24434: Simidor (comment): The Week inReview (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: daniel simidor <danielsimidor@yahoo.com>

A pro-Lavalas Slant Chez Reuters?
Contrast Guyler Delva’s account (Reuters) of the Feb.
28 Lavalas demonstration in Port-au-Prince, with the
Associated Press report.  Delva: “Police opened fire
on Monday on thousands of demonstrators who marched
through the Port-au-Prince slum of Bel-Air to demand
Aristide's return.”  The AP writer refers to some
2,000 protestors and to warning shots fired after the
crowd overran a police barricade in the vicinity of
the national palace.  (The AP report is more detailed,
shows cause and effect, is less partisan, etc.)

Birds of a Feather.
Aristide ...  Ron Voss … Tom Reeves … “Man/Boy Love”
advocacy...  Reminds one of the infamous gay cruises
from Boston (all along the East Coast) that brought
AIDS-as-development to Haiti back in the late 1970s.
Where do the orphans of Lafanmi Se Lavi fit into these
schemes?

Silencing Dissent.
Tom Griffin’s slick “Human Rights Investigation”
(Miami Univ. Law School) repeatedly quotes Renan
Hedouville of the Comité des Avocats pour le Respect
des Libertés Individuelles (CARLI).  Two weeks ago,
Hedouville publicly denounced Griffin’s report and
alleged that he was misquoted throughout.  But not a
peep on that development in the English-language
press.  The Griffin report, by the way, is hopelessly
biased.  It itemizes all the crimes attributed to
“Apaid’s gang leader,” Labanyè, but is mum about the
latter’s Lavalas counterparts: Grenn Sonnen, Black
Ronald, Dread Wilme, Yvon Zap Zap, among others.  And
not a word anywhere about who killed Weber Adrien or
why.

A Blast from the Past!
How many people would have realized without reading
this week’s PRAVDA (“The Truth” in Russsian) that
Haiti’s “Democratic Convergence” was actually led  “by
paramilitary members of FRAPH?” Thank you Esser for
this involuntary bit of comic relief.

A Nudist Wing at the National  Penitentiary?
Monsieur Neptune has apparently taken off his clothes
to prevent an imminent transfer to St. Marc where the
trial in the La Scierie massacre is taking place.

Criticism by Omission.
The recent report, “The Achievements of Lavalas,”
shyly skips over one of the proudest accomplishments
of Aristide’s reign: the Maribahoux free trade zone
alongside the border with the Dominican Republic.  The
main features of this “important breakthrough for
Haiti” (Aristide) being: 1) the cimenting over of what
had been the region’s breadbasket; 2) selling Haiti’s
textile quota on the US market to the Grupo M
consortium; 3) Haiti’s loss of sovereignty & Dominican
militarization of the border region, which account in
part for the gross violations of human and workers’
rights in the FTZ.

“Dynamisme de Recul” (Manigat)
 Mr. Latortue is doing the impossible job of building
up a new image for Aristide.  Titid in his days
performed the same service for Baby Doc: making the
guy before you look good in retrospect.  Another
instance of moving the country backward.

How many people still believe that "The Transition” is
going somewhere?  Or that the coming elections will
change anything?





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