#5282: Re: #5258: LONNIE DUNN (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Moibibi@aol.com

Lonnie Dunn!!!

    I knew Lonnie Dunn very well. To give an idea of what kind of a man he 
was, I recall his questions as we were approaching the decorticating machines 
(nine of them at the time) where his employees were performing very 
diligently:

    - "As I started here, it was so nice to hear those people singing while 
they were working. Can anyone tell me why they have stopped?"

    ... of course, nobody answered, I could just feel my heart jumping.

    He left Haiti with a considerable debt to our National Bank, a few 
millions dollars, some people said it was ten millions. I guess it was taking 
advantage of this opportunity that the Cassis brothers bought the concession. 
They were already known as sisal brokers who sold their product to the 
Dominican Republic. The location of the Dauphin plantation was quite 
convenient for Miguel Cassis.

    Later on,  Dominican entrepreneurs were interested in buying it too in 
order to extend their free zones but it was at the time of our "revolution" 
and the church had already allocated much of the land to the cultivators of 
the area (each family could cultivate one acre, usually it was "pistaches"). 
Most of the machinery, particularly the power plant had been stolen, well it 
had become a much too complicated situation.

    Lonnie Dunn was the perfect shark, charming, entelijan! Just the kind who 
always land in Haiti and instead of helping us, plucks our last feathers.

    For Markus Schwartz:

Did they have a union? 
Certainly not it was a state in the state. Though at the time of the 
Pettigrew and the Clark brothers, the employees were well treated and happy, 
they had schools for their children, hospital, the people of Paulette and 
Fort Liberté were given electricity and water, etc..
.
Own land? Yes, some of them.

Have a company store with credit that kept them in debt? No need to, Lonnie 
Dunn's accountant knew every conceivable way of squeezing the money out of 
the employees before it got into their pockets! Here is one of them: he was 
always late on paying but lent them money in between at "taux usuriers" and 
by the time they were paid... nothing was left!

Bébé Pierre Louis

P.S.: I fully  agree with those who are getting bored with the same 
unilateral old arguments from our cyber-Cacos