7926: Pancho Villa and Haiti

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

>From Richard Morse

I'm reading the memoirs of Pancho Villa (Guzman/Taylor, U. of Texas Press) 
and though I don't yet know how the book ends, Senor Villa has a couple of 
quotes early in the book that have an interesting perspective to me,
having 
lived this past decade and a half in Haiti. I might also add that I'm not 
advocating the violence by which Pancho Villa lived, but rather the
essence 
of these words. 

1) p.52  Villa says"...I had not fought for the money but only for the 
victory of the people, and would retire to work for my living if the 
guarantees he (President Madero) had made were honored now that the 
revolution had triumphed." 

2) p.54 in a description of one of the victorious military men, Villa
says: 
"Now Orozco, under the title of Chief of the Military Zone, had made
himself 
king of Chihuahua. He forgot our cause. He had elegant secretaries and 
devoted himself to society in the company of our enemies." 

Some people in Haiti, after "the return" in '94, believed that the
government 
should continue to be a vehicle for attaining personal wealth and they 
embraced the traditions of deceit and manipulation, rather than creating
an 
environment whereby Haiti, and the region, could benefit as a whole. They 
replaced the defeated regime rather than seeking the changes that had been 
fought for. 

Richard Morse