I am glad I spent time to carefully listen to this clip of Mr. Martelly. At the very end of it, he unveils his plan to reform our agricultural practices or means of production. His plan is pure socialistic, which we don’t need for Haiti.
I am for the state to subvention or give incentives to the farmers to help them to cultivate the lands -just like we do here in the United States. I wholeheartedly disagree with him, however, when he wants the state to run agro-credit institutions to lend the farmers money to cultivate their lands. We don’t need that. Keep the state out of the credit market. Let the private sector compete for better rates to the farmers. When it is like that, you create a competitive marketplace where the farmers can go around and shop for the institution that could give them the best deal.
I also disagree with him in that he wants the state to buy the farmers’ harvests from them in an attempt to control prices on the national market. So if he does that, how could he expect the farmers to compete for better quality products and better prices for those products then? You cannot have players competing against each other in the sector of government. Basically he wants to do (to us) the same thing we allowed the American farmers to do to us. I say let the competition in the market dictate how prices should be fixed and controlled. In other words, let the market control itself. We don’t need the state to be like a godfather controlling the market.
Also, he talks about creating jobs in the peasantry sector, which I disagree with. Government is not in the business of creating jobs. The job of government is, rather, to enact economic policies that would encourage job creation by the private sector.
As I said many times before, in Haiti, the biggest competitor is the state, causing a problem for the private sector to compete for greater performance and returns on their investments. The market tends to be stalled when the state gets to compete against the private sector. If anything, we need to encourage a competitive market environment, not discouraging it. That’s what capitalism teaches us. We don’t need a socialist economy in the likes of Mr. Martelly’s proposal. It is not good for business, and certainly not good for the economy.
The presidential election in Haiti is only days away, yet JUDE CELESTIN still matters. Something was not done right. I can tell you this much –it is because you guys (MANIGAT, MARTELLY, BAKER and LAGUERRE) did not play right. I would beat up all four of you for your complacencies. You failed to link him to the failed policies of the PREVAL administration.
The man in the White House, RENE PREVAL, said that CELESTIN is his man, what better evidence do you need to destroy or make him insignificant in the race? That’s exactly what you should have been wanting from him, and he delivered it to you “UPS delivery” at your doorsteps. How could you not use that to run an effective character assassination campaign against the man?
We democrats did it here in the US. How you think we literally annihilated McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign and gave Obama the election on a silver platter? We played three smart cards against him.
1. We linked him to the failed policies of the Bush administration –the baseless Iraq War, the recessive economy, the handling of Katrina in New Orleans, big tax cuts for big corporations and the top 2% Americans while neglecting the middle class, etc…
2. We proved to the American electorate that he was out of touch with reality. On Monday, September 15, 2008, he hand-delivered to us the gift we had long been waiting for. On the campaign trail in Jacksonville, Florida, he declared: “the fundamentals of our economy are strong [despite] tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street.” Mind you, he made such statement right in the middle of the recession, at a time when the economy was bleeding jobs.
3. We transformed Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, his pick for vice president, into a laughing stock, a joke, someone not worthy to be taken seriously. By doing so, the McCain candidacy was viewed as a big joke. Her interview with CBS’s own Katie Couric did it for us.
We played the three cards so well strategically that before you know it, Senator McCain was already confined in history book. He was a done deal. We slashed him in the polls. So no one can tell me about the effectiveness of a character assassination campaign strategy, for I have seen it used many times in every single election (local and national) here in the United States.
I do not work for your campaigns, nor am I one of your cheerleaders. However, I want to place my country, Haiti, first. In this election, I do not have a fighting dog, which by now you should know. I do not know whom I am for. I do know, however, whom I am against. I am against PREVAL and his protégé JUDE CELESTIN.
Quit all the “kole mouda” with CELESTIN. The clock is ticking. You do not have that much time in front of you. It is time to proceed with PLAN B –CHARACTER ASSASSINATION. You guys need to run ASAP campaign ads on the radio and on TV telling the people that a vote for CELESTIN is a vote for the continuation of the PREVAL administration embodied in the policies that gave us -MINUSTAH, CHOLERA, LACK OF OVERSIGHT, CORRUPTION, MY PALACE COLLAPSED, etc…” Take my check to the bank and cash it. Trust me, it will not bounce.
