30155: Boswell (reply) RE: Cite Soleil (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From:  Richard A. Boswell <boswellr@pacbell.net>

I am heading off tonight taking a group of law students to Haiti.  We
will be in Port au Prince for a couple of days and then travel on to
other locations where we will hopefully do some things that are
beneficial to the people there.  We will not be visiting Cite Soleil
because the folks that we have working with us on the ground say that
it is not safe.  While Cite Soleil is a dangerous place, I am
saddened by the characterization by some who have commented on this
list -- those comments leave one with impression that the
commentators believe that there is nothing or little of redeeming
value of its poor inhabitants.  It is this kind of attitude that
permits the dehumanization of those who live in Cite Soleil.  I don't
doubt that there are criminal elements in Cite Soleil, any less than
they exist in my own community.  But I would not want to paint with
such a broad brush such as to marginalize and deprive any of its
inhabitants of the human rights to which they are all entitled.  The
folks who live there  do not have the luxury of choice to move to
some place where they might again be regarded as human.

As long as there is this attitude that basically writes off a group
of people such as to deny them their basic rights, Haiti cannot
expect to move forward.  Then again, as an American, I have a lot to
account for when my government is just as quick to deny a group basic
protections under the law.

Richard Boswell
boswellr@pacbell.net