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25633: Katel (reply) aristide speech (fwd)
From: Peter Katel <p.katel@verizon.net>
As a Newsweek correspondent who flew into Haiti a couple of days after
the coup, I was among the first reporters to write about the Pe Lebrun
speech. We didn't rely on any institution's translation.
We - that is, I and the half-dozen or so colleagues from various media
alongside whom I worked -- obtained a a tape of the speech from one of
the radio stations; might have been Metropole. Then I and a Haitian
translator/guide who was helping us sat down to translate it. We did our
work on the patio of the Holiday Inn. My kreyol was pretty much
nonexistent at the time, but I've spoken French most of my life. Our
translator spoke, in addition to kreyol, English and French.
I've gone back to look at the Newsweek story, which quotes only a few
words of the speech. My notes from that time are in storage. But Amy
Wilentz has it exactly right - there was no mistaking the meaning.
Aristide never said he had meant anything else, as far as I know, at
least in the first few years after he was overthrown.
Peter Katel