24741: Mwe (reply) re: 24737: Simidor re: 24726: Mwe re: 24725: Beckett: about travel to...

[sak-pase@bimini.ws]

LOCCM@aol.com


Thank you for your response.  My father Reverend George Hawthorn. had 
been working in Haiti since 1971 establishing an orphanage, churches, 
schools and drilling wells.  I came to help him 36 times and then for 12 
years I couldn't come because of my job.  My father had a franchise and 
brought containers of food etc. into the country duty free.  When my 
father died at age 82, his board asked me to resume the work.  My 
brother gave me the truck and I shipped it figuring that it would be 
duty free.  The men I hired, kept telling me that they would get it out 
of customs at a reasonable cost.  They finally ran out of time and I 
assume that they were probably in on the scam.  When I complained that 
we had a franchise, I was told that it had been canceled and that I 
would have to see the minister of finance.  He refused to talk to me for 
days but finally, I held him physically and insisted that he speak to 
me.  He produced a large file on our ministry and said that the 
franchise had been canceled because someone had been bringing in 
boatloads of sugar on our franchise.  He agreed that it was not me or my 
father and it dawned on me that it must have been him because he knew 
all the details and could clear the paperwork.  I bribed him and he told 
me that I would have to go to the department of cults and get a new 
franchise.  They kept making me pay hundreds of dollars saying that they 
just needed one more paper signed after another until I refused to pay 
them any more.  That was 10years ago and we are operating without 
recognition from the government there.  Recently 7 men, one woman and 
two policemen came to my house and began yelling at me in Creole.  They 
flashed a paper but would not let me read it.  I asked them to quit 
yelling and one of the policemen holding  a gun, shouted "go" and pushed 
me out of the yard and into a car where they took me at gunpoint to C du 
B to an office where a judge? insisted that I pay $700.They left me 
standing in the street without a penny and seven miles from home.  I 
have chosen to spend the remaining years of my life working in Haiti but 
am bullied, robbed and mistreated by the government continually.  I 
still maintain joy in the work and plan to continue as long as I am 
physically able.

John Ba Mwe