27969: Simidor (comment): Who Benefits from Aristides Return to Haiti? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: daniel simidor <danielsimidor@yahoo.com>

Aristide?s decision to return to play the Nelson
Mandela of Haitian politics, even before Preval?s
inauguration, is very destabilizing.  Even in a
country with such strong and stable institutions, Mr.
Mandela's status as paramount chief of South African
politics places him above Mbeki ? sort of the
relationship between the CEO (Mbeki) and the Chairman
of the Board (Mandela) in many corporations.
Fortunately for South Africa, the real Mandela has
retired for good and gone back to private life

Aristide on the other hand is actively undermining
Preval?s authority, trying to usurp his popular
mandate even while claiming to respect him as
president.  ?The Haitian people saw the vote as a
non-violent way to have me back,? Aristide proclaims
from his exile in South Africa.  ?It was a vote for
me, of course. The people said it clearly, people
voted the way they did because they want me back.?

Let?s face it, Aristide means trouble.  If his sole
intention were ?to continue to invest in education,?
he would have waited at the very least after the
investiture of the new government to make his
announcement.  With this move, Aristide clearly
intends to back Preval into a power-sharing situation
where he will keep the upper hand.  The agenda is no
longer what Preval could or couldn?t do for Haiti, but
how much power Aristide and his followers will be able
to wrestle for themselves.

Sadly, with the new elections and with Preval as the
new president, Haiti finally had a chance to begin
addressing the pressing issues of social justice and
social peace at the heart of the current crisis.
Different social strata were beginning to move,
however grudgingly, toward political consensus, or at
least toward some truce.  A new spring would soon
blossom for the ?first Black Republic...the poorest
country in the Americas,? as the French Le Monde puts
it.

But Aristide had no intention of Haiti going anywhere
without him.  And yet the man who threatened in his
New Year message not to allow ?them? to replace his
?guts? with their ?straw,? is little more than a
puppet in this macabre game where no one in Haiti, not
even Aristide himself, is likely to be a winner.

The big question then is who is pulling the strings?
Those who don?t want Preval?s victory to go to his
head?  Those who don?t want him to feel too
independent, to show too much initiative?  In other
words, those who would allow Preval to be Haiti?s new
president only if he can be made to toe the line, if
his government is divided and weak, dependent on the
so-called international community for its survival?

The best way to keep those crazy dreams of sovereignty
and human development from messing with the program
for Haiti, as outlined in the Interim Cooperation
Framework (CCI) and other important documents and UN
resolutions, is to keep Haitians at each other?s
throats. Aristide?s return at this juncture
accomplishes just that.

Daniel Simidor


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com