It is now no secret that Dabenz got voted out unanimously by his bandmates. At unanimity he got voted out, meaning not one member of the band wants him in. A decision like that would make you automatically think that he must have done something really stupid and out of line that could jeopardize the interests of the band, right? No, such is not the case. According to Kompamazine.com reporting the reason for his firing, “They estimate that DABENZ was bringing more negativity to the band ‘ANBA ANBA’ and they claim that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!” http://kompamagazine.com/kmboard/viewtopic.php?t=32610
Let’s take a moment to analyze the Kompamagazine report. This is a decision taken on the career of an artist on the basis of a baseless claim –Dabenz was bringing more negativity to the band clandestinely. The word clandestinely is exactly what sells them out. Clandestinely or “anba anba” means that they do not have proof that the wrongdoings he has been accused of hold any truth. Where are the facts to corroborate such allegation? How come none of these negativities has ever been known to the press? These guys basically rely on baseless claims circulating through the grapevine to mess with someone’s career.
According to Basekompa.com, all this nonsense about Dabenz bringing more negativity to the band clandestinely is not the true reason behind the firing. The website reported, which the artist later confirmed, that while Dabenz was on stage performing in Haiti at Miche’s Garden with the band, he got embarrassed and humiliated by Brutus. The later, in many instances, ordered the sound engineer to turn Dabenz’s microphone down low so that they do not hear him out in the speakers; he wanted only Kenny’s voice to come out, a way to boycott Dabenz. http://basekompatv.com/forum.html But what could be the reason for the boycott, though?
They wanted to boycott Dabenz because apparently there has been some sort of a power strife going on inside the band. The public is more in tune with him than Kenny, and Brutus was not feeling too keen about that. He wanted to promote Kenny, yet the public has chosen Dabenz. It is like fighting against the will of nature. The public wants something, yet he wants to resist it. Why punishing Dabenz because Kenny is not commercial and hype?
Now, let me talk to these guys for a minute. You guys are the reason why Zenglen, a band that is playing extremely well, is going down. The public does not have faith in you anymore. They realize now that you guys don’t know what you want and have no sense of direction. You throw Dabenz away to sell Kenny to a public that does not even want him. You cannot shove him down the public’s throat. Go look around and find someone else. Kenny cannot do it; he does not have what it takes to be what you guys want him to be for the band –a frontline superstar. Trust me on that.
Dabenz’s home of record is New Jersey. The people here love and see him as their own. They take to heart the way you guys treated him. I think you are going to have to do a lot of PR work to appease the rage of the community here. The word in the streets of New Jersey now is to proceed with operation boycott against Zenglen in the state. I am urging you guys to not come to New Jersey any moment soon, not until the people’s fury is rescinded, for you may be chased out. Don’t say you did not get the message. You are not going to treat the man so unfairly like that to think that everything is cool. M swete nou jwenn nouvel la.
This is a public policy matter, and I do expect many to disagree with me. Public education in Haiti needs a total reshuffling; it must be incorporated in a comprehensive plan to reform our economy. We cannot be talking about reforming the economy if we do not address the problems with our education.
We need a new system of education to prepare our kids to compete for the jobs of tomorrow at home and abroad.
Public education is a total failure in Haiti, and things will not get better if we do not change course. We need to take government out of the business of educating our kids and let the private sector take over.
Is Haiti a socialist or a capitalist state? Maybe we need to be clear on the type of economic system we have and the type we really need for Haiti. I am a big proponent of capitalism, for it does make sense to me. Maybe that’s what we need for Haiti. Right now, whether you want to agree with me or not, we have a socialist state; government controls almost everything.
Before we get further in this, let’s take a moment to explain what the job of government should be in a capitalistic economy.
The role of government in a capitalistic economy is NOT to create jobs and compete against the private sector. It is, rather, to enact policies that would encourage private sector jobs. It should work to strengthen the private sector, and the two must work hand in hand to get things to work for the betterment of our society. So needless to say, we need a strong private sector.
In Haiti, government is the biggest competitor we have in the market, preventing the economy from expanding because it stalls competition. It should not be this way. Government is not to compete against the private sector. It is to set the path for the private sector to walk on.
I propose the elimination of all the public schools or state-funded institutions of learning and let the private sector take over them. As we have them right now, they are ineffective and represent a symbol of failure because of a lack of competition within the sector of government. We need to get rid of that.
