Stuart Leiderman leiderman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: leiderman fwd: state department baseball fan threatens haiti
with "consequences"
There is enough wrong and ominous in the contents and implications of
the attached compilation to occupy Corbett list discussion for quite
some time. Among the most noticeable [per below] is the veiled threat
of "consequences" to Haiti from the United States government if the
former doesn't "step up to the plate" and get on with elections.
Remember [per the compilation] how similar this sounded to what the
Secretary of State said at the beginning of the year. And then remember
how the 2020 baseball season was severely truncated. Could Haiti become
severely truncated, too? Ask the unidentified "senior official" who is
obviously relaxed talking about Haiti, confident in making such threats,
and at ease flinging baseball jargon as if the Western Hemisphere were
still Madison's "minor league." Note in another briefing the same day,
China has its own ideas about that.
For readers, what ten questions would you ask each selected electoral
council member about how they would proceed with their three appointed
tasks listed on page 4 of yesterday's "Le Moniteur"?
= = = = = = =
excerpt from:
https://www.state.gov/briefing-with-senior-state-department-official-on-the-secretarys-upcoming-travel-to-suriname-guyana-brazil-colombia-and-texas
_MODERATOR: __Great. Next question, let’s go to the line of Jacqueline
Charles._
_QUESTION: __I have two questions, one on Guyana and the other one on
Haiti since we’re talking about democracy. On Guyana, what posture is
the administration looking for from this new government in regard to
Venezuela, considering that they are currently in a border dispute and
the previous government basically tried to play it both ways?_
_And on Haiti, the prime minister today said that they will soon
announce a new electoral commission, but the Catholic Church,
Protestants, universities, human rights, private sector associations,
all credible groups that have been part of the commission since ’86,
have categorically said they will not send anyone to sit on a new CEP.
What do you consider to be a credible CEP, how can it be formed, and how
do you see elections taking place in this current environment where
we’ve got police officers blowing up government cars and daily
protests?_
_SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL:__ Okay, good. On Guyana, yes, there
is a border dispute between Guyana and Venezuela. It’s been going on
for a long time. I think our position on that is very clear, and remains
unchanged, which is that any – there was an arbitral award way back
when. The matter has been submitted to ICJ review. Any disputes over the
border should be resolved peacefully, as the two sides seem to be doing.
So we don’t see any change on that front._
_In terms of the problems that are created for Guyana by having refugee
flows and also, I mean, it’s not just that Venezuela produces
refugees; they are producing security problems for all these countries
by harboring terrorists, harboring narcotraffickers. When we’re trying
to interdict drugs – and we’ve put a lot more assets into that and
working closely with all the Caribbean partners – where are those
coming from? A good deal of the activity seems to be centered in
Venezuela now._
_So basically we’re looking to Guyana to remain – it’s in
Guyana’s own interest, whether it was the previous government or this
one, to try to work together to try to resolve the crisis in Venezuela._
_On Haiti: Look, the issue we have there is very similar to what we had
in Guyana for the last year or so, which is you can’t, in Guyana, say
you have a democratic government if the government overstays its
constitutional mandate and is ruling by decree, in effect. And that’s
what’s happened in Haiti, perhaps through no fault of President Moise,
but the legislature there never passed a electoral law during the entire
time it was in. So he has the opportunity to do that by his rule by
decree, and we believe he should. You can’t maintain a democracy for
very long with one of the main branches of government being absent._
_So we think all Haitians have a responsibility to deal with this.
President Moise has the capacity to appoint a new provisional electoral
council. There is a provision for that in the constitution. He is
supposed to get recommendations from the different civil society groups.
And frankly, I have to say I’m a little bit tired of every group,
every opposition party in Haiti saying, “Well, I won’t appoint my
person,” or “We won’t have an election,” or “We won’t run in
this until you meet all of my political demands.” That’s not
democracy. And so we are quite insistent on this, and it’s going to
start to have consequences for those who stand in the way of it._
_What we’re saying to the Haitian players is: Do your respective jobs.
The president’s got a job to do, the legislators had a job to do and
didn’t do it, but civil society has jobs to do too. And you can’t
say doing my job is contingent on me extorting from you everything I
want. That’s simply not a democratic way to go forward._
_So we – for us, the Haitian constitution spells out what a
provisional election council should look like. The president has some
responsibility to appoint it with the – with input from those other
groups. And obviously, the kinds of people you’d like to see appointed
are people who have a reputation for integrity, honesty, competence, and
who can do a good job of organizing elections. They’re not supposed to
produce the outcome of the election, they’re supposed to produce a
good electoral process. That’s all we ask in any of these countries,
and that’s what we ask in Haiti. And I think we just saw that by
asking – collectively asking for that and reinforcing those in their
own countries who are asking for that, we saw very good outcomes in both
Suriname and Guyana because they each ended up having credible processes
and they have ended up resolving a whole series of issues that have
built up because of a failure to do that._
_So Haiti – Haiti really needs to step up to the plate and we’re
very looking much forward to them doing it. But they need to do their
job._
Attachment:
2020sep19 provisional' electoral council formed.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document
