Lynn Garrison

March 10, 2024

I have been involved in an ongoing effort to guide Haiti out of the chaotic train wreck that has followed the loss of my good friend, Jovenel Moise. Our team started meeting during 2022 and became finely focused when Prime Minister Henry created the HCT – Haut Conseil de Transition, headed by Mirlande Manigat. The three member group, was projected as the element that would see a new situation created, through which the Nation could move forward towards some sort of regeneration.

A new cabinet… elections … perhaps a rewrite of the Constitution.

HOPE…. !

I can never recall who the other two members were/are but they really didn’t matter. It was Madame Manigat’s presence that offered a vehicle for survival. And so, we started to pressure the Prime Minister in the hope that he and Madame Manigat would create a new cabinet and set a date for elections.

From time-to-time there seemed some hope, but PM Henry never took the necessary step to get out of our Nation-Threatening situation.   There was always delay.   He allowed us to continue the slide towards the Abyss. Some members of his team got funds from Finance Minister  Boisvert and passed the cash along to gangs in a criminal effort to maintain instability, an instability the benefitted their personal position.

(Today Finance Minister Boisvert wants to become PM so he can perfect his criminality)

Some of these people did what they could to impair  efforts of DGPNH Elbie to acquire munitions, and equipment, required to coordinate security.

PNH officers and ordinary citizens died, because of these actions. Haitian businesses suffered. Schools could not continue. Hospitals closed. 

The Nation was/is dying!

Throughout this fiasco, the American government, with their puppets in the OAS/CARICOM made inane statements that only solidified a paralysis. 

And then, the recent collapse of Prime Minister Henry’s situation offered a door to survival. In any normal world, the PM was toast and we could move forward. The United States Government should have made a specific, easily understood statement – to the effect – the PM Henry MUST RESIGN!!!!

We had been dealing with Madam Manigat for months and it was now time to finalize the situation, and have her lead Haiti out of this endless spiral toward death and disaster.

I believed that Manigat was ready and willing to take the lead, solidifying the legacy of her and my friend President Leslie Manigat. 

I drafted a  simple statement  that would point the way. It is attached at the bottom of this note and it gave the International Community more than they expected. For example, it declared the commitment to hold elections in November 2024. This is possible if everyone focuses on the challenge. The suggested delay, until August 2025 is pointless. Somewhere, along the line, a few people could create a violent situation and delay the process.

We can have elections in 2024 just as efficiently as 2025 if the International Community supports us with the elements required.

We have the determination.

Even as Madame Manigat was poised to issue the statement, American Secretary of State  Antony Blinken blinked. He, and others, obfuscated in the support or lack of support for PM Henry. CARICOM zoomed through the sky.

And so, yesterday , I travelled to meet with Madame Manigat, with nine members of our team. She graciously received us at her residence. Our journey took us through several gang leader’s territories, where our transit was supported by the gangs.

Strangely, many of the gangs are really willing to  disband, if we could find a solution.

In any event, it was soon apparent that Manigat saw the confused, foggy, befuddled, misdirected, uninformed, ignorant and dangerous position of our supposed allies as to be a poor basis upon which to risk whatever legacy she might possess.

And so, Mirlande Manigat declined the opportunity to play Russian Roulette with her image.

Our team traversed a major gang area, personally led by the father of the key gang leader – to guarantee our security.

That is Haiti on a personal level! Always has been.

I don’t know where we go from here. People look to me, for my input, because I have been exposed to Haiti for something over 44 years. My understanding of the situation, and the one hundred percent ability of the Americans, to make the wrong decision, when it comes to Haiti, leaves me without much optimism.

In 1994 I personally coordinated the American plan that saw Aristide’s return, predicated upon a reequipped and trained FadH to act as a countervailing force to Aristide’s predicted grab for dictatorial power.

The Americans expected elections to be held in December,  1994 and Aristide would be eliminated.