Government should not be in the business of opening schools. It needs to allow the economically disfavored students to attend private schools or the school of their choosing by making grants and scholarships available to them. Doing so will create a market of schools for them to choose from. Giving them the ability to choose the school of their liking will empower them, and that will fuel the competition needed to get the system to work.
If competition is the engine that gets the economy to move, choice is the ignition that gets it to crank up. When government gets in the game, competition is stalled; the economy automatically stops expanding. On the other hand, when you have the players in the private sector competing against one another, it is good for competition in that it results in quality production or quality education for the students. In such a competitive climate, only the best schools will stand. The subpar or mediocre ones will have to close their doors because they won’t be able to sustain the competitive wave. That’s the phenomenon of the “invisible hand” Adam Smith, the Father of Capitalism, talked about in his masterpiece entitled An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
In conclusion, we need to revamp the system of education in Haiti by allowing the private sector to assume its total control. The government should not be in the business of opening and managing schools. It should be there to subvention the economically disadvantaged students by providing them with grants and scholarships to attend the school of their choosing. Such a strategy will automatically fuel competition within the system, which, in turn, will produce the best educated kids to contribute in the economic and social development of their society.
Being a nation with no previous democratic experience in our two centuries of existence, in terms of technicality, we Haitians are not doing too bad in our handling of our democracy. We have a lot of work to do, but we are on the right path.
Democracy is an ongoing process. Therefore, we must never stop growing, and we certainly must never stop strengthening our institutions if we want to enjoy the beauty of a strong democracy in Haiti.
The institution of democracy is not really a component of Haiti’s problems, since most Haitians favor a democratic Haiti embedded in these two basic principles: freedom of expression and freedom of choice. What we really need to do going forward is to civically educate the people on how to play the game of democracy with a winning state of mind. And the way you achieve that is by teaching them the rules of the game and how to apply them in their daily lives.
I am convinced that our problems are both political and economical. So fixing them requires of us all to be bold in our approaches.
By now, regardless our ideological differences, we all can agree on the fact that we have a vacuum of leadership in our country. In fact, you do not need to take my word for it. Just take a look at the way the aftermath of the earthquake has been managed. The so-called recovery plan they crafted along with the international community is an embarrassment.
Leadership and mediocrity/incompetence are mutually exclusive. It is impossible to get commonsense and proactive leadership out of dumbfoundedness, a trait which only incompetence and mediocrity nurture.
The solution to that aspect of the country’s problems is in the hands of the Haitian people, not those of the international community. We, the people of Haiti, need to break ties with mediocrity; it has proven time and time again to be the opposite force preventing us from progressing forward.
Solving the leadership problem will not happen overnight; it will take time. But we must keep in mind that we cannot be having the same failed politicians on the wheel leading the nation and expecting different results. Their failure has contributed to what Haiti has become today. So we need a new generation of leaders to emerge from the rubble of the disaster to send these “rat do kale” politicians occupying the country’s political landscape for over a quarter of a century to retirement. We need to retire their old, archaic and obsolete ways and replace them with the freshness of ideas emanating from a new class of leaders. We have no control over time, but we do have control over who we are going to choose to represent us and speak on our behalf.
On the economic front, in terms of economic wellbeing, Haiti was, prior to January the 12th, already a “failed” state. The earthquake did nothing but worsening the situation.
The country was the way it was mainly because of the financial or monetary conditions imposed upon it by the major international financial institutions -World Bank, IMF, etc. -dominated for the most part by the United States. If the US really cares and wants to help us to rebuild our nation, they need to start with addressing the evil manners the country has been dealt with by these international financial organizations. Otherwise, any effort to rebuild the country will be vainly undertaken.
In conclusion, we must not believe in the fallacy that the international community has our best interests. It would be foolish to have that in mind. They have their own agenda, which always conflicts with ours. The destiny of our nation lies in our hands. If the international community is really serious about building a strong partnership to help us rebuild our country, they need to be honest about it and stop playing games. In whatever capacity they want to help us, the approach must be systematic and comprehensive, meaning it must not be limited to the infrastructural aspect of the problem. It needs to go beyond that -it needs to touch on the way the country has been treated by the international financial organizations. Until they do that, any reconstruction effort will be a waste of time, money and resources.
Successful politicians do not only know how well to articulate their plans to their constituents, but also how best to assassinate the character of their opponents. How do you assassinate someone’s character? You assassinate someone’s character by using their vulnerabilities to convince the electorate to believe that the person is UNFIT for the position. You don’t know about your opponents’ character flaws by looking and smiling at them. You have to dig and unearth the stinky corpses.
