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[Odler]

http://www.jeanlouie.com/

March 1, 2004

Aristide fled Haiti leaving a few legitimate questions behind.

It was just shown to the Haitian people that they can force a

democratically elected president to resign by starting an armed rebellion

with a few hundreds ragtag soldiers. Was it the right to do?

Where will this process stop? Who will, in the future, be the guarantor

of the Constitution? What is stronger: the written rules or the pistols?

Is Aristide?s departure a coup from the State Department, headed by

Republicans unhappy with him since the 1990s?

Are global powers, such as France and the U.S., dedicated to maintain

democracy in Haiti? If yes, why don?t they support the constitutional

institutions? Why didn?t they send the Marines in last week? Why didn?t

they mediate the problem last year?

Will it have been better to build a coalition government with Aristide as

a figurehead President, and a technocrat as the PM/chief of government?

Aristide was an incompetent demagogue with electoral problems. Some say

just like Bush. But in the U.S, we respect the rules of the game, Bush

will do four years. Could the same be done in Haiti?

Has the democratic process derailed in Haiti? If you don?t play by the

rules, your opponent will not play by the rules. Isn?t it? So, when is

the next coup, the next rebellion?

Are Aristide?s opponents any better than he was? Narco-traffickers? Civil

right violators? Murderers?

What is worse than Aristide? Chaos? Anarchy? Lawlessness?

The perennial loser, in all of this, is the Haitian people: children who

miss classes, fathers who can?t make it to work, mothers who can?t go

grocery shopping, businessmen who can?t travel, etc.

If Haitians are to govern themselves, shouldn?t they set the rules to

agree to disagree? What are the rules of engagement?

(OdlerRobert Jeanlouie, Monday, March 01, 2004)