Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Haitian Elections First Hand From a Different Perspective

One of the counselors I work with in the Admissions office came to college from Haiti, where her family still lives. It was really interesting these past few days to hear her reactions to the elections and what she says her family has seen. Having come to a private university from the poorest country in all of the Americas it's not surprising she grew up a part of the less than 3% Bourgeouise class of Haiti. But her outlook on the future of the country is not good. From her first hand perspective she feels the country will never progress because of how uneducated and poor the masses are which makes them incapable of understanding any political reasoning without instintaneous gratification. For the past few days her parents have not been able to go to work for fear of being kidnapped or killed in the street. For any of you that have seen hotel Rwanda, she said the scene where they invaded the hotel was basically recreated yesterday in the hotel where they were trying to count the votes. Because of this the winner of the elections is unclear, but Preval claims there is no contest. Preval demands he has already won has apparently threatened the people of Haiti that any other outcome of the election will be met with a response his people are prepared to make- he will "isolate his adversareis." More than 900 people have been killed for political reasons in the past year. Pascale's (my friend in the admissions office) cousin, Charles Henry Baker, was actually a candidate in the race but came in third place and is now out. Pascale also commented on how big of an issue the racism within Haiti is between black people and mulattos or anyone of fairer skin. I know it's definitely a biased perspective coming from one of the few privledged people in Haiti, but I thought it was an interesting point of view that probably doesn't get spoken of very often.

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