Here in the United States, we see nothing but that. Character assassination is the essence of American politics. Do not take my words for it. All you have to do is to take a few minutes of your time to watch a few political ads. A very slim portion of them is dedicated to introducing and positioning the candidates. For the most part, they are attack ads, and their sole purpose is to assassinate the character of the challenger.
In the Haitian political landscape, the politicians do not create or raise controversies, which is probably the reason why I have found it to be overtly boring. I barely see a political advertisement introducing a candidate, let alone an attack one. The ones I have come in contact with only tell the electorate what the candidate’s identification number is and where to make the check mark to vote him/her.
These Haitian politicians do not even talk about themselves in the ads; they worry more about putting the illiterate and hungry masses in the streets playing RARA POLITICS. I have seen a few candidates doing this crap, which I think is embarrassing, disparaging, condescending, demeaning, low and outdated.
Anyhow, let’s go back to the topic. As I was saying, character assassination is the best way to fight political battles. You do not win these kinds of battles simply by presenting and positioning yourself; you do by assassinating the character of your opponents.
Have you ever asked yourself what had stopped Marc Bazin, the leader of the MIDH, from winning the 1990 presidential election in Haiti? That man was unstoppable. He had the persona, the savviness and the money to finance and run a well-structured campaign. But what he failed to realize was that money alone does not win elections. You need to be presenting yourself and your agenda and attacking your opponents. The strategy for his defeat was perfectly crafted that he was politically dead before the news even got to him.
How did his character get assassinated? The Haitian left painted him as an emissary of Washington. That’s exactly what they did, and before you know it, he was powerless with all the money he had.
The framing of the leader of the MIDH as Washington’s emissary worked perfectly because the public sentiment at the time was VERY antagonistic towards Washington. And the left did not spend a dime in presenting their candidate, Jean Bertand Aristide, who had just been relieved of his priesthood duty by Vatican for his revolutionary and leftist ideology of liberation theology. Aristide, as popular and powerful as he was, did not need any introduction to the political scene. With only a few months of campaigning, he could topple Bazin’s chance to win the presidency.
Other politicians got eliminated from the scene simply by being labeled the M word –MAKOUT. Coming from the brutal dictatorship regime of the Duvalier, the people were highly repulsive of anyone having ties or acquaintances with the regime. So if you are a candidate, once you are framed as a TONTON MAKOUT, the ceremony for your political funeral is inevitable.
In conclusion, character assassination is a great strategy of battle which politicians use to annihilate their challenger. It works wonders. Politics is not supposed to be fair. How could you be fair in playing a game which must be won psychologically? Before you win in the polls, you must win in the minds of the people. So politicians should not be spending money in just presenting themselves and their agendas to the electorate; they should also work just as hard to assassinate the character of their opponents. It is despicable to see in this 21st century these Haitian politicians using the same archaic RARA POLITICS as political tool to get the attention of the electorate. Character assassination is not a punishable offense, so use it.
This piece is not intended to come to the rescue of Rap Kreyol; I don’t think the musical genre does need Emann Joasil to come to its recue. It has more knowledgeable and more suitable people, I assume, to do the job for it. And I am not even a big fan of Rap music, whether it be American Rap or Rap Kreyol. This article, however, is going to address a very important issue that seems to have a toll on our world of music production.
Let me start off by asking this very bold and pertinent question: Why are some of our Konpa artists so panicky when it comes to the surprising evolution and revolution of Rap Kreyol? Let’s get something straight once and for all. The movement will not be put to rest or go away just because some in the Konpa world decide to engage in a badmouthing or denigrating campaign. You guys need to chill!!!! Like we say in our Creole, “mete yon blok glas sou lestomak nou.”
Just like the emergence or explosion of Rasin music during the early 1990’s did not force Konpa to retirement, Rap Kreyol will not do it either. Rap Kreyol is nothing but an add-on to the country’s musical mosaic. Instead of being resentful, we need to be receptive to it; we need to welcome it with open arms, for diversity or plurialism is always desirable or socially and economically beneficial to the consumers.
When Rap music was picking up steam in the American society in the 1980’s, musical genres such as Jazz, Blues, R&B, Country Music, Rock & Roll and others did not feel threatened. Instead, they fastened up their belts to battle through production and marketing to secure their positions in the American entertainment market.
