27422: (news) Chamberlain: Haitians-Elections (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By JENNIFER KAY

   MIAMI BEACH, Fla., Feb 1 (AP) -- Many of the half-million Haitians
living in the United States are eyeing the upcoming election in their
impoverished homeland with skepticism, worried about the violence that has
wracked the nation since the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
nearly two years ago.
   "Election is not the solution, but we need it," said James Henfield,
chef at Tap Tap, a Haitian restaurant. "We need to see new people ...
somebody who can do something for the country, not for his pocket."
   The vote is scheduled for Tuesday, but Haiti has postponed the elections
four times because of the violence and organizational problems.
   Despite the presence of 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers, some 1,500 civilians
have been killed in the nation of 8 million people since Aristide fled in
February 2004 amid a bloody rebellion and accusations of corruption. A wave
of kidnappings and killings has been blamed on street gangs, some allegedly
allied with the exiled former president.
   Haiti also has been wracked by devastating natural disasters, with
thousands of people killed in recent years by landslides triggered by
hurricanes and floods.
   Henfield, 52, like other Haitians living abroad, cannot vote, but he
said his sisters, nieces and nephews in Haiti plan to do so. He would not
say which of the 35 presidential candidates they'll support for fear it
could make them targets of violence. Earlier this month, he said, two
former neighbors in Port-au-Prince were kidnapped.
   "I want elections to happen because I don't want a country like that
when I go home. I want to be safe," he said.
   He would like to go home in May for his mother's birthday, but is
worried about the violence.
   Haitians living abroad sent home more than $1 billion in 2004 to help
relatives survive Haiti's crushing poverty, according to the Inter-American
Development Bank.
   But the insecurity there means the financial assistance is only a
short-term fix, says Garry Pierre-Pierre, publisher of The Haitian Times, a
bilingual weekly newspaper based in New York.
   "They keep sending money to the country and it's like throwing money
away," Pierre-Pierre said. "What good is a place if you can't invest in
it?"
   Many members of Aristide's Lavalas Family party plan to vote for
front-runner Rene Preval, who was Haiti's president from 1995 to 2001, but
he will have to earn their trust, said Jean Yvon Kernizan, host of a weekly
show for the New York-based pro-Lavalas Radio Soleil.
   "Aristide, he was a priest, and that made him very tolerant. Preval is
not a priest, so Preval will not hesitate to take the necessary steps in
order to have the law obeyed," Kernizan said.