Stuart Leiderman leiderman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: leiderman: president, parliament, etc.: the difference between
goals and plans
Thanks to Jacqui Labrom for her logical line of questioning on the
governmental links and responsibilities between a president and a
parliament. And for the reference to the president's speech Tuesday. I
didn't find a transcript, but excerpts are in an article of the Miami
Herald below. There plenty for list readers to post about.
Indeed, any president (or executive branch) or any legislature
(parliament, congress, assembly, etc.) can desire and talk about things
such as solar energy, tourist locations, superhighways, industrial
parks, etc. In the same way, an individual Haitian might want to "have
a family," or "a business," or a "safe place to live."
But no matter how civilized or rosy or greenish or universal those
desires might be, they are merely goals, not plans. Goals are
necessary, but not sufficient, the same as the goal for having a dinner
is just fine, but without the money or the garden for getting the food,
dinner will never happen and hunger will never slacken. The attached
template used by a Haiti-support organization gives a straightforward
distinction about all this; every president or president-wannabe,
minister or parliamentarian could benefit from studying, understanding
and using something like this every day.
And in fact, compared to a population's desire for, for example, honest
government, affordable cost of living and safe streets, none of those
other things the president may have advanced on inauguration day seem to
be of high priority to the populace, not then and not now. There is no
groundswell or demonstrations in the street for solar energy or
superhighways or a national army, or four million-dollar viewing
stands...and no president, cabinet minister or parliamentarian in
today's Haiti can justify pursuing any of that before first pursuing and
accomplishing honest government, affordable cost of living, safe
streets, sufficient tax base, a working knowledge of the national
economy, and a frank assessment of the country's carrying capacity.
Jacqui's reasonable question of who's to blame would be justified and
actionable if there were feasible and non-corrupt plans behind the
goals, and if the goals and plans did not seem to come from outer space.
For example, remember when the president said he would take the
pressure off food prices by eliminating the import fees on rice
merchants. The current price of rice is indicated at
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Haiti
Is that higher, lower or the same as before the president gifted the
rice merchants during an earlier wave of protests?
But if there are no feasible and non-corrupt plans, then who-to-blame is
irrelevant. What is more relevant is dissecting political opposition,
per se, from governmental incompetence and/or dereliction. Then
negotiations and planning can occur. Basically it means that no matter
who may hold the reins of power in Haiti, say a year from now, they will
face the same if not worse three emergencies - economic, political and
humanitarian - that are destroying the life and environment of the
country and its prospects of remaining sovereign. Today, of course,
Haiti is not the only country going through this.
"Dialogue" is a goal, not a plan.
= = =
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article236242113.html
HAITI PRESIDENT ON DEMANDS FOR HIM TO RESIGN: ‘IT WOULD BE
IRRESPONSIBLE ON MY PART’
By Jacqueline Charles
October 15, 2019 07:38 PM, Updated October 16, 2019 11:25 AM
Haiti’s embattled president broke a weeks-long silence Tuesday,
telling his protesting nation that while he hears their cries in the
streets, he has no intentions of stepping down.
“It would be irresponsible on my part for me to stand here today, to
sign and submit a letter of resignation and say ‘I am leaving’ and
leave the country like this and the system regenerates itself,”
President Jovenel Moïse said during an impromptu press conference on
the grounds of the National Palace.
Casting himself as the victim of Haiti’s constitution and “a
system” that encourages underdevelopment and misery, Moïse evoked the
language of his critics over Haiti’s outgrown system in hopes of
quelling tensions as Haiti faced a fifth week of paralysis.
Moïse also blamed the constitution and Parliament for his inability to
improve Haitians’ lives.
“Parliament spent eight months refusing to give us a government,”
said Moïse, who came to office 32 months ago.
Those calling for Moïse’s resignation have called for a different
kind of system to govern the country, arguing that the current one,
created after the fall of the 1986 Duvalier family dictatorship, only
benefits a few. With 60 percent of the population earning less than $2 a
day, and 20 percent of the population controlling 60 percent of the
wealth, Haiti, with 11 million people, is one of the hemisphere’s most
unequal countries.
The reaction to Moïse’s rare public appearance, which came on the
same day that the United Nations ended its peacekeeping presence after
15 years, was swift. Fearing more of the widespread protests, burning
tires and barricades that have paralyzed Haiti since last month, many
Haitians in Port-au-Prince rushed home to get off the streets..
“He showed he’s a president who lacks competence,” said Lemète
Zéphyr, a professor and spokesman for a group of activists, university
professors and chambers of commerce working on a transition plan.
Zéphyr said Moïse may have sped up his own departure with his
antagonizing speech.
“He attacked his base. He attacked the people who put him in power and
he showed the population he wasn’t doing anything. This is why they
made him president, to resolve their problems,” Zéphyr said. “He
hasn’t shown any effort to change the system that he said is no
good.”
Moïse opened his address by insinuating that he was a victim of
powerful interests in Haiti, interests that support a system that
provides double-digit interest rates to the poor from the government-run
pension fund, while low rates to the rich and powerful. A system, he
said, that has guardians and heirs.
