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
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
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”.