Category Society

If it is about issues pertaining to society -drug, crimes, prostitution, family, religion, culture, abortion, immigration, etc… -it will be found here.

Nov 8 2011

HATRED FROM THE RIGHT IS CHAOTIC TO AMERICA

America is heading in a very dangerous direction with the right-wingers –NEWT GINGRICH, SARAH PALIN, RUSH LIMBAUGH, GLENN BECK, SEAN HANNITY, ANN COULTER, etc… -polluting the minds of the people. Here are some facts:

Just a year ago, GLENN BECK called President Obama a racist. He said on Fox & Friends on Fox News: “This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for White people, for the White culture… this guy is, I believe, a racist.”

Watch this Youtube video:

RUSH LIMBAUGH, the voice of the American Right, is among the 25 – 30% Republicans who strongly and wrongly believe that President Obama is a Muslim. On his show on Wednesday, August 25, 2010, he said: “How can America be Islamophobic? We elected Obama, didn’t we? If this is a nation that is Islamophobic, how do we elect a man whose name is Barack Hussein Obama?” Click here to listen to the sound bite

NEWT GINGRICH, one of the Republican presidential candidates, had associated Muslims to Nazis. On Fox News, just a year ago, reacting to the controversy surrounding the building of the Islamic Center in the vicinity of the World Trade Center site, he stated: “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a sign next to Pearl Harbor. There’s no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center.”

Watch this Youtube video:

Their agenda is twofold: 1. Use the attacks on September the 11th to demonize ISLAM and push for a WAR on the religion; 2. link the president to Islam by spreading misguided information about his faith. The logic behind the strategy is that if they can get the American people to have a negative view of Islam, calling President Obama a Muslim will automatically get the people to have a negative view of him. This is what you call incrimination by association.

On Tuesday, August 24, 2010, Michael Enright, a 21-year-old American film student, asked 43-year-old Bangladeshi cab driver Ahmed Sharif if he was a Muslim before slashing and stabbing him in the face, throat and arm in broad daylight in New York. You should ask yourself how this young student got to espouse such bitterness against Muslims.

On Wednesday, August 25, 2010, an intoxicated man, identified as Omar Rivera, entered a mosque in Queens, New York, urinated on prayer rugs, stuck up his middle finger at everybody happened to be inside and called them terrorists and all types of names.

Now, folks, this is America we are now talking about -the country that values freedom of religion and free speech. How did we get to where we are today? Since when being a Muslim was a crime? How did we get to hate people of the Islamic faith? Are we going to be walking around identifying Muslims and slashing and stabbing them?

Mr. Enright, Mr. Rivera and others got their Islamophobia from the anti-Islamic sentiment coming from these aforementioned right-wringers. You don’t walk around hurting people and expect yourself not to be stopped BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. You find peace of mind by making peace with yourself and others, not by bullying and clinging to violence.

Oct 10 2011

MINUSTAH & OUR NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY

MINUSTAH peacekeepers

This United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH in French) has been established on June 01, 2004 by Security Council resolution 1542 -as a result of the fallout that followed the ousting of President Aristide.

The presence of this institution of the United Nations has been the object of many fulminating criticisms. Actions of certain members of the mission have infuriated people from many sectors in the population. Some see it as an occupation force that must leave the country by any means necessary and as soon as possible.

I think it is very unfair and dishonest to refer to MINUSTAH as an occupation force, for they did not come to soil the land of Dessalines, Christophe and Petion on their own; the Haitian government had requested it with the intent to stabilize the country after the ousting of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004. How can you call someone an occupier when that person is in your house upon your invitation? That does not make any sense whatsoever to me.

MINUSTAH, as a force, should not be discredited for the actions of some of its members, for those actions, I presume, do not reflect any of the institution’s policies. In any great and respectable human institution (military, business, philanthropic, academic, etc…), you will always find overzealous and corrupted personnel. But the actions of these people should not be used as a litmus test to totally disqualify or dismiss the establishment as a whole. When members of an institution violate the organization’s internal policies, disciplinary actions must be taken against them to address their violations. But to call for the complete eradication of the institution because of that is, in my opinion, illogical.

