#2071: CBS News Sunday Morning (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:Sicla@aol.com

The Washington Post
   
The Reliable Source
By Lloyd Grove
With Beth Berselli
Thursday, January 27, 2000; Page C03 

She's Braver Than Us

* CBS correspondent Rita Braver, wife of Clinton family lawyer Robert 
Bennett, wanted to know if Haiti was any better off after five years and $2 
billion of President Clinton's military occupation policy. Last Thursday, 
while doing some on-camera narration in Port-au-Prince for "CBS News Sunday 
Morning," she got a sharper answer than she bargained for.

"I was scared," Braver told us yesterday, recounting an incident in which 
"two thugs" interrupted her stand-up, emerging from a crowd of angry 
slum-dwellers and confiscating two videocassettes after threatening producer 
James Houtrides, photographer Mario DeCarvalho and sound technician Manny 
Garcia with a chrome-plated Colt .45. "The U.S. permanent support mission in 
Haiti is coming to an end next Monday, so we decided to find out how the 
country was doing. People are very angry at Americans. They were shouting at 
us to go home. It's so poor and the conditions are so depressing. They 
thought the U.S. presence would mean their lives would really change."

But it turns out that the country is "in a shambles," with a powerless police 
force and no sitting parliament, said the just-returned Braver. She said 
DeCarvalho shut off his camera and gave them the tapes after the 
tough-looking guys flashed the gun. Later that day, an expedition back to the 
slum to retrieve the tapes failed, but Braver & Co. returned with enough for 
her Sunday report. As for her husband, Braver said: "From his reaction, I'm 
glad I didn't tell him about this until after I got back."



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