24511: Arthur (reply) Re: 24502: Durban (reply): 24494 Gunning down the poor (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

In a message dated 3/17/2005 1:42:06 AM W. Europe Standard Time, Lance Durban
<lpdurban@yahoo.com> writes:

<< Quick question for Charles Arthur and his Haiti Support Group:
 Do you condone a situation where "local people are shooting at
 the police and the UN", to quote a phrase in your post?  In the
 UK, if a local gang starts shooting at the police, does it get
 your support simply because its members may be poor and black? >>


Charles Arthur writing in a personal capacity quickly replies:

In the 1980s there were many instances of violent protest - many directed at
the police - in impoverished and run-down urban centres in the UK (Brixton,
Toxteth, St. Pauls, to name a few). Small arms availability in the UK was (and
still is) nothing like as high as it is in Haiti, and therefore shooting was
not an issue, however at Broadwater Farm in north London a policeman was killed
during violent clashes. My personal feeling about these violent protests was
that I understood the reasons why people reacted this way - heavy-handed
policiing, racism, lack of opportunities, poor education, breakdown of social and
community structures, bad housing, etc. - but did not think that violence
against the police was the right way to deal with them, believing that political
organising and political action were more likely to get results. I feel much the
same way about the violence in Port-au-Prince.

Lance Durban went on to say that the editorial that I wrote for the latest
Haiti Briefing casually fuzzed over the "critical differentation" between the
violently-inclined "couple of hundred" and the "thousands" whom "might still be
inclined to vote for Aristide if he were able to run again in Haiti". I don't
think this is fair at all and would ask him to re-read the piece. I included
the following quote from "Workers' Voice" specifically to make the point that
the interests of the poor are not being served by the violence inflicted by
either the pro-Aristide chimères, the pro-Apaid chimères, and the non-aligned
chimères, or by the police, the 'police', and the ex-FADH: “While claiming to be
waging war on the chimères, the police are taking it out on the poor. The
principal victims of the chimères are the inhabitants of the poor neighbourhoods
such as Bel Air, Solino, Cité Soleil, Village de Dieu…The population is caught
in the crossfire between the chimères who extort and repress them, and the
police who shoot at them or, at best, arrest them.”