MINUSTAH must eventually leave because, in my humble opinion, it is an aberration to have a sovereign nation such as ours being under the tutelage of an international force –humanitarian or otherwise. That is an argument all of us Haitians can agree upon. We should have not gotten ourselves in this predicament in the first place. We Haitians put ourselves in it and now we are raising hell.

I am for the withdrawal of all MINUSTAH personnel, but that redeployment must be carefully studied, crafted and implemented. If anything, we must adopt a “step-by-step” approach to that, meaning we will die down the troop levels as we go.

The Martelly administration must immediately sit down with the United Nations Security Council to recalibrate and redefine the mission of MINUSTAH. We have work on the ground they can do. They can help to remove the tones of rubbles, plant trees and police our forest space to prevent further deforestation.

I reject the idea that MINUSTAH must leave now. President Martelly, being the man in charge of the security of the country, must not give in to the pressure coming from certain segments of the population protesting to ask MINUSTAH to leave -without any sort of structural preparation in place. That is very irresponsible on their part.

If MINUSTAH leaves now, there will be a security vacuum which will further destabilize the country. We must not let our emotions get the best of us. We must get it right so that we do not regret having taken the step later.

The Haitian government needs to lobby the international community for technical and financial assistance to accomplish three major things:

a)      double the size of the national police force;

b)      build from scratch a battalion/group of 500 – 1000 well trained and equipped professional special forces;

c)       institute a national intelligence agency

This national security structure, whose mission will be to stabilize and secure the country, can be put in place and fully operational in about 12 or 18 months -if we have the means and are really serious about it.

We do not need a big military like the ineffective one we had back then, which former President Aristide has deactivated and now the Martelly administration wants to emulate. We need a smaller, lighter, faster and smarter force –the model of all the modern militaries around the globe.

The mission of that small contingent of military personnel will be to back up the police force whenever necessary to secure the territory, which may include dismantling all the terrorist cells currently operating on the ground. With this level of coordinated action, capturing dead or alive these terrorists terrorizing the population will be just a piece of cake.

The professional intelligence agency will serve as eyes and ears of the police force. They will infiltrate the terrorist cells to get sensitive and highly classified intel on their locations, tactics, their next value targets, etc… These leads, once collected, will be sent to the rear, to the police, for treatment so they could mount their preemptive strategy to stop the terrorists before they carry on their mission.

Eventually, we will have to either close the Interior Ministry or change its focus. That ministry must be the center of coordination of the operations of the three independent institutions: the police, the small military and the intelligence agency. The head of that ministry must be someone with national security expertise and experience. He or she will be the president’s czar on issues pertaining to national security.

The constant babblings amongst us on the issue whether or not Haiti should have its own military really intrigues me. We need the return of the Haitian military by any necessary means.

It is a priority to secure the country. Nothing can be done without a secure Haiti. Secure nations appeal to investments (local and foreign), a necessary ingredient for economic development. Regardless how well-intentioned President Martelly can be, if he cannot arrive at securing the territory, he will not be able to do anything to better the lives of the majority poor.

Finally, these people speaking against the idea of equipping the country with a military force probably know nothing about the military. They probably have never served a day in their lives, yet, all of a sudden, they are all experts in military affairs. I am for a systematic and coordinated redeployment of MINUSTAH by using a step-by-step approach. Such redeployment should not go on until we have the structure in place to replace the mission when they leave. We need to stop the outsourcing of the country’s security. So we must prepare the nation to take charge of its own security. To achieve that, we must double the size of the police, put in place a small brigade of well trained and equipped professional special forces and institute a national intelligence agency.

Oct 5 2011

OPINYON M SOU ZAFÈ PATRIC A. MARTELLY GARÓ A

Patric Alfredo Martelly Garo

Sou dosye PATRIC ALFREDO MARTELLY GARÓ a, Dominiken ki di ke se PREZIDAN MARTELLY ki papa li a, m ta renmen di sa m panse.

Depi nouvèl sila fin tonbe a, tout moun alawonnbadè se yon sèl bagay y ap mande: “Ou kwè se vre misye se pitit PREZIDAN MARTELLY?” Gen moun ki di li sanble ak prezidan an, gen lòt menm ki di li pa sanble avèk li.

