
poverty, this Christmas in Haiti saw a brief moment of
peace for Haiti’s poor masses. The survivors of the
holocaust, the imprisoned, the dead and the exiled all
sat down together in spirit to pay tribute to the
memory of the birth of a small child who would grow to
be a man known for his acts of reconciliation,
sacrifice and forgiveness.  Haiti’s poor majority can
only hope the example is not lost forever upon those
who supported the coup, the UN or the regime of Gerard
Latortue.





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