Hangin' with the Former Defence Minister of Haiti

[bcholmes]

Tonight I went to see a talk by Patrick Elie, Aristide's former Defence Minister. He spoke about the current political situation in Haiti, and about Canada's involvement. There were a coupl'a good videos: one by a freelance journalist, Isabel MacDonald, and the other provided by Elie himself. The former video depicted the UN's peacekeeping forces (MINUSTAH) "pacifying" a section of Cité Soleil, as well as clips of the MINUSTAH speeches for the foreign press and interviews with Cité residents who have lost relatives or been wounded by MINUSTAH. (MINUSTAH's mandate has just been extended by another 8 months).

The latter video shows a civilian delegation's trip to the Central African Republic immediately after Aristide had been taken there at the climax of the 2004 Haitian revolt/coup. At first, the delegation was refused access to Aristide, and finally a general press conference was called. It was interesting to watch the CAR's government officials cut off certain lines of questioning by the press (and to halt any discussion going on in English). I find it hard to understand how people can question the idea that Aristide didn't go there of his own free will.

(Okay, sure. As the story goes, he was given a choice: get on the plane that the US army was ordering him to board, or be left at the airport with no security while Guy Philippe's rebels advanced. Aristide got on the plane. If you think that's free will, you're an idiot).

I hung around a bit and chatted with some of the organizers of the event, and I'm kinda interested to see what this group is all about. I'd love to hook up with more local people interested in what's going on in Haiti.

An interesting note: a week ago, Justin Trudeau announced his intention to run in the Montreal riding of Papineau. This is the riding from which Pierre Pettigrew was defeated in the last election. One of the event organizers asserted that it was the Haitian diaspora in Montreal who helped to defeat him. I don't have enough data to know what I make of that claim. I do recall, however, that Pierre Pettigrew is secretly an Animagus, and can turn himself into a rat at will.