Pou m di nou byen, m pa wè bagay ki pou ap fè tout pale anpil sa yo. Si syansifikman se PREZIDAN MARTELLY ki papa l vre, se pou prezidan an pran responsablite l, e m rete kwè ke l ap fè sa kòmsadwa.

Li posib ke jenòm Dominiken sila a se pitit PREZIDAN MARTELLY li ye. Men jiskaprezan, se rablabla tout moun ap rablabla. Nou pa kapab ap gade sou resanblans pou nou di ke se papa ak pitit yo ye. Se sèl lasyans ki ka mete verite sila deyò.

Ke jenòm Dominiken sila se pitit PREZIDAN MARTELLY ou pa, m panse nou sipoze sezi opòtinite sa a pou n poze yon gwo pwoblèm ki chita kwaze pye l sou lestomak peyi a, e pwoblèm sa gen pou l wè ak mesye sa yo k ap gwòs fanm adwatagoch yo san yo pap pran responsabilite yo -pou yo okipe timoun sa yo. Pwoblèm sila detwi anpil famiy, ki limenm afekte negativman sosyete pa nou an. Timoun pa janm fèt san papa, espesyalman lè n konnen se pa loray ki kale yo.

An nou sitye dosye sila nan kontèks sosyal li pou n ka byen trete l. PREZIDAN MARTELLY, se yon mizisyen ki te trè fame e popilè l te ye pandan plizyè lane, avan l te vin prezidan peyi a. Nou konnen kòman mizisyen Konpa sa yo chaje fanm. Tout kote yo pase, yo plen fanm -anplis de fanm sa ke yo di ki se fanm andedan kay yo a. E trè souvan, fòk nou di sa tou, se fanm yo menm wi k ap ouvè lekò, vole sou mizisyen yo tankou se poulpoul, menm lè mizisyen sa yo pa menm sou bò yo menm.

Kidonk, li trè posib pou yon mizisyen tankou PREZIDAN MARTELLY te fè yon pitit ak yon fanm san l pa menm konnen. M pap di sa pou m jistifye zak la non, pou m di l moral oubyen imoral. M pap rantre nan lojik sila. M sèlman fè apwòch sa a pou m ka ede nou mye konprann reyalite sosyal e kiltirèl peyi a nan milye mizikal Konpa Dirèk la.

Si tès ADN an ta pwouve ke vrèman PREZIDAN MARTELLY ta papa jenòm Dominiken sila a, m panse prezidan an ap pran responsablite l kòmsadwa. Sa tou kapab vin yon okazyon ki ka fè lòt gason ki ta nan menm sitiyasyon avèk li yo vin pran konsyans pou yo menm tou pran responsablite yo nan vi pitit sa yo ke yo genyen ak plizyè fanm tout kote e ke yo pa janm okipe.

Mwen, m ta nan plas PREZIDAN MARTELLY, se pa kontan sèlman m t ap kontan pou m wè m ta arive vin fè yon sèl ak yon pitit mwen ta genyen ak yon fi, ki, pandan plizyè ane, t ap viv lwen m e ki petet m pat menm konnen menm.

M konnen gen anpil nan noumenm Ayisyen ki, pou dè rezon politik, ap pwofite de revelasyon sila a pou n lanse toya sou prezidan an. M ap di nou pa prese jije paske noumenm tou kapab gen grenn zanno pa nou kay òfèv la. Lè bab kamarad ou pran dife, oumenm, mete bab pa w alatranp.

Majorite nan noumenm ki prèt pou kritike prezidan an, si m ta noumenm, m t ap fèmen bouch mwen. Se si latrin ak twourego te kapab pale sèlman pou yo ta arive jwenn dosye nou. Anpil restavèk ak bòn ki t ap travay lakay nou ke nou te gwòs, nou pran yo fè yo fè dilatasyon, yon fason pou n pran fèy kouvri sa. Pafwa menm, yo fè timoun an, men paske se restavèk oubyen bòn yo ye, nou pa menm okipe l menm, pandan ke timoun an ap leve san papa. Kidonk, m pa ta swete nou pran chans pou n ap voye premye kout wòch la. Si syantifikman, nou ka arive pwouve ke evidamman se PREZIDAN MARTELLY ki papa misye, se pou prezidan an pran chaj li pou l pote l jan nenpòt gason responb e onèt te kapab fè sa.