Aristide, the guy who got 67% of the monstrous 337,000 ballots cast in 1990 – out of a voted base of 3,500,000 –  was returned, on the bayonets of 23,000 American soldiers in October, 1994.

November 18, 1994 Aristide disbanded the FadH, delayed elections and then cruised on to take dictatorial power, as predicted in the first place.

Then American propaganda created a terrible reputation, for the FadH and blocked any possibility of this Nation Saving Force to play a real part in our survival.

THERE MUST BE A LESSON HERE.

TODAY, THE NATION IS DYING. TOMORROW, IT’S PULSE WILL BE LESS. HOW LONG UNTIL THIS FLAT-LINES?

HERE IS THE DRAFT STATEMENT I PREPARED FOR MANIGAT’S CONSIDERATION:

 

I agreed to serve on the HCT, in the belief that Prime Minister Henry was honestly committed to initiating steps to bring Haiti out of the crisis that has effectively paralyzed the Nation since President Jovenel Moise’s assassination. Instead, we have been faced with delay, obfuscation and misdirection that leads nowhere.

We are wasting the valuable time of our 13, 000,000 citizens who deserve better.

Prime Minister Henry’s decision to bring foreign nations into Haiti appears, to many,  a simple tool to guarantee his continued, ineffective, unconstitutional hold on power. The Kenyan police, and 2000 soldiers from Benin, would be an adequate force to maintain him in power forever..

The Prime Minister’s promise of elections, during August of 2025, is no promise at all. The Nation could invest time and money in preparing for the vote, only to be disrupted by a few, within the Prime Minister’s office, who could initiate some acts of violence, justifying delays on towards Infinity.

It is my belief that elections could be held during the fall of 2024, just as efficiently, or  inefficiently, as those proposed for 2025. We should just declare a date, and work towards it.

We can do this.

I propose taking the authority given to me, but never exercised, to head a new government, creating a fresh cabinet whose members owe no specific loyalty to any political party or individual, as has been the past practice.

I would hope that all elements see the wisdom in this simple, straightforward approach to solving our challenging situation.

My solution will take major steps towards providing Haiti, and its citizens with the one building block required for any possibity to survive.

SEKIRITE.

Without SEKIRITE we can have nothing 

Our society is disintegrating with each passing day as gangs challenge us throughout the countryside. The foreigners look for complex solutions when the formula for Haiti’s salvation is one the world can understnd…  We must find a simple and direct solution to the Nation’s challenges;

ONLY ONE THING CAN SAVE Haiti –  the gift of SEKIRITE

Haiti cannot have anything without SEKIRITE

There is no transporation without SEKIRITE

There is no school without SEKIRITE

There is no Investment without SEKIRITE

There are no tourists without SEKIRITE

There can be no health services without SEKIRITE

There can be no business without SEKIRITE

There can be no HOPE without SEKIRITE

All Haitians must join our journey along the troubled path toward our Nation’s future –the vehicle is SEKIRITE.

JOIN ME NOW!

SEKIRITE POUR TOUS!!

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COMMENT: HAITIAN TRUTH.ORG

 

We have accepted this article from Lynn Garrison, for publication, because of his long-term involvement with Haiti – at all levels. He first visited Haiti, in 1980, with Burt Lancaster, to capture Voodoo’s secrets for an American TV series.    

From 1980 – 1991 he spent about one-third of his time in Haiti, generating a network of contacts.

When it looked like Diplomatic relations would be severed, in 1991, he was placed inside Grande Quartier Generale as the American embassy link with the Cedras team. Garrison remained there, from August 1991, through September 1994 when he escaped Aristide’s team and flew back to Florida.

Lynn Garrison returned to Haiti in 2004, with Aristide’s departure, and has functioned there since then.

He wrote VOODOO POLITICS- The Clinton/Gore Destruction of Haiti and ARISTIDE – The Death of a Nation. These covered his 1991 – 1994 experiences.

Garrison remains firmly committed to the fight for Haiti’s right to control its own affairs in today’s confused world.