Everybody will get a piece of the pie. So there is no need to panic. This is the time for our Konpa artists/bands to start thinking big and start thinking about leaving their comfort zones. There is no guarantee in a market of 9 million consumers with very limited purchasing power. The time is urgent for our Konpa bands/artists to be going big on exploring other markets on the international arena.
Rap Kreyol is not, has never been, and will never be Konpa’s problem. Konpa’s main problem is Konpa itself. It needs a new approach to production and marketing if it must see another fifty years. Otherwise, that genre of music, which we proudly call our musical identity, may end up in history book.
There is a law of production that says that the quality of any finished output is a reflection of the quality of raw materials going into its production process. So it is time to bring quality resources into the production of our musical outputs. In other words, we need to bring skilled people or professionals in every aspect of the business –production, marketing, distribution, etc.
These days, our Konpa musicians refuse to challenge themselves to produce the quality of music that can transcend markets and generations. Putting everything in perspective, it is fair enough to argue that in a sense we were desperately waiting for the challenge Rap Kreyol is giving Konpa today. If anything, we need to be thankful to Rap Kreyol for coming just in time to wake up Konpa from the coma it has long been diving in. The wake-up call was long overdue.
The Konpa bands/artists were getting too lazy and comfortable. Production was getting very subpar in a less demanding market -where mediocrity, charlatanism and amateurism were becoming tokens of appreciation. Almost all the bands in the Konpa landscape wanted to sound identical or like the most influential and successful ones. There was a sort of bandwagon every single band wanted to jump on. Originality was nothing but a vague and coreless expression. And what they failed to realize was that when you are a duplicate you can never get to outperform the original or real thing. So real competition, being the drive capable of making the players in the market go beyond their reaches, was basically inexistent.
Rap Kreyol is not going anywhere. So if it cannot be drawn away, it makes sense to join hands with it. To all my diehard Konpa lovers/admirers and Rap Kreyol bashers, I want to urge you to look for the enemy elsewhere; it certainly is not Rap Kreyol. To our Kreyol Rappers, keep doing what you have been doing and even better. Don’t see Konpa as a target. To do so will be to put it on a pedestal it does not even belong. Rather, see the sky of the global market as your only limit. Keep producing great music and keep representing our musical colors wherever you guys happen to be.
In some Western circles and books written by Western writers, for the most part, you would find Dessalines not being given the proper respect he deserves. When/if they do talk about him, he would be portrayed or presented as a demon. Today, I am writing this piece to join the ranks of many who have been fighting to refurbish the tarnished image of this great son of Africa.
Dessalines, one of the people of Haiti’s many heroes, was not a demon. How could he be called a demon and George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte are excluded from the league? See, I want you all to pay close attention as to who those people are -the ones who have been calling him these types of condescending and demeaning names. It’s the people whose interests he was against. Today, sadly and ironically, we even have countless brainwashed Haitians in that league. These Haitians are nothing but emissaries of a status quo that stands for nothing that we Haitians stand for. We will always have them around. That’s understandable. They were around in 1804, they are still alive today. They are not going anywhere. We just have got to deal with them.
For the information of all, Dessalines was not a demon. He was what he was for his people, a freedom-fighter. He was a great, brilliant and valiant leader. He did something which surpasses human comprehension –commanding the indigenous army of Haiti, an army of slaves and former slaves, to victory against the Napoleon Army, the then greatest army in the world. If that is not heroic, I don’t know what is.
To the military experts out there still trying to figure out how could such insolence happen, I have to say that warfare is not won solely with the sharpness of your weapons, but also with the sharpness of your strategy. Dessalines was an astute war strategist. It is that simple.
If he was alive today fighting our independence war against the French colonial system, I would have not been surprised hearing him being called a terrorist. He would have been a terrorist because he was not shy at all to respond to terror with terror. If he, who was using terror to suppress the terrorist acts of the French, could have been called a terrorist, would it have not been fair to demand that the French brutal system and those who were working to keep it alive too be called so? The French, who were terrorizing the Black Africans, would have not been any less of a bunch of terrorists than Dessalines would have been.
Dessalines took three words as vague as liberty, equality and fraternity –which were nothing but slogans for the slaves in the colony of Saint Domingue –and showed the metropolitan French society how to materialize them. Like my good friend MrProdg would say, the man “stood for something and fought/died for it.”