Sep 23 2011

TROY DAVIS: LYNCHED BY THE STATE OF GEORGIA

Troy Anthony Davis

Troy Anthony Davis was born on October 9, 1968. His life abruptly came to a halt on Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 11:08 PM EST-after the State of Georgia had ordered his execution by lethal injection for a crime which he has pleaded not guilty.

He was an African American man convicted of the August 19, 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail, a White man, in Savannah, Georgia. Mr. MacPhail at the time was working as a security guard at a Burger King restaurant when he intervened to defend a man being assaulted in a nearby parking lot.

Mr. Davis was found guilty based largely on eyewitness testimony, which numerous studies have proven unreliable.

When it comes to eyewitness testimony or identification, according to a study conducted by the Innocence Project, the probability for the convicted to be misidentified is very high. The study shows that “[m]isidentification was a factor in 75% of the 273 DNA exonerations. In 38% of these mistaken identification cases, multiple eyewitnesses misidentified the same person.”

This case had gained international exposure, especially on the very last days preceding the execution of Mr. Davis.

Many national and international organizations such as Amnesty International and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and prominent national and international dignitaries in the caliber of former President Jimmy Carter; Reverend Al Shaprton; Pope Benedict XVI; Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa; former U.S. Congressman and one-time presidential candidate Bob Barr, a well known death penalty proponent; and former FBI Director and judge William S. Sessions had taken up Mr. Davis’ cause and called upon the courts to grant him a new trial or, at the very least, evidentiary hearing.

All these efforts were mounted on Mr. Davis’ behalf not for the sake of sympathy, but, rather, because the prosecution had failed to prove the convicted guilty of the crime as evidenced by the murder weapon not recovered, ballistic evidence presented at trial linked bullets recovered at or near the scene to those at another shooting in which Davis was also charged (one of the Jurors who sat on the case said that had she known about that then, she would not have voted to give Davis the death penalty). We also know that following the original trial, seven witnesses had changed or recanted all or part of their testimony. Here is the shocker: one of the original prosecution witnesses, Sylvester “Redd” Coles and other affiants asserted they had been coerced by the police to falsify their testimony. 

In spite of all the doubts in the case, the State of Georgia had decided to carry on with the execution of Mr. Davis by lethal injection.

That decision, in my opinion, was unjustifiable. It was a systematic lynching of a Black man ordered by a White-dominated, racist judiciary system. There is one thing we all can agree upon -justice did not prevail in this case.

The prosecution could not prove Mr. Davis’ guilt without any reasonable doubt. Because they had to convict someone to “solve” the case, he, unfortunately and sadly, was used for that matter as a scapegoat.

I am for the death penalty only in cases where all the pieces of evidence presented in a case can prove the convicted criminal to be the author of the crime he or she has been accused of. But if there is a slight percentage of doubt that the person is guilty, like in Mr. Davis’ case, the case must be further investigated to rule out the reasons for the doubt.

On Wednesday, September 21, 2011, Mr. Davis’ life was taken away for a crime all the pieces of evidence in the case failed to prove his guilt. That means the actual criminal, if not already dead or being bars, is on the loose possibly committing more crimes.

I hope those who took his life will never come to the conclusion that he was not the one to have killed Mr. MacPhail because it will be too late by then to recover his life and bring him back to life.

Troy Anthony Davis was lynched by the State of Georgia on Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 11:08 PM EST because he was Black and unable to afford the expensive American justice system for a fair trial. The State of Georgia has proven once again to the whole world that race and socioeconomics do matter in the American justice system.

