24769: Simidor (reply) Re: 24743: Durban re. 24741 Mwe - Bribes, etc.

[sak-pase@bimini.ws]

daniel simidor <danielsimidor@yahoo.com>

Lance Durban marvels at my astonishment that the US
Consulate did not step in to keep John Mwe, a US
citizen with a legal franchise, from getting fleeced
in Haiti.  Lance says that customs bills are too
mundane for such interventions.  

Haitian diplomatic history is a long succession of
very “mundane” claims enforced by the Great Powers on
behalf of their citizens doing business in Haiti.  In
1879, the US claimed $2.5 million on behalf of one
Pelletier condemned to 5 years of hard labor for
repeated attempts to entice Haitians aboard his ship
and to sell them as slaves in Cuba.  Around the same
time, Haiti was forced to pay $20,000 and a gun salute
for the jailing of a German immigrant involved in a
brawl with the Haitian police, and several thousand
dollars for the jailing of a US smuggler named Mews.
There is also the case of the US national charged with
drunken behavior who, upon waking up in jail, promptly
summoned the US Chargé d’Affaires to represent his
interests, and that of another cocky Yankee arrested
for beating his Haitian employee instead of paying his
wages.  Both received substantial damages.  If it was
wrong to enforce such outlandish claims 100 years ago,
it is equally true that John Mwe had a right to
protection against the kind of abuse he encountered in
Haiti.

But what I think Lance is alluding to is the practice,
common among US businessmen and condoned by the US
government, to use bribes as the “price” of doing
business abroad.  For one thing, it saves time by
cutting through the bureaucracy.  You also end up
owning the poor slob who accepts your bribe, and you
create a back channel for future ventures, both legal
and not so legal.  What is not common knowledge,
however, is whether NGOs (the churches, etc.) are also
held to the same standard.  John hasn’t told us yet
whether he went to the US Consulate and was turned
away.  

Corruption in Haiti is no “mundane” affair.  It is in
fact one of the key factors holding back Haiti’s
economic progress and democratic aspirations.  It
would help more, instead of sending in the Marines, to
make it illegal in US courts for US businessmen to
proffer bribes abroad, and to help Haiti recoup the
millions stolen by the Duvalier and Aristide
kleptocracies and stashed in US and other foreign
banks.  Unfortunately, the US is much more interested
in “bribing” those characters into submission than in
using the evidence they have to help combat
corruption.  As the saying goes, “si pat gen sitirè,
pa ta genyen vòlè.”