IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO AVOID DISASTER!!

June 1, 2015

We must now accept the fact that, at this late hour,  Discharge is really not a realistic thing. It has simply become the weapon of choice in Martelly’s effort to block the candidacy of Laurent Lamothe, who just happens to be the most popular candidate in Haiti.

The Democratic Process, pushed by the International Community, is supposed to see what they naively refer to as a Free-and-Fair Election, in which the electorate is allowed to select the candidate of their choice.

The International Community also realizes that empirically, in the Third World, very, very, very few governments in power ever lose an election to their opposition. Of course, there are coups, when the ruling power is too blatant in their efforts, but these fall under another category, in the Democratic Process.

Haiti is definitely a Third World Country and the ruling power – Martelly – is not planning to hand over the power to anyone outside of his direct control, and that of his inner circle of criminals.

Free-and-Fair-Elections, promised by Martelly, are a simple, childlike lie. Unfortunately, this lie will affect – negatively – Haiti’s 10,000,000 people directly – and the International Community – indirectly.

President Martelly has already told Prime Minister Evans Paul that ex-Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe who, up until recently, was Martelly’s best friend, who personally funded Martelly’s electoral victory, that Lamothe is unacceptable because “He – Laurent Lamothe – would arrest drug dealers, like La Familia and others, who are his friends, his family.”

Having a history of terror, murder and corruption, Paul understood the threat.
We have the usual Third World approach   in which our freely-and-fairly elected President, Michel Martelly, now wishes to illegally block the Electoral Process, with a bunch of unconstitutional garbage, to protect a gaggle  of criminals, and to retain his own personal power.

Many Haitian presidents, in our history, have tried this – unsuccessfully.
He, and his associates, have worked for the past 18 months to create an unconstitutional situation in which we have no functioning Parliament, a flawed Electoral Law, and a CEP with members who, themselves, have not obtained a so-called Discharge to allow their participation.

We have something like 70 presidential candidates, a ludicrous number. An embarrassment for the Nation. Martelly has sponsored something like 50 of these simply to confuse the issue and create the basis for huge additional costs in coordinating the vote.

And, in the creation of the new CEP, Martelly carefully maneuvered so that he controlled at least 6 of the 9 members.

The Previous CEP was an effective  time-delaying  farce, headed by Martelly associate, the perpetually drunk  Emmanuel Menard, who managed to do absolutely nothing, with regard to organizing elections. He did not pay his staff but managed to spend a lot of the CEP funds. One such expenditure saw hundreds of thousands US Dollars given to Martelly intimate Valerie Milfort’s husband, for construction work on CEP headquarters that was not really needed.

One part of this construction saw very expensive tile floors, installed by the previous CEP chief, replaced by very expensive tile floors financed by Menard.
Not really an important factor in coordinating the electoral process in a nation where children are starving to death. Yes, in Haiti’s Northwest, we have situations in which Haitians are actually dying of starvation, forgotten by Michel and Sophia.
Gossip sees Martelly and Aristide backing at least two major shadow candidates to guarantee the existing, criminal status-quo.

Rumor sees a meeting between Martelly and ex-President Preval, this past week, in which Preval refused to drop support of his own candidate – Lamarque – and join the game. In one comment, President Preval  is said to have commented, to the effect, that Martelly’s circle “included people he (Preval) would not allow in his office.” Whatever they say about him, Preval never accepted people involved with drugs close to him.

It is not too late.

We must review our present situation and ignore the tangled Martelly-generated mess at the top of our electoral process and look at the base, a base made up of Haiti’s electorate.

The entire concept of a Free-and-Fair-Election – so beloved by the International Community – has one simple requirement – the right of each individual voter to cast his ballot in favor of the candidate he or she supports.

The American embassy has always been a stabilizing influence in Haitian affair, using Moral Suasion to keep things on track.

Unfortunately, the present Ambassador, Pamela White’s intimate relationship, with Michel and Sophia, is the foundation of many – if not most – problems facing the nation, at this moment. Some suggest this relationship has gone beyond the bounds of friendship and diplomatic responsibility.

Some suggest Pamela White has become a member of the Martelly inner circle, a situation that flies in the face of America’s best interests, and the interests of Haiti’s 10,000,000 people.

Some suggest, this has become an incestuous relationship.

Whatever the truth, or untruth of the matter may be, it is time for Pamela White to pack her bags and depart.

Perceived Reality is more important than Reality, in many occasions.

When Perceived Reality becomes Reality we are all in trouble.

I think we are in trouble.

Perhaps the new ambassador’s arrival can be accelerated with instructions to take firm steps to restore the American/Haitian relationship to a standard it deserves.
Elections must go forward, without Martelly’s interference. President Martelly is creating a situation in which he will be removed, replaced by an Interim Government, tasked with the holding of our election, much as Ertha Pascal-Truillot did in 1990.

Elections  can still be organized so that a full slate of candidates takes office on February 7, 2016.  To delay further will simply lose all of the positive ground we have gained through the past 5 years.

A return to the post 1986 chaos is not  an acceptable alternative but delay will guarantee this.

COLLINS

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1 thought on “IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO AVOID DISASTER!!

  1. Truer words have never been spoken-sadly the Haiti/US Embassy nexus is so low on the U.S. State Dept. radar screen that it will be by the grace of God and attention to this charade by the likes of the Miami Herald and N.Y. Times that actually drive any U.S.-based intervention. Fortunately, this “fracaso” is like a sewer drain that is clogged, and the smell is attracting a great deal of attention. Lamothe must have a place on the ballot and any denial of such will only cause violence and disruption in the electoral process.

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