Retrieved from The Innocence Project website on 09/23/2011: http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Troy_Davis_Executed_in_Georgia_Despite_Substantial_Evidence_Pointing_to_Innocence.php

Aug 13 2011

MARIJUANA: IT MAKES SENSE TO LEGALIZE IT

This debate over whether or not marijuana should be legalized has been waged for years. Some believe that the cost to society of legalizing it outweigh the benefit. Therefore, it should not be made legal. And I wholeheartedly oppose to that argument from two important parameters: economic and social.

From an economic perspective of supply and demand, the one best way to control, suppress or discourage demand is to increase supply. This same rationale could be used in the case of marijuana. The best way to discourage its consumption is to decriminalize it. Doing so will automatically increase supply, which, in turn, will bring demand down.

The argument that most of the people who are against the idea of legalizing cannabis are presenting is that such measure will turn more people into addicts than ever before, which will have a negative toll on society’s welfare and well-being. Such argument is to me baseless and preposterous; I refuse to be bought into it.

Alcohol, a more potent of a drug than marijuana by most researchers’ accounts, is legal, is it not? I believe it is. Does that make everybody an alcoholic? Absolutely not!!! So do not tell me that legalizing marijuana will turn more people into addicts. That argument is refutable.

Go on this website http://bit.ly/a7VLRG to access 25 scientific research studies published on the facts about marijuana and why legalizing it will not cause any more health-related harms than most of these legal drugs out there, such as alcohol and tobacco.

Marijuana has become a lucrative crop because of its limited supply on the market to meet the demand. Hence, now you have people making a living out of selling it; they are even willing to kill over it. If you legalize it, supply will increase and more structured points of access will be made available to the consumers, meaning all the violence that surrounds the distribution and sale of the product will cease.

Also, what seems to be funny, though, is that people are making a living out of the sale of the substance, yet the government is not getting its share of the pie. How stupid is that! If we legalize it, the government will tax it, meaning more tax revenue to go into our treasury. And the more money we have coming in, the better off we will be economically and socially speaking.

Criminalizing marijuana is to some extent destructive to the foundation of our society. People are getting years behind bars just because of a small possession of marijuana. And when they do get out, because of their criminal record, it is hard for them to find jobs and be reintegrated into society. What impact you think that is going to have on these people? Of course, they are going to go back in jail because they are left to commit illegal acts to survive. That’s the vicious circle of the American penitentiary system.

Those are my motives for being an advocate for the legalization of marijuana, though I have never smoked it in my life. I believe it is causing more harms to the people and the economy by keeping it illegal. Legalizing/ regulating the production, sale and consumption of it is the way to go and the right thing to do.

Jun 13 2011

POLITICIANS ARE BEHIND THE INSECURITY IN HAITI

I am going to say again what I have been saying for the longest: the situation of insecurity plaguing our beloved Haiti has become very structured, institutionalized and politicized. I hope you are able to see now what I have been seeing for some time now.

The assassination cases of such high profile personalities as Antoine Izméry, Jean Dominique, Guiteau Toussaint and others are not isolated; they are remotely controlled by politicians. Politicians are behind these terrorist acts. I hope you can convince me to believe otherwise.

As you can observe, the investigations to find the authors of these assassination cases can never reach an official conclusion; it has been years since we know these cases have been investigated.

This is common practice in Haiti. There is a reason why these investigations seem to always be and stay endless. The reason is simple: they never end because they have never started.

Now, we have a choice to make: either we are going to allow these terrorists to take the country hostage or we must take matters into our own hands if the state is declared weak and not strong enough to protect us.

We cannot afford to sit idle while these terrorists are terrorizing the population. We must do something NOW; the situation is that urgent.

I do strongly believe that “Pè Lebren” or DEATH BY FIRE for these terrorists is the only recourse. How many Izmérys, Dominiques and Toussaints must be cowardly assassinated before we do something?

I propose that -when we catch and find these terrorists guilty of the crimes they are accused of -we do not waste the people’s time and resources keeping them alive in jail; we BURN THEM TO DEATH. Until we do that, they will always be more Toussaints, Izmérys and Dominiques to cowardly go down; the situation of the country will get even worse than it is now.

May 5 2011

WAGING WAR ON DOMESTIC TERRORISM IN HAITI

Kidnapping and planned homicide in any country are acts of specialized terrorism. In Haiti, such acts have become common practice. Almost every single day you wake up, you hear on the news that someone gets executed point-blank or kidnapped, creating a situation of constant fear in the population. Something must be done and must be done NOW to secure the nation so that investments (foreign and national) can start pouring in the country.

These criminals -kidnappers and murderers -in Haiti are domestic terrorists; we need to call them what they are. Therefore, dealing with them requires bold actions which must be part of a national security strategy apparatus.

Let us be clear on one thing: President Martelly campaigned on the urgency to revamp our agonizing economy by encouraging investments and creating jobs, which is awesome. But, sorry to say it, that will not happen if we cannot secure the country. Investments and criminal activities do not mingle or cohabit. Whenever crimes become a matter of normalcy within any territorial space, investments flee. That is just the way it is. So to attract and keep investments within our borders, we have got to win the war on crimes.

President Martelly must develop a comprehensive strategy to fight domestic terrorism and attract and prevent investments from fleeing to other countries competing against us for cheap labor. What must he do to address this national security issue which is poised to be one of the most pressing challenges of his administration?

To address this national security issue, President Martelly must:

1. ask the help of the international community to train a National Security Force (NSF) with the objective to dismantle the criminal cells and capture the criminals dead or alive.

a. Such specialized elite force will be composed of 500 or 1000 well trained and equipped military personnel.

b. The force will have an Intelligence Unit to infiltrate the criminal cells and collect pertinent intel in terms of their locations and their activities so they can be stopped before they hit their high value targets.

c. To lower the cost of training this force, they could proceed with the recruitment of Haitian citizens who had served in foreign militaries.

2. restructure the Interior Ministry and refocus its mission  to respond to all threats with the potency to compromise or endanger our national security -fighting drug trafficking, kidnapping, organized crimes and secure the nation.

a. The National Security Force should fall under this agency, which should be run by people with expertise in intelligence and national security. These people will constitute the team to advice the president on issues pertaining to national security.

In conclusion, candidate Martelly promised during the campaign to revamp our economy by encouraging investments (foreign and national) and creating jobs. There is no way such promise could become a matter of reality if he does not develop and implement a national security strategy to dismantle the terrorist cells, capture these terrorists dead or alive and secure the country. We cannot let these terrorists control the country and terrorize the population. Fighting terrorist activities is not the job of a police force, especially not of one as limited, ill-trained and ill-equipped as the one we have. Stopping or killing these terrorists requires that we place ourselves ahead of them, and such must be the president’s biggest national security priority. You do not play with terrorists; you capture them either dead or alive.

Apr 23 2011

NO GOD IS PUNISHING HAITI

There is no God punishing Haiti. Anybody, and I don’t give a damn if that person is Jesus Christ, feeding you with this nonsense is contributing to the misfortunate situation you are living as a people. And anybody who wants to contribute to your pains and sufferings is your enemy.

We have a bunch of stupid characters (Haitians and non-Haitians) in the religious circles on the ground in Haiti polluting the minds of the people in such a way to pacify and make them accept their fates as a matter of divine punishment. In their blame game, of course, they have got to go after Vodou to make it their most convenient scapegoat for every bad situation we have lived and are experiencing as a people. 

You have been brainwashed to believe that your own culture, beliefs and value system all contribute to the degrading and inhumane situations you are living. Most of these Haitian religious leaders are a bunch of modern slaves who are on the payrolls of these big Western corporate churches run by guys such as Pat Robertson and company. 

They are not telling you how we got to where we are today because they do not care to know; they do not give a damn. As long as they have you to bring them your hard earned income and they have a US visa to vacation with their families every year in the US paid for by their masters, they are living on earth “le paradis terrestre.”  They are not telling you that we are made victims of outrageous policies from the United States and all these major international financial institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, etc…

No God was behind the destruction of the Haitian rice industry, making us today the third largest US rice importer in the world with only a population of roughly 10 million people. You know damn well who was behind that and why.

No God was behind the decision to kill the country’s domestic Creole pigs, the rural economy’s second most important economic component, which has destroyed the entire socioeconomic system of the country. You know damn well who was behind that and why.

