24448: Kondrat (reply) Re: 24447 and others: Morse (reply) to Holmstead (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Peter Kondrat <petekondrat@yahoo.com>

Dear Mr. Morse,

I don't want to tick you off, because I dig the
Olaffson and hope to stay there for a bit this summer.
And I like Ram a lot as well.
    That said, I think the issue that many folks on
this list keep tiptoeing around is this: are you (you
plural) a Haitian constitutionalist, or are you still
an advocate of the rule of the street, of Might Makes
Right? Because if you are the former, then you must, I
believe, condemn *all* the extralegal actions that
have taken place in Haiti in the past few years, up to
and including the illegal removal of the duly elected
president. There are moral, legal, and practical
reasons for taking a constitutionalist position on
recent Haitian affairs.
    The legal reason goes back to the Enlightenment
thinkers, Rousseau, Jefferson and those guys. It says
that in a democracy, collective principles have got to
supercede the interests of individuals or special
interest groups. So the nation of Haiti has a deep and
abiding interest in establishing and defending a set
of laws that are stronger than any power nexus in the
country. The struggle then becomes not one between
interest groups, but between any given group and the
Nation, as embodied in its laws, its constitution. If
you advocate, or passively condone, the president's
removal -- for whatever reason -- by street gangs, or
the US Embassy, or a cabal of indigenous power
brokers, or a pack of lawyers, you absolutely subvert
the rule of law. Then you are back to mob rule, or
totalitarianism.
    The moral argument is that there is a kind of
social contract between the rulers and the governed.
It's been agreed that elections will determine who is
in power. Any other method of removing leaders or
imposing new leaders (other than methods that may have
been previously agreed to, like impeachment for high
crimes and misdemeanors) is a betrayal of the
agreement. For elections to be meaningful, the results
must be transparent, and protected by the state, and
accepted by citizens ... even those whose candidates
did not win.
    I think the practical reason may be the most
persuasive. Does anyone in Haiti now think that life
is better than it was in 2003? Does 2005 look like it
is going to be better than 2004? Nothing has been
resolved by the removal of the duly elected president;
all the old revendications are still there, as are all
the old vendettas ... and the various interest groups
now have little hope of finding a way out through
constitutional means. The damage that has been done to
constitutional governance will take years to repair.
    The people who tried to use extralegal methods
(disguised as legal tactics) to remove President
Clinton in 1998 and 1999 were also
anti-constitutional. Whether Clinton had sex in the
Oval Office; whether he lied to the grand jury about
having sex in the Oval Office; whether he was
responsible for the death of Vince Foster; whether he
was guilty of malfeasance in the Whitewater affair;
whether he illegally bombed the Sudan and Kosovo ...
none of this can justify the tawdry, shameful
barefisted powergrab that was the impeachment trial.
Likewise, none of the Haitian president's misdeeds can
justify his extralegal removal from office. Those who
defend the coup, and those who refuse to condemn it,
have helped to doom Haiti to years more strife,
gridlock and misrule.
    Please don't allow your dislike of the Haitian
president to lead you to try to justify abandoning
constitutional principles, and to embrace rule by
brute force.
     Looking forward to buying you a drink on the
veranda ...

Peter Kondrat



--- Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu> wrote:
>
> From OLOFFSONRAM@aol.com
>
> Dear Mr Holmstead,
>
> I do have a certain vantage point being right here
> in the middle of
> Port-au-Prince. My musicians and employees come
> mostly from Delmas, Belair and
> Carrefour. Perhaps you didn't see my recent posts on
> actual police corruption
> during this transition period. I'm not a public
> relations firm, I'm a musician
> and I'm just giving you my 2 cents. When I spoke of
> gangs working in
> tandem with the police during Aristide it wasn't
> Public Relations, it was
> the inside scoop.  Are you denying it as truth? Are
> you now going to tell
> me that the Cannibal Army  in Gonaives wasn't
> originally a branch of
> Aristide's parallel security services before they
> turned on him and were
> then joined by the old army and FRAPH. No one is
> speaking to the masses
> right now. Party in Petionville!! Is that what the
> University students
> were working towards? I don't think so.
>
> Where  were you at 2 a.m. Feb 29, 2004? I was
> talking to Aristide's Haitian
> security guards after he abandoned them to make his
> escape. I'm concerned
> about the state of the Haitian people, but not
> professionally. I'm just a
> musician.
>
> Richard Morse
>
>
>
>
>
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com