27522: (news) Chamberlain: Haitians abroad want a voice in election (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Jane Sutton

     MIAMI, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Expatriates who account for the vast majority
of educated Haitians and send home money equal to more than a quarter of
their homeland's economic output are frustrated at their utter exclusion
from Tuesday's election.
     "We still love Haiti and want to give back what Haiti gave us," said
Dr. Joseph Baptiste, a Haitian-born Maryland dentist who heads the National
Organization for the Advancement of Haitians and has obtained U.S.
citizenship.
     "We are still their brother and we are not going to let them starve,"
he said. Yet, "when I go to Haiti right now, my brother is Haitian but I am
not."
     One in eight Haitians has settled outside the chaotic, impoverished
Caribbean nation, seeking better opportunities or escape from repression
and violence. Many live in Florida, New York, Canada, France and
neighboring Caribbean nations
     Eighty percent of Haitians with college degrees live abroad. Their
homeland's per capita income is under $2 a day.
     Expatriates cannot vote from abroad in Tuesday's presidential
election, because there are no absentee ballots. Those with dual
citizenship cannot vote or run for office because the Haitian constitution
considers them foreigners.
     Haitians living abroad sent back more than $1 billion in remittances
in 2004, equal to more than one-fourth of the country's annual economic
output, the Inter American Development Bank, World Bank and U.S. State
Department said.
     "It is only family to family, friend to friend, or people who send
money to projects they accept or view as being useful," said Fequiere
Vilsaint, a biochemist who founded a Florida publishing company that
distributes English and Creole texts and has written a book about the
Haitian diaspora.
     Expatriate groups send doctors to Haiti, lobby for foreign aid, fund
schools and orphanages and build pumping systems that provide clean
drinking water in rural areas.
     But they say "diaspora" is uttered as an insult among Haitians in
their homeland who consider expatriates "false Haitians" and welcome their
money but not their votes.
     "Thanks to our money and our work, this country is still alive. And it
is not very normal that we are not participating in the elections," said
Lorfils Rejouis, president of the PAFHA, an umbrella group for
organizations among the 60,000 Haitians living in France.
     The group Baptiste heads, known as NOAH, offered to organize and fund
absentee voting at Haitian embassies and consulates but was rebuffed in
fear that expatriates would try to take over the government, he said.
     Nonetheless, Haitian candidates trooped to Haitian-American churches
and community centers to solicit campaign donations and encourage emigres
to press their cause back home.
     "I would guess people sending money to their family could also
influence their choice for political selection," said Vilsaint, who met at
least six candidates campaigning among south Florida's 245,000 Haitian
residents.
     Several Haitian expatriates said the diaspora vote would probably
divide along the same educational, economic and social lines as back home,
but hope the new president and parliament will amend the constitution to
give them a say next time.
     Many also hope to return to their homeland but are reluctant to open
businesses or invest in a nation where corruption, theft and kidnapping go
largely unpunished.
     "Because of the kidnappings and all of that, everybody's scared. You
can't even trust your friends in Haiti. If you go there everybody says
'He's from the United States and has a lot of money,'" said Pascal Sinvil,
29, a security guard at a doughnut shop in a Haitian neighborhood in New
York.
     "All the Haitians in America want to go back but there's too much
violence. All we want is a change."

     (Additional reporting by Kerstin Gehmlich in Paris and Dan Trotta in
New York)