28157: Hermantin(News)Bush's aid plan fails to draw wide support (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Gov. Bush's plan to aid Haiti fails to draw wide support


Bush's aid plan fails to draw wide support



By Alva James-Johnson
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

March 26, 2006



Gov. Jeb Bush's vision for a Florida plan to aid Haiti included efforts to 
improve security, host political reconciliation talks, prepare for disasters 
and develop the impoverished nation's economy.

But a year after the governor's Haiti Advisory Group recommended assistance to 
Florida's Caribbean neighbor, the state has made little progress toward those 
goals, some Haitian Americans say.

The advisory group, set up in July 2004, called for a state-funded entity to 
manage an ongoing Florida-Haiti initiative. Despite the Republican Bush's 
status as a strong governor whose party controls both houses of the 
Legislature, the governor could not win $1 million in recommended funding.

Florida also delayed work on an ambitious goal: to "sponsor and host" National 
Dialogue and Reconciliation talks between Haitian political forces and parties. 
At the suggestion of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Bush 
postponed the conference pending the Haitian elections. Haiti held a 
presidential election in February and scheduled a legislative runoff for April 
21.

State officials and members of volunteer groups have made some technical 
training and information gathering trips to Haiti, but the advisory group's 25 
proposals largely remain a wish list.

"They have to put the money where their mouth is," said Dr. Aldy Castor, a 
Weston gynecologist and Republican who served on the task force. "If not, this 
will turn out like many initiatives in Haiti -- 1 million projects without a 
mission."

Still, Castor commended Bush for setting up the taskforce. He also blamed the 
lack of progress on Haiti's interim government and political upheaval in the 
country.

But another task force member, state Rep. Phillip Brutus, D-Miami, said the 
recommendations have "sat on the shelf gathering dust," because neither 
Tallahassee nor Washington has the will to foster real change in Haiti.

The largest expatriate Haitian community lives in Florida. They're among those 
living abroad who send more than $1 billion in remittances annually to their 
homeland.

When the advisory group submitted its report a year ago, some Haitian Americans 
greeted it with enthusiasm because Haiti's interim prime minister, Gerard 
Latortue, a former Boca Raton retiree, was in power. They hoped his connection 
to South Florida would allow Haitian-Americans to play a greater role in 
stabilizing the country.

A U.S.-backed group of "eminent Haitians" appointed Latortue prime minister in 
2004 after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide left during a bloody 
rebellion.

Last month, the Haitian Electoral Council declared a former Aristide protege, 
René Préval, president amid controversial results.

Bush spokesman Russell Schweiss said the governor included the $1 million for 
the Haiti initiative in his recommended state budget last year, but could not 
convince state legislators to fund it. Bush will try again, Schweiss said.

The governor's office helped send volunteers to Haiti to conduct disaster 
preparedness and economic development workshops, and to develop plans to 
address the HIV virus and AIDS, according to a staff report. The state 
Legislature also gave the Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the 
Caribbean and the Americas $650,000 for missions to the Caribbean with special 
emphasis on Haiti. That was $150,000 more than Florida gave the organization in 
2004.

"The governor's office will continue to work to implement the recommendations 
of the advisory group," Schweiss said.

Dan Erikson, an analyst with the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think 
tank, said the governor's plan could succeed if it extends beyond his term to 
the next Florida administration and is continued by his successor. Any effort 
to help rebuild the impoverished nation should be judged on a long-term basis, 
Erikson said.

States can do little to change a foreign country, but Florida is in a unique 
position because of its proximity to Haiti and the governor's relationship to 
the president, Erikson said

"It's only an hour-and-a-half plane ride away, and there's no state in the 
union better positioned be useful than Florida," he said. "But obviously there 
are going to be limitations."

Still, some think the Republican governor and his task force did not go far 
enough.

"The governor has the good fortune to have the House and the Senate controlled 
by his party," said Jean-Robert Lafortune, president of Haitian American 
Grassroots Coalition in Miami. "If he says he has failed to get funding for 
those initiatives being proposed by the advisory board, I think this is an 
indication of his leadership or his commitment regarding Haiti."

Lafortune said many Haitian Americans wanted temporary protected status for 
Haitian refugees trying to escape political turmoil in their homeland.

Temporary protected status allows foreign nationals who might have slipped into 
the United States illegally, overstayed their visas, or who are seeking asylum, 
to live and work in the United States without being deported.

"The fact that the advisory board didn't make TPS a priority sent a bad vibe to 
the Haitian community here," Lafortune said. "It seems the advisory board had a 
political aim to it, instead of a humanitarian aim that people think it should 
have. It was just a way for the governor to appease the Haitian community by 
showing that he's doing something good."

Marie Florence Bell, a Republican who was chairwoman of the now dissolved 
advisory group, said it chose to focus on security, disaster preparedness, 
economic development and the environment.

"Immigration is not one of our key areas because there are other people on the 
forefront of immigration," she said.

Bell said the state delayed a student exchange program and other initiatives 
because of political upheaval in Haiti, but the governor's office is working on 
them. She expects Bush to obtain funding this year.

"He's committed to completing all his obligations before the end of his term," 
she said. "That's what he said and I believe him."

Alva James-Johnson can be reached at ajjohnson@sun-sentinel.com or 
954-356-4523.


Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel