27542: Craig (reply) re: 27535: Nlbo: Boston Globe Article on Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig


On eve of vote, Haitians hope for fresh start

Many view election as chance for rebirth
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff  |  February 6, 2006

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- As darkness settled over the Haitian capital, 
16-year-old Benyada Antoine and her 13-year-old sister, Kechna, weary from a 
day of chores and school, headed to the only place they could study: under a 
street lamp in a local square.

With a rash of kidnappings occurring in the city, the city square is not safe 
at night and the two girls -- who share a one-room apartment with another 
sister and an aunt, forcing the youngsters to sleep on the floor -- are 
sometimes hungry from missing meals. But with no nighttime electricity at home 
because of blackouts, the children regularly spend the evening alone in the 
square, determined to complete an education that could provide a way out of the 
poverty and squalor in which most Haitians live.

Benyada, dressed immaculately in a blue and white school uniform, explained: 
''I want to be somebody tomorrow."

The girls' struggle reflects the mood in this troubled Caribbean nation as it 
prepares for presidential and National Assembly elections tomorrow. Haitians 
are exhausted and desperate after a series of governments have failed to fix 
the underdevelopment, poor health, and high unemployment that keep 80 percent 
of the population in poverty.

But they are also a determined people. Despite their sad history and tragic 
circumstances, many say they are anxious to try again with a new government 
that they hope could be the first step toward healing the nation after two 
years of turmoil and bloodshed.

Haitians who once saw Jean-Bertrand Aristide as their savior when he was first 
elected president in 1990 have been chastened by the turmoil that followed, 
culminating in his controversial ouster two years ago, and by the worsening 
criminal violence since then. Now they are more realistic about the prospects 
for dramatic progress. Many feel this is a last chance to rescue themselves 
from the ranks of the world's failed states.

The elections had been delayed several times because of security and 
organizational problems, and some fear that the polling could become violent. A 
9,000-strong international force of troops, civilians, and police is in the 
former French colony to keep peace and organize elections.

Haiti must learn finally to run itself, said Josué Jouissaint, 30, a mechanic.

''The international community cannot change anything until Haitians put their 
heads together to change the country," Jouissaint said. ''The election is the 
only way."

Posters of the 35 presidential candidates line the metal fence in front of the 
presidential palace, creating a portrait gallery of Haiti's violent and 
politically divided history with its inclusion of former presidents, a guerilla 
leader, and an accused killer.

The winner will succeed an interim government that took over in 2004 after 
Aristide, a charismatic leader loved by Haiti's poorest citizens but detested 
by others who deemed him incompetent and corrupt, was forced into exile.

Aristide's supporters in the US Congress and in his strongholds in 
Port-au-Prince's slums believe Aristide was kidnapped and forced out of the 
country by the US government, a charge the US rejects.

Leading the pack of presidential contenders is René Préval, who was president 
for five years between Aristide's two terms. Préval was a leader in the Lavalas 
movement, with Aristide, to oust former dictator Jean-Claude ''Baby Doc" 
Duvalier, and some of the poor in Port-au-Prince dream that he will bring back 
Aristide from exile.

But Préval is not seen as a hard-core Aristide loyalist and has formed with 
other Lavalas defectors a new party, Lespwa. Another former president, Leslie 
Manigat, is also running.

Préval faces such opposition as Guy Philippe, a brash young guerrilla leader 
who headed the rebellion against Aristide in 2004 and forced him to leave to 
save his own life. Philippe, who wore a military uniform during and after the 
rebellion, crowing about his victory in street parades, is now pictured in a 
business suit in his campaign posters.

Several other candidates have ties to Haiti's violent past, including Franck 
Romain, an army officer during the hated Duvalier regime, and Dany Toussaint, 
who is suspected of involvement in the killing of a prominent journalist in 
2000.

''When you look at the slate, they are the same players coming back. They don't 
seem to have any real program," said Marc Prou, head of the Haitian Studies 
Program at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. ''It's probably a long 
way [to go], but we are being very optimistic. Without an election, it will be 
very difficult for the country to move forward."

Haitian citizens and specialists on the country say the race has come down to 
two camps -- Préval and everyone else, with Préval commanding support from the 
same Port-au-Prince slums that backed Aristide and which continue to dream of 
his return.

In the fetid neighborhood La Saline, spray-painted slogans extolling Aristide 
display a defiant allegiance to the former leader. While Préval does not have 
the charisma or emotional hold over the population that Aristide had, ''we're 
going to vote for him en masse," said Rosemary Joseph, 31, eating rice from a 
pot lid. ''We're going to vote for a team of people who are willing to make 
changes."

Guy Vard, who is 45 and unemployed, said: ''Everything is in shambles here. We 
get electricity one to three hours a day; we don't get water." He said Haiti 
needs ''a team" to solve its problems, and while he has affection for Aristide, 
he said Haitians should not expect one man to transform the country.

''We are learning from our mistakes," Vard said.

Daniel Supplice, a liberal senatorial candidate, said Haitians in the past have 
voted ''with emotion, and not with reason."

''We are always picking the wrong people," said Supplice, whose party does not 
have a candidate running for president. ''The people [now] claim that they have 
seen so many things, heard so many lies, they think that they . . . will make a 
different choice" this time.

Tragedy is evident in Haiti, where the life expectancy is less than 53 years, 
with AIDS adding to the infant mortality and early death rate for adults. 
Barely half of Haitians are literate, and more than two-thirds of the labor 
force do not have formal jobs.

Some families are so poor, said Paula Thybulle, who runs an orphanage for girls 
in the Delmas neighborhood, that they send children to live in an orphanage 
because they can't afford to feed them. Yet some Haitians scrape together what 
little they have to send their children to school, aware that an education -- 
even in Haiti's poorly equipped schools -- is their best way out of poverty.

Few children can attend free public school in Haiti, and the remainder must pay 
to go to private schools, where monthly tuitions of $12 to $25 are well beyond 
the means of many Haitians, said Matthew Marek, director of Norwich Mission 
House, which provides scholarships to needy children.

Léane Augustin, 15, spent much of her childhood as a ''reste avec," the term 
for children whose parents send them to live with someone else in exchange for 
work around the house. Many such children are abused by their host parents but 
have nowhere else to go.

''I was the first one awake, and the last one to go to sleep," Léane said, 
recalling her long work days. But she said the work enabled her to go to 
school. She now attends school thanks to a Norwich Mission House scholarship, 
but she must study by candlelight at night because her Delmas neighborhood 
barely gets electricity. ''Sometimes I don't have a meal. I study anyway. 
Sometimes I don't have books. I borrow books to study. I go to great lengths," 
she said.

Students who manage to go to college can make $6,000 a year or more -- a 
life-changing sum in a nation where many live on $2 a day, said Conor Bohan, 
founder of the Haitian Education & Leadership Program, which provides college 
scholarships.

Claudin Daniel, 23, was orphaned at 9 and struggled to finish high school, 
sometimes unable to scrape together the 10 cents a day it took to ride the 
local ''tap-tap" bus to school. Now, he is studying to be a technician and 
hopes his education will allow him to stay in Haiti.

''I'm not expecting any change in the government to change my life. My future 
depends on my education," Daniel said. 
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/02/06/on_eve_of_vote_haitians_hope_for_fresh_start/