#4224: Post election arrests: Chamberlain replies to Pina (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

______________________________

Kevin Pina wrote:

> The US was also running a simultaneous sham 
> at reforming the judicial system in Haiti (remember
> the CBS expose of Mrs. Forbes "little shop of USAID 
> horrors").

Kevin, you know as well as I do that there are plenty 
of other efforts and programmes with a variety of 
foreign funding that are involved in reforming and 
rebuilding the justice system.  So why, to "prove" your
point that the US is a perpetual villain, do you imply 
that one screwed up programme comprises the 
entire effort?

You wouldn't get Mike Norton's job either (any more
Simidor would) with that kind of methodology and 
reasoning!

Blaming the messenger and picking out exceptions
as representing the whole is a scoundrel's last
resort.  You yourself, with your organic marketing 
outfit, are doing exactly what serious foreigners 
should be doing to help Haiti.  Don't forget to give
others credit too.  Being on the spot, you see lots
of them every day.  For a start, hats off to Brian
Concannon for his dogged efforts over several
years to get the Raboteau massacre trial on the 
road, a trial which is on the point of taking off.

But the original poster's question remains:
Isn't it odd how the cops could pick up those
30 odd people in a flash and yet can pick up
very few "real" criminals?  Is this an example 
of Kevin's "new professional police force 
struggling from within and without to contain
the problem" of street crime?  Hmm...

The problem of deported criminals from the US
is a Caribbean and Central American wide
problem/scandal.  But again, let's not jump on
it at once in a frenetic daily drive to find a 
scapegoat for everything.  Or pretend that these
deportees are entirely responsible for _all_
the street crime etc., which is what everyone
has been assuming.  Perhaps Corbetteer
Michelle Karshan, who runs a welfare and 
assimilation programme for these youths, 
can tell us a bit more and possibly "demystify"
the issue.  Have most of the deportees been 
in jail for serious crimes or are they mostly 
petty criminals?  And are the deportations 
"a bending of international law" as Kevin 
says?


        Greg Chamberlain