CKUT Radio: Haiti — A Rough 2007

Patrick Elie com­ments on the lat­est UN massacre

Patrick Elie inter­viewed by

Aaron Lakoff

CKUT Radio

Aaron Lakoff (AL): I’m joined on the line right now with Patrick Elie. Patrick is a long time human rights and polit­i­cal activist. He joins us from Port au Prince, Haiti. Good evening Patrick.

Patrick Elie (PE): Good evening Aaron.

AL: Some reports have com­pared this recent mas­sacre to the one that was car­ried out by MINUSTAH, a very well known mas­sacre, on July 6, 2005. Of course, back then the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion on MINUSTAH’s part was that they were going in to take out a gang leader at the time, Dread Wilme. Can you talk a lit­tle bit about what the MINUSTAH jus­ti­fi­ca­tion was for this raid, whether the con­text has changed?

AL: Do you seen any kind of res­o­lu­tion to these UN attacks that are tak­ing place, in terms of the secu­rity sit­u­a­tion in Haiti? What needs to hap­pen for them to stop?

PE: I think that come early Jan­u­ary, if the present gov­ern­ment does not very very res­olutely state that it stands res­olutely with the peo­ple that elected them, and change the course of the poli­cies its been wag­ing, I think we are in for a very rough 2007. I’m cer­tainly hop­ing that this is not what will hap­pen, but if the gov­ern­ment does not respond to the people’s res­o­lu­tion with a res­o­lu­tion of its own, I think we are in for a very rough time.

AL: And just one last ques­tion: as 2006 comes to a close, of course, most impor­tantly with the elec­tions and with the inau­gu­ra­tion of Rene Preval this year, what do you see hap­pen­ing in terms of the cur­rent con­text with the main pop­u­lar demands of the Hait­ian peo­ple in terms of Aris­tide com­ing back to Haiti, in terms of the release of all the polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, in terms of ret­ri­bu­tion for the crimes com­mit­ted under the Latortue gov­ern­ment. Where do you see those pop­u­lar demands going?

PE: I think if these pop­u­lar demands are not addressed, we have some very rough waters [ahead]. You know, the de facto [Latortue-Alexandre] gov­ern­ment has really set a trap for this [Preval-Alexis] gov­ern­ment in many ways. For exam­ple, in fir­ing thou­sands of peo­ple in a coun­try where, as you know, the level of unem­ploy­ment is very high. But they have also hired a lot of peo­ple they have not paid, and that the new legit­i­mate gov­ern­ment is now stuck with. It’s a time to be bold as the Hait­ian peo­ple were bold in last Feb­ru­ary, you know when every­body said that noth­ing could be done, and the Hait­ian peo­ple mobi­lized and snatched vic­tory away from the ene­mies of democ­racy — now it’s time for the gov­ern­ment to be bold, and they will have to do some seri­ous change of pol­icy in the begin­ning of the year that comes. Oth­er­wise, we are head­ing for seri­ous trouble.

AL: I’ve been on the phone with Patrick Elie from Port au Prince, Haiti. Thank-you very much for speak­ing with is tonight Patrick.

PE: Hang in there and have a bet­ter 2007. Kembe la.

[1] The fol­low­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion and addi­tion was received by ZNet from Patrick Elie via e-mail: