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| Fri, 02-27-2004 - 8:43pm |
A December visit to Haiti proves telling
YO! Youth Outlook, Voleine Amilcar,
Feb 25, 2004
Applause rang through the cabin as we landed smoothly on Haitian soil at 8 a.m. on December 23 at Toussaint LÃoverture airport. I walked out into the hot and breezy air of Port au Prince – the city in which I was born – not yet fully internalizing that I was in Haiti; a country I only knew through my parents, books and my faded childhood memories from the eight years that I lived there.
Even amidst the happiness of returning, I knew that I had witnessed the quiet before the storm. So when reports of an anti-government uprising began circulating in the media, on Feb. 5, a month after my trip back “homeâ€, I was not surprised. I knew 2004, the year of Haiti’s Bicentennial would be used as the stage for the elite – the opposition – to strike against the popular government of Aristide. You could feel the tension in the streets.
I hadn’t stepped foot on Haitian soil since I left in 1986 and immigrated to California. My Californian existence was very much “Haitianâ€, but even my best efforts to stay grounded in my culture couldn’t mask the emptiness I felt from being away from Haiti for so long. My objective in returning to Haiti was to receive an unbiased glance of actual life in the “western hemisphere’s poorest country†and to celebrate her 200 years of independence.
Everywhere around me people seemed on edge. But it wasn’t until I stumbled into a pro-Aristide manifestasyon (protest) that I fully understood the systematic disinformation campaign being waged within and outside of Haiti.
The streets were flooded with over ten thousand pro-Aristide demonstrators who marched close to the national palace, shouting, “too much blood shed, we need peace.†These were the supporters that many in the U.S. and foreign press have dubbed as non-existent. They exist and they represent the majority of the poor who want a more equal distribution of the country’s wealth. Many of the youth -- holding crumbled posters of Aristide-- shouted, “Aristide cinq ans!†(Aristide five years!) in defiance of the bourgeoisie and U.S.’s pressure for Aristide to end his term before his five years are over due to false accusations of mismanagement of the country. Witnessing the overwhelming popular support for Aristide was a definitive part of my trip. Not surprisingly, the demonstration was later reported in the elite-owned media as only a small gathering of 500 people.
The entire article is at:
http://youthoutlook.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=552da9cb83a86d6ef1ca777cd5792b9a

A very different take on what was happening there.
It now appears Aristide will not be finishing his 5yr. term.
cl-nwtreehugger
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I guess some places are not prepared for democracy! Unfortunately, I don't know enoubh about this issue to contemplate a stance. Perhaps Edwards is correct when he says we need to learn the the US can't just go in settle the turmoil and leave--we need to stay to make sure the democracy is functioning.