#3574: The coup against the people's electoral rights goes on... (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:Haiti123@aol.com

The U.S., in it's scramble to control Haiti's electoral process and its 
outcomes, has chosen its next ambassor to Haiti and his mandate is already 
becoming evident. 

Before even arriving in Haiti or presenting his credentials to Haiti's 
president for approval, the new U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, career diplomat 
Brian Dean Curran, is already issuing "facts" to Haiti's government and 
electoral council.

In a May 11th Miami Herald article by Frank Davies, the new ambassador is 
quoted as saying, ``We have made clear that the failure to ensure prompt and 
credible elections -- followed by the rapid seating of a parliament with full 
powers -- will risk isolating Haiti from the community of democracies, 
jeopardize future cooperation and undermine the legitimacy of presidential 
elections later this year. This is not a threat, but a statement of fact.'' 

The U.S. is playing hardball this week after Haiti's government declared the 
IFES representative, Micheline Begin, persona non grata after discovering 
that she was acting in bad faith and was far from forthright in her dealings 
with the Haitian government and Haiti's electoral council.

It was revealed that Ms. Begin, in an attempt to shift the blame onto the 
Haitian government and electoral council for electoral delays that were 
originally recommended by IFES, had filed an internal report to her bosses in 
Washington which directly contradicted her official report.  

Through its accussations, the internal IFES report would serve to frame the 
local and parlimentary elections as not legitimate creating a basis for 
international concern over the legitimacy of the upcoming presidential 
elections.  

The interesting part of the new ambassador's message was the question of the 
presidential outcome.  Presumably their plan is to wait for the conclusion of 
the presidential elections and if the outcome, which may largely be under the 
control of the newly and illegally empowered CNO, is not to their liking, 
they can parade the  IFES internal report around, if they haven't done so 
already.

As for the Espace and their collaborators, its no surprise that they are 
moving to  boycott the elections claiming insecurity as the rationale.  (As 
former Deputy Alex Filse Aime pointed out it is those same persons alleging 
their inability to participate because of insecurity who created the 
insecurity of the 1991-1994 coup d'etat! ) 

There is no way the Espace and their collaborators can go to elections and 
risk losing miserably at the ballot because they have no constituents 
throughout the country.   By not going to elections, they can maintain their 
position of power and legitimacy in the eyes of the world all the while 
proclaiming that the elections were not valid.  Meanwhile, they can continue 
to receive their funding from their Washington sources and hold on to hope 
that through their efforts they can discredit the presidential elections and 
be handsomely rewarded. 

-end-



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