Thought for the Day

[bcholmes]

Ambassador Luigi Einaudi, the Organization of American States (OAS) official with ultimate authority for Haiti policy was seated next to me on the dias. [...]

Einuadi was the son of an Italian President and the OAS' most senior official on Haiti policy. His principal responsibility was to broker an agreement between Aristide and Haiti's unelected "opposition," Convergence, a responsibility he made little or no attempt to discharge.

I leaned over and said to him: "Look at this outpouring of love and support for the President. No one can say he does not have the support of the people." Einaudi said, "Well, he does not have the support of the real people. It is just these types of people here who support him" (pointing dismissively to the hundreds of thousands massed before him).

I then asked him: "What percentage of the population do these people represent?" He answered, "Well eighty to ninety percent, but they're not the ones who matter."

— Hazel Robinson, as recounted in Randall Robinson's An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President