What I am trying to convey to you reading this piece is to not let yourself caught in the game of words being played today. As long as there are freedom-fighters, there will always be demons, monsters, and terrorists, for, as I have said to you earlier, one man’s terrorist, demon and monster is another man’s freedom-fighter.
Dessalines, of course, was a demon and a monster for the people whose interests he was not defending and protecting. But we Haitians know that he was our freedom-fighter, and that is what should matter. We must not and will not allow anybody to come tell us otherwise. We already know what the deal is. The fact of the matter is, had he not done what he did to earn and secure our independence, the outcome would have been beneficial to the French, not to us Haitians. We would have still been today in physical and psychological bondage. If today some Haitians are still in psychological bondage, it is because of a choice they had made, not because they were forced to be.
So Dessalines was neither a demon nor a monster. He was a great, honorable and well-respected freedom-fighter. Anyone (non-Haitians and brainwashed Haitians) trying to demonize him by calling him all types of names can just go to hell. If I could deify him, I would. He was a “gason vanyan, neg ki pa konn rete ak moun.” May his soul rest in peace!
First, let me thank you, sir, for having left this video interview on my page on Facebook. At least, it gives me an idea as to where you stand on some of the key issues. You make sense in most of the things you said, but you left me a little perplexed for having not said a word with respect to the integration of the Diaspora in the development of the country and the reform of our system of justice. I understand the time allocated for this video interview may have not been a lot, but I think you missed a golden opportunity. How could you not be addressing these issues?
You talked about a program of job creation, and I think that is great. But how can you possibly think of any developmental plan without reaching out to the Diaspora, especially when we contribute over $2 Billion dollars a year to the country’s economy? We in the Diaspora have our own issues too, sir. We are tired of being economic contributors with no representation. We need to have a say in the internal politics of the country and have our own representation in Congress. And for all that to happen, the Haitian citizenship must be granted to us Haitians who happened to acquire the citizenship of our host countries.
In terms of the military, you are speaking my language -the return of the HAITIAN military to replace the MINUSTAH. I think that’s a must. You score some heavy points with that agenda item. To restore confidence in the foreign investors and the Haitian investors living in the DIASPORA, you have got to put the wave of insecurity under control. And so far, the UN troops currently occupying the country are not doing so. That was great to see you speaking in those terms.
You talked about a specialized intelligence agency to fight the corruptive practices in the public administration. I disagree wholeheartedly with you on that, sir. We don’t need another bureaucracy to fight corruption. We just have to enforce the law. By the way, don’t we have a Court Superieure des Comptes? It should be and it is the responsibility of that institution -to audit and investigate fraudulent practices in the public administration. Here in the US, we have an Inspector General (IG) inside almost every institution serving as watchdog to make sure things are being conducted according to the established internal rules, regulations and policies. So you don’t need another bureaucracy. We already have one. Let me tell you what we need. We need CAPITAL PUNISHMENT for these people. We need to be killing them. Once you prosecute and KILL five of them publicly, you will see if things will not be under control in a matter of weeks. I think you are a little too soft on this issue. I am for tough measures to fight corruption, especially in HAITI where it has become a CANCER. Well, again, I cannot blame you for your softness, for you are a politician running for office, meaning you have got to always be politically correct in your statements.
Well, though I disagree with your approach, unlike your rival Wilson Jeudy, at least you have a plan. That man plans on building a prison on the island of La gonave to jail the senators and other high government employees who are found guilty of stealing the people’s money. And the rationale behind that is that if the prison is destroyed and the prisoners are trying to escape, they will have the sharks in the sea waiting for them. That’s his plan to fight corruption. lol lol lol 😀 Excuse me, sir, if you see me laughing out so loud. This is the most ludicrous stuff I have ever heard in my life. lol lol lol lol lol 😀 I am sure you are now laughing too.
On the issue of taxation, I commend you for planning on working with our international friends to modernize our system at the General Bureau of Taxation (DGI) and train the staff there to make them more effective in their efforts to bring tax revenues into the country’s treasury. But I think it should be made a CRIME to not pay taxes in Haiti. Once we have the modernized system in place, we need to come up with laws to criminalize tax evasion. Then again, you cannot enforce something when you don’t have the system to do that. That would be foolish, would it not?
I see that you dodged the question on how to restore the authority of the state. You said: “Il faut moderniser l’etat” as though that is going to restore its authority. Yes, the computerization and modernization of our system is important, but I am not sure if it will restore the authority of the state.
