25505: De Verteuil (opinion)Re: 25491: Kondrat (Question) Re: 25474: (news) Chamberlain: Lawlessness in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Patrick de Verteuil <pdeverteuil@yahoo.com>

You are starting out from the assumption that the Americans and the French
were the only cause of Aristide's departure. They did everything possible to
persuade the "opposition" to accept the compromise promoted by Caricom;
Aristide would stay on as President but would be shorn of much of his power.
They failed.
But please remember that Aristide was willing to sign the agreement and I
assume that this was because he believed, as I did at the time, that the  ex
military coming down from the north, allied with rebel chimeres, would sweep
him from power. You may say "but they were only 200 or so". Remember that
seven men captured the Casernes Dessalines and nearly swept François
Duvalier from his adjacent palace.
I believe that the Americans and the  French also believed that the ex
military would win and they acted in order to prevent Guy Philippe or some
other "warrior" from replacing Aristide. If Aristide was to go they wished
to have some say in his replacement.
Haiti is indeed a disaster but a large share of responsibility must lie with
the opposition who apparently believed that "anything" was better than
Aristide and ignored the fact that rightly or wrongly he represented a large
number of Haitians.

Patrick de Verteuil