by Colin Hyde
Somewhere in the writings of a man named Elie Wiesel, there is a story about a man who saw a farmer cutting grass and bringing it to the cows who were living in a grass deprived pasture, and the man asked the farmer why he didn’t break down the fence and let the cattle out so they could go and get the lush feed for themselves; and the farmer replied: “If I break down the fences and let the cattle out, I will no longer be able to milk them.” (I think I have that quote down verbatim)
Aha, when the pasture in the Americas south of the Rio Grande gets too bare, the “cattle” break the fence and go get some of that lush grass for themselves. Wiesel was a Holocaust survivor so, understandably, he was absolutely pro-Israel. But we would have to go check him in the cemetery to find out his views on this Israel which has become like the Nazis that imprisoned him.
Some vocal Belizeans are not supportive of UN and Kenyan intervention in Haiti. They condemn the Caribbean response. They say our government should not send troops to Haiti. A part of their reasoning seems to be the belief/hope that out of violence a leader will emerge to put Haiti on a path of peace and prosperity. They also fear that we will endanger our troops. I must say that I don’t believe any Belizean is eager for our troops to go to Haiti. If it was a case of a direct invasion from a foreign land, like from the Dominican Republic which it is said is complicit with foreign agents who supply arms to Haiti to fuel instability, there’d be no hesitation from Belize because we wouldn’t want our brothers and sisters in the Caribbean to be hesitant to send troops to our shores if Guatemala acts shamefully and crazily after the ICJ tells them to read the 1859 agreement.
Haiti is a complicated matter. Still, I think our troops who are brave should go. As for the Dominican Republic, they have a very bad image and that is why people would believe that terrible accusation.
There is a “gang” leader in Haiti who some feel is saying all the right things, and although he lives by the gun and stands accused of atrocities, points are out there in some quarters for anyone who says the right things.
The man’s name is Jimmy Chérizier, and he is a former police officer, a member of Haiti’s riot squad. The UK Guardian says, “in interviews, he poses as a God-fearing Caribbean Robin Hood and celebrates freedom fighters and agitators including Fidel Castro, Thomas Sankara and Malcolm X. ‘I like Martin Luther King, too,’ the Haitian gang boss Jimmy Chérizier told the New Yorker journalist Jon Lee Anderson when they met last year. ‘But he didn’t like fighting with guns, and I fight with guns.’”
It’s important to not forget that leadership in the best of times isn’t easy, and Haiti is going through the worst of times, so leadership there is most difficult. If Chérizier is Robin Hood, if whatever killing and looting he has done was not done out of bloodlust and greed, people who study history will be wary, not readily join those who believe he is the man for the moment. That’s because he is absolutely cheering the “wrong” heroes.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide didn’t come with the taint of violence. In fact, he was a victim. Da man was a priest. Those murderous beasts burned down his church. The Haiti he became president of had just experienced 30 years of Duvalier dictatorships, and those who had feasted off the dictatorships were not about sharing the fat they had accumulated. Aristide came to power because he was immensely popular. Despite his saying some of the “wrong things”, the US allowed him to come to power. Within 8 months, after he followed through on some of the “wrong things”, he was out of office.
The mighty US doesn’t tolerate leftist leaders in our hemisphere. The only socialist leader who survived the hammer of the US is Fidel, and he survived by doing the unthinkable. Fidel didn’t hate the Americans, and the Americans knew that. As a young man Fidel dreamed of playing baseball in the US big leagues. Fidel thought there would be tolerance after he ousted a corrupt dictator and chased home the American mob. But the straw that broke any chance for rapprochement with the Americans was his nationalization of certain private assets. In desperation, to save the revolution, he ran into the arms of the Russians. For that, the US has punished the Cubans for over 60 years, nonstop!
Anyone who is pinning their hopes on Chérizier doesn’t know the Americans, or believes we are at the end of that empire. We are not at the end of the American empire, and I’m not so misguided to pray for that, because full 50% of our people live in and swear allegiance to that land of milk and honey.
If Chérizier triumphs, he will become the new Duvalier, even if he is what he claims to be. Overnight he will change his spots and serve the elites, and enrich himself. Or he will be dethroned.
Aristide was chased from office after just 8 months, and he went to the US, where he got lessons. When the Americans were satisfied that he understood how the world worked, they returned him to power. The second Aristide regime was not leftist like the first. A lot of people are saying a lot of bad things about the second Aristide, and I know he was charged with some wrongdoing. One Olivier Nadal said he stole a large parcel of land to “build a marxist university with drug money.” Those of you who know the times know the big sin there isn’t drugs money. Aristide was tarred as a Marxist, and the US doesn’t tolerate that kind.
If you will lead in the West, you must be very careful with the Americans. Truth must be spoken to power, but you must be very careful with the economic policies. Make no mistake, anti-left hysteria still rages in the US. They are the force that is pushing Netanyahu and Israel madness in Gaza.
The US response to the overt Marxist has been played out so often, you have to be obtuse not to know it, and living in a make-believe world to think they will choose to let YOU get away with it. The US doesn’t mind drugs, if they control it. As John Watler explained in Sea Lotto, they have their agents. The US leaders know their people need something hallucinating to keep them going in their big rat race, and they turn their eyes away from their preferred suppliers.
Outside of the US, they care more about your economic philosophy than they do about the color of your skin. They have a soft spot for pseudo-whites south of the Rio Grande, just as long as they aren’t socialist. The first interviewees in the book, UBAD Conversations, said things definitely took a downward turn for the organization when they embraced people who were called Marxist. But the pragmatic Said not only got off that ship, he went into privatization. Don’t say Marxist!
It’s okay for regulars like me to be mouthing off about leftist things. But if you are a leader of people, please don’t grab your beans. If you say Marxist or play Marxist, the US throws its support behind the capitalists, and soon they are joined by politicians of the breed or who are into opportunism, and very soon you have a country that is ungovernable.
Every government in this hemisphere, except one, serves because the US government likes it, is tolerant of it, or is giving them rope until their people rise up and take them down. Dammit, if you will do right for your people, yu haffu be wily like George Price. What Haiti needs is a Jorge, someone who is tactical. And to have that, the Haitians must find the leader through the democratic process, which can only happen under the protection of the UN.