I do agree with you on the necessity to strengthen the municipalities. The mayor in a city is the administrator, the president, the head of that city. If everything someone in the cities needs, it must be handled by somebody in Port-au-Prince, then what is the sense of having the local governments? Just have one central administration in Port-au-Prince and have everyone travel there for everything they want. Wait a minute!! Isn’t it the way it is now? What am I talking about? lol
Overall, it was a great interview. Many things you said I disagree with, but I do agree with you for the most part. Good luck, sir! You have a winning message. Just get out there and market it to see if the buyers will be interested in buying it.
P.S. Here are some issues –education, healthcare and agriculture -you slightly touched on but did not really get into details:
On the issue of public education, you only stated that 40% of our school age kids are not going to school. I would love to know what your plan is to remedy to this gruesome reality.
Health care is a serious situation in Haiti. You mentioned that many pregnant women in labor in Haiti are being transported on the back of a horse to get to the nearest health care center, which, in many instances, is located tens of miles away. I am wondering what you have in your social agenda to fix this health care disparity issue.
I did not hear you say anything about agriculture, a key component in our economy. Just let me know how important that is in your economic agenda. I hope it is somewhere to be found in your plan to reform our economy.
Rejoicing chilean miner seconds after being brought to safety
The world has just finished watching the rescue operation that was going on in Chile all day yesterday; I am sure Preval too has, for it was being broadcasted around the globe minute by minute and action by action.
The 33 Chilean miners had been trapped under the ground for over 2 months, precisely since August 05. The Chilean government, led by President Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique, ought to be praised for the sophisticated operation they put together to bring these men to safety. Mind you, this government has been in power for only seven months, and the country has just got through an 8.8-magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale, releasing an energy range between 500 and 900 times that of the magnitude 7.0 quake that hit Haiti on January the 12th.
By most people’s accounts, the government’s response to the tragedy was excellent. I bet the 33 miners are right about now thanking their God or gods for not being in a country like Haiti. Otherwise, they would have been left under the ground to die. If the authorities in that country were irresponsible like Preval, the president of Haiti, the miners would have had to “naje pou yo soti,” meaning they would have had to dig their way out.
Preval’s “naje pou w soti” philosophy could have not been any more evident than it has during and after the earthquake. While the people were dying and confused about which direction to go and whom to turn to, he was nowhere to be found -not even the foreign journalists dispatched on the ground minutes after the quake could find him. He went AWOL “Absent without leave” on the people.
All day yesterday, President Piñera of Chile and his staff were on the scene overseeing the operation to make sure that everything went as planned and expected. That played very well in the psychology of the rescue workers who were there doing their very best to bring the 33 men to safety. Yet, when the earthquake hit Haiti, it took our president days, if not weeks, to come out of the hole he was hiding in to show his selfishness, to make a statement only to complain about his palace and his house being destroyed. His selfish attitude could easily be translated in these terms: “the hell with the people; my palace and my house collapsed.”
The people of Haiti did not ask Preval to go out there and physically remove them from under the rubbles. They only expected him to command and lead in time of war, disaster and distress. As a leader of a country, that’s what is required of you in situations like these. You have to be able to instill confidence in the people and make them believe that better days are ahead. And when you go AWOL into hiding and fail to do so, you’ve got to be held accountable.
Preval’s irresponsibility and failure to respond caused more people to lose their lives in the aftermath of the disaster. Some lives could probably have been saved had he used his office to command and lead in an expeditious manner. He has people’s blood in his hands. In the United States military, the institution I spent six years of my life in, that man would have been court marshaled and jailed for having failed to fulfill his duty expectedly and, because of that, loss of lives occurred. It is time that we hold our leaders accountable.
Accountability is the essence of good governance. We need to make an example out of that man. We don’t need to do anything more than what the Constitution of the land prescribes. We’ve got to organize the people to ask that the government’s response to the crisis be investigated. Preval needs to answer some very pertinent questions so we will know what went wrong and what needs to be done to not repeat the same stupid and silly mistakes in the future. We need to know why he, the president of the country, was so irresponsive for weeks while the people were desperately waiting on him to come through to provide them with guidance and reassurance in the middle of the disaster.
Now, what Preval’s fate should be is not for me to tell. But I am sure the law of the land has something for him. Therefore, he must be given what he deserves for the acts of failure he displayed.
Ekspoze! -The final word 