27007: Durban (comment): Trusteeship anyone? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

So, after listening to all the Haitian nationalists on Corbett and
elsewhere blather on about why an independant Haiti must run its own
business, organize its own election, replace judges when needed, decide
who can run in the presidential sweepstakes, etc, etc, etc, we now have
a new story line coming from board member Max Mathurin of the Haitian
agency charged with organizing the elections (the CEP).  In spite of
its much-touted independance, in an all too typical evasion of
responsibility, Mathurin now claims that the election delay is really
the fault of.... the international community!   Se pa faut moin... it's
not my fault.

Sorry, I'm just not buying it.  It should not be THAT difficult to
organize and run an election, yet the reliable reports we are hearing
in Haiti lead one to the regrettable conclusion that the CEP has made a
complete hash of it.  After choosing an expensive voter registration
card system whose primary feature is that it will give Uncle Sam
personal data on some 3.5 million Haitian nationals, we now have
countless tales of people getting their cards only to find that
pictures have been mixed up and their assigned place to vote is far
from where they had registered (eg. a resident of Delmas 75 assigned to
vote in Bel-air;  Petionville residents assigned to vote in Kenscoff,
etc. etc.).  What was wrong with the old indelible-ink-on-the-finger
system to ensure no one votes more than once?  That system has worked
well in plenty of other third world countries, most recently in Iraq.


As one critic put it yesterday on Port-au-Prince's Radio Métropole,
"The interim government and the CEP are making fun (se moquer) of a
Haitian public that really wants to take this election seriously".
Tragic indeed;  the election has not even taken place yet one is left
with the unsettling suspicion that if Haiti had really wanted a free,
fair, and well-organized election, it would have done well to
sub-contract the whole affair to the United Nations, the OAS, or
perhaps even the Carter Center in Atlanta.

Lance Durban