#3238: Letter to the editor: A response

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:Jepiem@aol.com

Of course, my suggestion to get rid of the politicians was thrown in 
figuratively out of frustration rather than as a practical litterally meant 
proposition. There's no question that in a medium like Haiti where the 
majority is in the expectative to "get in", that is to find a suitable 
government position at any level to ensure of a paycheck or to be able to 
skim off whatever comes your way, because of the high level of poverty and 
unemployment, no sooner than you get rid of a group of corrupt politicians, 
another group would take its place, like the waves of the sea. And this is 
exactly what happens at every change of government. In fact, the new wave 
won't even wait for the preceeding one to reach shore, hence the repeated 
coup d'etats of which our history is so rich. What I really have in mind when 
I say "throwi out the politicians" is devising and planning programs that 
would practically bypass established government and would be executed to 
directly help raise the standard of living of the population. In a country 
like Haiti, this is highly possible. There are of course programs that are of 
such a scale that they require the participation of government, like general 
public health programs, agrarian reform, revamping and upgrading of 
education, the justice system and police, upgrading of the countries 
utilities and so on and so forth. Even there it would not be impossible to 
start by doing evaluation programs and presenting the results directly to 
foreign governments with requests for assistance and pressure on the Haitian 
government to get them executed under diaspora Haitian and foreign 
supervision. You can not completely eliminate graft of course, but such an 
approach would go a long way towards improving the standard of living of the 
population and with that gradually reduce the dependency on state employment 
to survive and hence the graft and corruption. Neither can you do anything on 
a grand scale without assistance or at least the benediction of established 
powers or else, they would stand in your way sabotage you at every step. 
That's why you need the cooperation of locals who know best how to negotiate 
your way through those potential mine fields. Enough talking. Haitians both 
in Haiti and abroad and foreigners need to band together and form a sort of 
separate non govrnemental organization with a different scope than the 
traditional NGOs and take the case of Haiti into their hands. This would 
indeed be the best form of government, being made up of voluntaries. This is 
no easy task there's a whole country going down the drain or should I say 
down the sea, being carried down by the avalanches ( Lavalass?) of the rainy 
seasons. We need to take measures so that the rainy water instead of going 
down with the arable land to the sea is stored for the benefit of the 
population. And that can be done without street demonstrations without 
rioting without firing a gun, without having to kill anyone. There will still 
be obstacles. Some of our big brothers who are clamoring for democracy will 
want to know what we are up to and won't help if we don't follow their 
scheme. It is very clear from observation of distant and recent past that 
they want to have their hands in everything to make sure we don't deviate 
from the written scenario. Some examples are the story of Grenada with 
Maurice Bishop, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo and Fidel Castro in Cuba. In 
Haiti, I don't think you need to go far to find the footprints of the CIA or 
the direct attempts at intimidation of the Haitian government by big brother. 
Just look at the episodes in the saga of the on again off again elections and 
the role being played by representatives of various branches of the US 
government and lately even the Japanese government if you need any 
convincing. A good place for us to start would be to gather a group away from 
the general group and start thinking and planning strategy on how we can best 
help Haiti out of this continuous impasse. It's not going to be a one shot 
kind of deal. The group of today may not see tangible results from its 
efforts, but a solid organization would carry through the torch long after we 
are gone. When enough Haitians of good will have been formed through that 
process, they would gradually take on more and more of the load and BE THE 
GOVERNMENT. And that's how you would :"throw out the politicians"