Thu Mar 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

It is the UN troops who govern the country

MEETING THE PRESIDENT


 


Today we have been to see President Rene Preval. On arriving we see all the surface and formalities of power: a luxurious palace, all white, decorated with busts of heroes of independence, metal detectors and thorough policemen. Nothing but the outer shell. The president is a dummy, upheld by UN troops, controlled from the Brazilian embassy.


 


We sat down and Preval came in almost immediately, kind and gentle. Toninho hands in the letter. Preval responds thanking for the solidarity. He says that he agrees that the troops must leave soon, but not quite yet. He quotes Mao: “It is necessary to understand which is the principal contradiction and which one is secondary in each moment”. The armed bands of drug dealers are still strong and the Haiti state does not even have a police force. This is therefore supposed to be the main contradiction and not the foreign troops. The troops will go home as soon as possible. I responded and said we regretted that he should defend the occupation. that the polarisation does not take place between the troops and armed drug dealing bands sit between the troops and the struggles of Haitian workers, that we were not here to offer our solidarity to him but to Haitian people who were fighting against the troops and against him.


 


All kindness vanished at once: he accused us of being “left wingers”, he was most upset but he did not answer a word. Anderson, representative of the Order of Barristers of Brazil, said he was there to make a report for the OBB on the situation of human rights in Haiti and that he had witnessed abuse committed by the troops. Then something very strange happened: Preval suddenly sank under the table. Some people thought he had fainted; others that there was some kind of security problem. Some thirty seconds passed by when he emerged once more once more and smiled. As far as we could make it out, it was all a joke to represent that he could not stand listening to what he was being told. He looked ridiculous and pathetic: a president squatting under the table.! The meeting went on for another hour or so with the entire team challenging the occupation, but he did not say a word. an indication of the fragility of the government: and our under our assail, without answering anything but unable to have us thrown us away.


 


Another part of our team went to see the minister of labour and the person responsible for the free zones. These meetings were important so that the BO could present the government with a list of demands, but they were also useful to show the attitude of the government. One of the officials defended the repression saying that Haitians were “lazy and lacking discipline”. Another official – a woman – said that one could not “get sentimental” about pregnant women if they did not comply with the rules of work. She said it because of a disgraceful thing that had happened: a pregnant woman was beaten and shoved into the mud because she was taking part in a demonstration. The court admitted that it was an offence but did not administer any punishment for fear of “harming investors”.

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