Perry Henzell, Contributor 
Haitian children show their free T-shirts which were given away by a telecommunications company before the start of their carnival celebrations on February 19, 2004.- FILE
I WENT to Haiti twice last year. The first time I met with the rich, who detest Aristide like poison. The second time I met with Aristide supporters. I came to the conclusion that there is no bridging the gap between the two. Never, anywhere, have I ever encountered such mutual hatred.
I remember my shock the first time I realised what a gulf there was between the rich and the poor in Latin America. It was at McGill University, in the fifties, where these charming fun loving rich Latinos were the life of the party until the subject of politics came up. Then it became obvious that their attitude to workers and peasants and trade unionists was "if they give you trouble, shoot them !".
Huge arguments ensued. I shouted that in the West Indies our powerful and respected political parties had their base in trade unions, that I had never met a Jamaican, no matter how rich or how white, who had the Latino's utter scorn for the poor, that they would be at war forever if they didn't change, and sure enough since then either they have changed (most significantly Brazil), or they have continued to wage war with the poor (in Colombia, where they still pay starvation wages and routinely kill trade unionists, so what do they expect?)
Well, going to Haiti is like going back to the fifties with a vengeance. Worse. The poor have nothing to fight with except rage, and numbers, and fire. Time and again their protest has been and is being put down with a brutality that makes Jamaican ghetto violence seem like family feuding. Any rich man like Antoine Izmery, or radio personality like Jean Dominique, who has tried to help the poor has been murdered. Aristide, who is like a messiah for the Haitian masses, was hopelessly impractical in power, and was starved of any funds to improve life for the poor by the international community in the most scandalous way. Of the billions in aid that have been pledged to Haiti, not a penny has reached the poor so far as I can see, not even to the extent of fixing the roads that the rich have to use as well.
As for the present Latortue government, John Maxwell is right. It is such a disgrace that CARICOM should have nothing to do with it. It has imprisoned the former prime minister for months without charge ! It has brought nothing to the slums but violence and repression. It has done nothing to discipline the kind of thugs who stole food sent for the starving in Gonaives when the town was devastated by floods.
So who can do anything about Haiti" Only the United Nations!
When I mention the U.N., people just laugh and shrug their shoulders and shake their heads. But the U.N. have troops on the ground. They have the weight of international law on their side, and they could have the support of the vast majority of the population, if they imposed peace. They know who the thugs are, they're the same ones who've been there for decades, either as Tonton macoute, or attaches, or whatever they call themselves now, and they're as identifiable as the thugs who are killing people in Spanish Town.
So why don't the U.N. step in, disarm the thugs, train a proper police force, establish law and order, supervise a free and fair election, save Haiti, and earn some respect? This time, at least on the surface, one can't blame the USA. A Chilean represents the Secretary General, and the Brasilians have the strongest contingent of troops and guns. Brazil's president is a trade unionist. It is Brazil's opportunity to show that it is a force to be reckoned with in the hemisphere. Such a chance has never come before and it might never come again.
The world cannot afford a weak or corrupt United Nations. It is the only option we have for world leadership and justice. We cannot afford to leave it to the rich nations to fund it and control it. Whatever it costs the whole world has to carry the burden because it belongs to all of us, but the U.N. has to make the world at large aware of its potential for good. There should be at least 3 channels of U.N. C-SPAN shining a very bright light on every aspect of the U.N., glamorising its achievers, rooting out the lazy and corrupt, dramatising the most diverse, colourful and fascinating cast of characters in the world, telling who they are and what they're doing. It would be cheap to do.
The producers wouldn't have to create anything. It's all happening anyway, only it's happening in secret, or it's reported in the most boring way possible. The U.N. cable channels could not only spread the U.N. message in a forceful way, they could raise funds directly from a worldwide audience that would be excited by the idea that their U.N. was representing their interests. The time is now. Maybe our representatives at the U.N. could introduce the idea.
email: perryhenzell@yahoo.com