Because of the destruction of the rural economy, the economic base of the country, the peasants are/were forced out of their fertile and agricultural lands to migrate to the nearby cities to live in newly erected slums and work as domestic workers (restavèk, jeranlakou and bòn) at people’s houses.

Do not blame God for the political instable environment we have been living in ever since the creation of the Haitian state. You know damn well the people who have been behind all that and why. If this God has to be so against us, why befriending Him/Her/It then?  

Haiti’s tribulations are manmade. Of course, they have to tell you that God has cursed and is chastising us so that you can accept the abject poverty you are living in as a matter of destiny and do not do anything to change its course. And when that happens, it is benefiting them because they control you.

That is what they need to tell you; unfortunately, they are not. There is no excuse for being blind and stupid. Open your eyes and ask questions. That is why you were blessed with the capacity to reason and make sense of events.

So I hope now you have a clear sense as to what the deal is about. Next time these religious slaves come to you trying to convince you to believe that God is punishing Haiti, you need to spit in their faces, and that is if you cannot slap the hell out of them. They are your enemies; therefore, you need to beware of them.

Apr 6 2011

KONPA MUSIC COULD BE THE IMPETUS FOR AN ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE IN HAITI

All these large scale Konpa events -Konpa on Broadway, LNDJ, Konpafest, etc… with potential economic development -need to take place at home, in Haiti. Our Haitian economy is in a desperate need for a money transfusion to keep it alive.

If the promoters of these events refuse to make the transition, which will inject into the economy all these dollars being spent, we need to boycott them by holding in Haiti a similar event on the same day -in front of each and every single one of them.

I do believe that now is the time for us do start selling a new image of Haiti to the world; it is our responsibility, not that of the foreigners, to make it Happen. So if it is about large scale Konpa events or Haitian cultural manifestations, it should take place at home -unless it is about benefiting some people’s selfish personal gains.

I don’t see the American Music Award, BET Music Award, the Oscars, Spring Break, etc… being held on foreign lands. I don’t see all the big-time Reggae events being held outside Jamaica. It is because these people have always tried to keep the money in their economies by any means necessary, which is the way to go. Why can’t we do the same thing?

You have something called Konpafest, which is held in Miami every year around our Flag Day, on May18, where Haitians all over the world fly to Miami to show their solidarity and spend money. Imagine if we could channel all these people -Haitians and foreigners with money in their hands to spend -to come home every year to spend in our economy. It would be the start of an economic renaissance or rebirth for the Haitian people.

I know what the excuses are going to be to justify the ridiculousness of holding these events abroad, away from home.

Excuse #1: You are going to argue that Haiti does not have the logistics (hotel rooms, restaurants, transportation, electricity, etc…) to cater to the needs of the people that will be traveling over there for the events. Nonsense!!! There may not be the need to invest in more upscale restaurants and hotels now because the demand is not there. And the demand is not going to create itself; we the people of Haiti must generate it.

Business people are opportunists, meaning wherever there is a potential demand, you can expect to see heavy investments being poured into that sector of the economy.  Why the demand is not there? The demand is not there because we refuse to create it. We rather keep our butts abroad awaiting the foreigners to come do it for us while the country is dying of a severe economic anemia.

Excuse #2: The insecurity makes it impossible to encourage people to travel to Haiti. Here is another nonsensical argument. I am not trying to dismiss the insecurity plague. It would be very dishonest on my part to argue that it is not an issue. However, in terms of crime/murder per capita, according to the nationmaster.com, Haiti is safer than Jamaica, a country with a booming tourism industry. Yet, that is not preventing the foreigners, you Haitians included, from traveling over there to spend money.

Most of the crimes committed in Haiti are what I would call “necessity crimes,” crimes perpetuated by people because they want to survive or feed their families. That’s basic human behavior when it comes to securing one’s survival. And, for the most part, they take place in Port-au-Prince, the capital city. But if money was being poured into the economy, more jobs would be created for them to make a living, meaning less of these crimes would occur.

The international media has done a tremendous job destroying our image abroad. But it is all our responsibility to prove them wrong by showing and selling a different Haiti, which must start with OUR efforts and involvement.