“The system has victims too. You the people who are listening to me,
watching me, you are victims of the system also,” he said.
To illustrate his point, he spoke of several contracts he said his
administration had canceled. The president did not name names, and was
selective in the details. But at least two of the contracts he singled
out were awarded under former President Michel Martelly, who handpicked
Moïse to succeed him.
One of the contracts involved a $43 million payment that Moïse said the
interim government of President Jocelerme Privert issued to rebuild the
Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince. He failed
to mention, however, that the contract was entered into by the Martelly
government over the objections of the international community due to the
high interest payments. Martelly’s administration also approved a
10-year border contract with an Israeli firm for $22 million a year.
“If I were to list the quantity of contracts, advantages the system
used to give that we... have decided to cancel, it would take me a
day,” Moïse said.
Moïse acknowledged that things are not easy in Haiti today. The United
Nations ended its 15-year peacekeeping presence [1] Tuesday, and a group
of university students entered their third day of a hunger strike at the
State University of Haiti in Port-au-Prince to demand Moïse’s
resignation. Schools and businesses have remained shuttered, and at
least 30 people died in the violence since last month, said the U.N.
“You didn’t vote me to come fight with anyone. You voted me so that
I could come fight against a system,” he said. “It would be
difficult for anyone who became president today to confront this system
because it has the capacity to regenerate itself.”
While he addressed the Haitian population and took questions from
reporters, the U.N. Security Council met in New York, where diplomats
reflected on their mixed Haiti peacekeeping record, the current turmoil
and continued calls for dialogue among Haitians.
“Haiti certainly gives us a lot to reflect upon,” Jean-Pierre
Lacroix, the U.N.’s under-secretary-general for peace operations told
the Security Council. “The country is facing a significant political
crisis, intertwined with socio-economic challenges. These, in turn,
affect the security environment, which further feeds political
instability — a cycle that the country has seen one too many times.”
Lacroix then provided a litany of the current political turbulence
including the opposition’s position that Moïse’s Sept. 25 call for
a national dialogue and the formation of a unity government was “too
little, too late.”
“Opposition groups are putting forward the acceptance by the president
of the principle of his departure as a precondition for dialogue,
thereby leaving little room for negotiation of a unity government,”
Lacroix said. ”Mistrust is making compromise difficult, and yet the
formation of such a government may well provide a way forward to lasting
political solutions that are desperately needed.”
That remained a distant possibility Tuesday even as Moïse called for
the opposition to come to the negotiating table, saying Haiti needs
“serenity and calm.” He had read all of the proposals for his
departure, he said, but noted that previous departures by a sitting
president in 1986 and 2004 had not gotten the country anywhere.
He believed the country was “worse off,” after the 2004 forced
departure of democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
“We all have to work together,” Moïse said.
Activists calling for Moïse’s departure said his speech will only add
fuel to their calls for renewed protests on Thursday when Haiti
commemorates the assassination of its founding father, Jean-Jacques
Dessalines.
“He doesn’t take any responsibility,” said Velina Charlier, a
member of the anti-corruption grassroots organization _Nou Pap Dòmi_
(We are not Sleeping).
In a statement, Nou Pap Dòmi said: “The president must resign. He has
no credibility and has long lost our trust. Our position remains the
same: A corrupt president can’t govern our nation.”
Opposition leader and attorney André Michel said the president’s
speech lacked credibility.
“Mr. Jovenel Moise does not have the moral authority to attack the
guards of the exclusionary system that we are fighting today because his
election campaign was betrothed by these people,” Michel said, adding
that during the 2016 elections Moïse “had at his disposal more
economic means than all the other candidates together.”
Recalling the helicopters that flew the president to campaign stops and
the boats that carried rice, iron and zinc sheeting to hurricane victims
in Jeremie on his behalf, Michel said: “We are all aware of the need
to break this system. That’s why we fight every day alongside the
Haitian people.”
Read more here:
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article236242113.html#storylink=cpy
= = =
SUBJECT: [CORBETTLIST] Labrom: re the President's speech on Tuesday
DATE: Oct 17, 2019 10:30 AM
from voyageslumierehaiti@xxxxxxxxx
During the President's speech he said that after he was installed as
President, he made a list of the main things he wanted to start planning
for the country.
He talked about energy, and solar energy, roads, education, health and
agriculture, if my memory serves me right.
He then said he had lined up funding for these projects - from Intl.
organisations and donors - some of it as a loan, and some of it as
outright funding.
These were the plans with which to kick off his Presidency.
He then presented them to Parliament - WHO DID NOT ACCEPT THEM!!
I am not an expert in anyway on the Constitution, but I believe that is
the way the Govt. works in Haiti - so correct me if I'm wrong - you who
know more about it than me.
The President draws up the plans he wishes to develop, I'm sure after
consulting with specialists in these areas. And then he hands them over
to Parliament to ratify.
<snip>
= = = = = = =
leiderman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Attachment:
554b hrdf proposal template for new projects - sml jan'17.doc
Description: MS-Word document
