Honest Diplomat Weeded Out of OAS

The Organization of American States' Haiti rep Richard Seitenfus was on his way out anyway, but he managed to hasten his departure by displaying candor uncharacteristic of OAS offiicals, freeing up the post for a lying prick. WKMA wishes Doutor Seitenfus the best in his future endeavors.

"Seitenfus said in the interview published Dec. 20 that the U.N. had 'imposed' the presence of its troops in Haiti despite the fact that the country was not involved in a civil war.

"Haiti is not an international threat. We’re not in a situation of civil war. Haiti is neither Iraq nor Afghanistan. However, the (U.N.) Security Council, given the lack of any alternative, has imposed the blue helmets since 2004, after the exit of the president (Jean-Bertrand Aristide),” the OAS diplomat told Switzerland’s Le Temps.

"The Brazilian diplomat, who had been scheduled to leave the post anyway in the coming months, also said in the interview that Haiti 'is on the international stage mainly due to its great proximity to the United States. Haiti has been the object of negative attention on the part of the international system. For the U.N., this is about freezing power and transforming the Haitians into prisoners on their own island,' namely Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.

"The Haitians committed the unacceptable in 1804 (the year of their independence): a crime of lèse majesté for an anxious world. The West (was) then a colonial, slave-holding and racist world that based its wealth on the exploitation of conquered lands. So, the Haitian revolutionary model made the great powers afraid,” Seitenfus said.

"The OAS official also analyzed the role of non-governmental organizations in Haiti, in particular after the Jan. 12 earthquake, and he said that 'the cooperative (organizations) that arrived after the quake are not very old; they came to Haiti without any experience ... (and) after the earthquake, the professional quality fell a great deal. There exists a maleficent or perverse relationship between the NGOs’ strength and the Haitian state’s weakness.”

Who hired this guy?

The last line is one that particularly bears repeating: all those people 'doing good things' in Haiti are not only a poor replacement for autonomous civic institutions, but working almost exclusively on behalf of those who have systematically and persistently destroyed those institutions.

Haiti election preview

Since my promise to “comment further.. on the roman-fleuve sans Clef that the Haitian presidential field represents” there has been a procession of pro-Lavalas voices calling for a boycott of the election, and no shortage of reasons for its boycott, including the exclusion of a party with the overwhelming support of the public and piles of allegations of election corruption including charges by at least two candidates that the party backed by the incumbent is distributing weapons to its gangs for election violence. During that time, support by likely voters inclined to support Lavalas has coalesced behind Jean Henry Céant, a former Lavalas insider and close aid to Aristide that, though not as well-known as Yvon Neptune before the race, has run a much better campaign and has more unambiguously opposed Préval and spoken in support of Lavalas. One of the voices calling for a boycott is Aristide, which may lower turnout for Céant.

You can read the US papers and find out who the small upper class supports: Préval choice Jude Célestin, who supervises Haiti's backhoe equipment; Joseph Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, who like Wyclef Jean is an anti-Aristide hip hop artist with friends in Duvalier's military; Charles Henri Baker, an industrialist that received 8% of the vote against Préval in 2006; and former senator Myrlande Hyppolite Manigat, whose husband, Leslie, received 12% for second in 2006. Célestin will be hurt by Préval's enormous unpopularity but he has name recognition from being on billboards all over the country and is the most likely beneficiary of corruption; Manigat may lead this set of candidates.

No reliable polls have been published, but with the choice of a vast majority of the voters somewhat unified and that of the elites more divided, with a clean election you could easily anticipate a margin for Céant above the 50% needed to avoid a runoff, but I'd expect a runoff of Céant and Manigat. I can't imagine Céant losing a runoff.

This is indeed an ugly election owing to Lavalas' exclusion, displaced voters, a notable percentage of voters without the required ID card, and a cholera epidemic which numerous health experts say is greatly exceeding reported numbers of victims and has led to widespread demonstrations against UN military presence. A victory for Céant offers the possibility of the restoration of Haitian autonomy, rebuilding of civic institutions which were lacking before the earthquake, and promise of legality of elections in which Fanmi Lavalas is allowed to field candidates in the future and Aristide's safety is assured after he's issued a new passport. Céant may betray these goals and I'm not going to offer prescriptions from my safe American home about boycotting or not boycotting, but holding out for justice for a wronged party apparatus may temporarily be less important than uniting behind someone who promises to restore it, even though Préval, not so long ago, made that same promise.

Happy Holloween From WKMA

ce n'est pas une sorcière