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28124: Simidor (comment) re 28095: Concannon on Preval (fwd)
From: Daniel Simidor
Once again, Concannon has got himself caught in cheap
Lavalas Family propaganda, and has come up short of an
unbiased or meaningful report.
On the matter of the next parliament, he makes the
point that it will be ?fragmented,? but he cannot
explain why.
Both the parliamentary fragmentation and the
conservative success are the product of two
years of repression against progressive political
against progressive political activists.
Yeah, well. There are FL people in jail, many of them
with cause. But ?progressive politics? is a misnomer
when talking about the likes of Neptune, Privert, Bell
Angelot or Mario Dupuy. These are people who joined
the Aristide bandwagon for personal gain. The more
progressive or grassroots FL members, those who by and
large remained above the fray of ?Grands Mangeurs?
corruption, are not in jail: Prince Sonson Pierre,
Gerald Gilles, Patrick Elie, and a few others. Even
when they got arrested, the Latortue government had to
release them (Jean-Juste). These people chose not to
run in the current elections, mainly because Lavalas
Family is DISCREDITED. Why do you think Preval had to
create his own Lespwa platform?
Other parties close to Fanmi Lavalas, including
Préval's Espwa (Hope) party ran candidates
in some races, but not all. They lacked Lavalas'
organization and name recognition, and the
repression forced them to run a very limited
campaign.
The overwhelming reason why election campaigning was
limited across the board was not political repression,
but the ?insecurity.? And the main culprit behind the
insecurity, the kidnappings and the political violence
rocking the country is none other that the Lavalas
gangs. Everybody knows that except Concannon, or does
he? The St. Marc incident where angry RAMICOS
activists destroyed a Lespwa podium is just that: a
minor incident.
Allies of the IGH, on the other hand, were
able to organize freely at the local level,
and often had the benefit of political
patronage to attract campaign workers
and supporters.
Let?s imagine that Aristide was still in power, and
that political patronage and outright intimidation and
violence were the norm rather than the exception.
Would Concannon, an employee of the Aristide
government, be so virtuous as to denounce Aristide?s
abuses of power? No such virtue was in evidence when
Aristide was last in power.
What Concannon calls a weakness (plurality in the next
parliament), I call strength. In the tradition of
Haitian one-man or one-party rule, Aristide was
prepared to raise heaven and earth to retain absolute
power. Preval on the other hand is showing signs that
he is open to democratic power sharing. Will Preval
be the first Haitian presidentto cross that 200-year
hurdle?
Concannon?s treatise rambles on, but I confess I got
bored and stopped reading.
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