In conclusion, my advocacy is not to destroy or endanger anybody’s business; it is, rather, a way for us to start caring for ourselves again as we used to in the 1960’s and 70’s, which is the only way we can challenge the destructive campaign being waged against us by the international media.

They can tell us all the lies in the book about our home, but it is our choice to believe in them or not. Our home is our home. The way we care for it is exactly what is going to get the foreigners to come visit us in there. And when they do come, they come with goodies and gifts in their hands for us.

Let us stop all the baseless justifications for not investing into our economy. These big-time cultural events being held in the Diaspora are somewhat hurting the economy back home, because they are not being held there to help the economy moving forward. If we are willing to travel from all over the world to the US to attend some Konpa event, we can do the same if it is happening at home, in Haiti.

Source:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

Jan 8 2011

“PE LEBREN” TO BE ADDED TO OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM

On Friday, June 18, 2010, at 02:52 AM (EST), on my Blackberry phone, I received this text message from CNN: “CNN Breaking news – Death row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed at 12:20 a.m. (MST) by a firing squad at Utah State Prison.”

Mr. Gardner, after being trialed for a crime he was accused of, was found guilty. And the only way for him to pay for that crime, according to the law in Utah, was for him to be executed by a firing squad. To that, everybody said justice has been served.

See, that’s in the United States, and most of us Haitians would accept it, and rightly so, as a matter of justice. Yet, if I were to propose media-covered death by fire or “Pe Lebren” in public for anyone found guilty of committing gruesome acts such as -the killing, kidnapping and raping of another citizen; committing treason against the republic of Haiti and/or stealing the people’s money -most of you here reading this would raise hell as though one way to die is inferior/superior or more/less civilized to another, without taking into account that death is death regardless the means by which it is inflicted.

We need to be burning alive these criminals for two main reasons:

  1. Budget wise, it does make sense. We don’t have the budgetary luxury to house these criminals and keep them alive. It costs us money to keep a criminal in jail. We cannot even find the money needed to spend in social projects to better the lives of our people, yet the little that we have, we want to spend it on caring for criminals having no business to be living.
  2. Psychologically speaking, it does make a lot of sense. Burning these people alive will discourage others, who may have been contemplating ways to carry out these shameful acts, from actually implementing them. That will get them to think twice about the consequences of their actions before they act.

Whether you call it death by fire or “Pe Lebren,” the end result, which is death, remains the same. So the issue, in my humble opinion, does not lie in the name used to identify the practice but, rather, what may come out of it.

We need to take the practice off the streets and place it in the hands of the judges in the courthouses to administer. In other words, we need to institutionalize it and work on the applicability and practicability of our system of justice.

The administration of justice should and must be made the sole responsibility of those officials recognized by the Constitution of the land to carry out. No one citizen should have the right to self-procure justice. Otherwise, unless acting upon self-defense, the individual must be addressed within the realm of our legal recommendations. Having said that, the only way we can prevent self-procurement of justice is by making sure that the citizens have faith and believe in our justice system. Otherwise, we can forget about it.

We cannot and must not let these criminals have their way and thereby turn our beloved Haiti into a crime state. We have to do whatever is in our human power to prevent that from happening.

To any drastic situation, we must always adopt drastic interventions. And death by fire is one of these drastic measures that must be implemented to turn things around in the country. On a long run, such measure will have a positive effect on maintaining a sense of order and security, which is paramount for the safeguard of our citizens, our sovereignty and our national security.

It is a national security issue when economically speaking we are vulnerable. And the only way we can counter that economic vulnerability is by maintaining political stability, protecting private investments, and instituting a culture of order and respect of the law, which will attract investments and keep them within our borders.

After all, death by fire or “Pe Lebren” could be a good thing to remove Haiti from the abyss she finds herself today. Crimes and political instability are two types of cancers that are destroying our nation. Therefore, we must do whatever we can to prevent them from getting to a point of no return or irreversibility. Our aim is not to have a crime-free Haiti, which, by any standard, is not a realistic goal; we only hope, rather, to see the country doing better, which will be beneficial to all of us Haitians.