26258: Pierre: Forward for Guy Antoine. ""Note from a scoundrel to the Honorable Peter Dailey" (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Hyppolite Pierre <hpierre@irsp.org>


A friend of mine on this list sent me your review of my editorial letter. Oh, 
what joy! As Michael Corleone once stated: "Every time you want out, someone 
draws you back in..." (or something of the sort) 
In the opening paragraph of your rebuttal, you camp on one side NCHR-Haiti 
(hard for you too to recall what they are called these days? I can't blame 
you!), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Haiti Democracy 
Project. They are the good guys. On the other side, you put in the IJDH, the 
HLLN, Fondasyon Trant Septanm, and Haiti Progrès. They are obviously the bad 
guys. Or at the very least, the unreliable sources of "the status of Human 
Rights in Haiti over the last year". 
I coud not care one bit for your categorization, Peter, but I will say that, 
personally, I have always found the various Haiti reports from Amnesty 
International over the years to be credible and above partisanship. They have, 
understandably, been very critical of the state of human rights in Haiti both 
under Lavalas and anti-Lavalas governments. On the other hand, to claim that 
the Haiti Democracy Project has been an impartial reporter of human rights in 
Haiti over the years, including the last, seems suspect and far-fetched, as 
that organization clearly favored the coup, as far as we can see water in the 
sea. I will stop my comments at those two, as this is not the point of my 
message and I will try to keep it reasonably short. However, as always, I think 
the business of neatly categorizing good and bad organizations, newspapers and 
other, rather facile and in the end, unhelpful and deceitful in its own right. 
But thank you, anyway, for listing your favorites and most disliked. The 
categorization may reveal more about you, the analyst and writer, than it tells 
us anything in particular about the organizations themselves. Then, 
interestingly -- or not so interestingly -- you bring in my website, Windows on 
Haiti into the comparison, a rather absurd proposition, and stated that it is 
not "unfortunately" a whole lot more reliable. Well, first of all, let me thank 
you sincerely, for checking the website at least once in a while, as it appears 
you have done. I am always concerned about the number of hits; that comes with 
the territory when you are the webmaster. So, keep on coming, please. However, 
I was a bit startled by the comparison. I did not expect to be in that league 
of majors, but thank you. Could I enlist your services as consultant for 
increasing the reliability of my website? I am not sure I can afford your fees, 
but it does not hurt to ask. 
Actually, I think I got a free bit of advice in "...he could probably find a 
more persuasive way of asserting this than heavy-handed sarcasm, which doesn't 
really suit him." Oh, Peter, I am so sorry that my sarcasm did not suit you, I 
mean, me. Could you tell me which style of writing would suit me better? 
Anything to please you, Sir! Just tell me how best to phrase my opinions, and 
I'll do my best to write in a more palatable manner. 
Let me try then to rephrase my opinion very succintly in a style you might 
prefer. I did object to the coup d'état in the making and I still do, now that 
it is a couple years old, nearly. The point of my unpalatable sarcasm, however, 
was that, given a coup d'état - abetted by the French, the Canadians, and the 
Americans - and the extra-constitutional installation of an interim government, 
one could have had clear expectations that the fruit you put in the bowl were 
better than those you discarded. No, I do not see a general improvement of the 
human rights record in Haiti. And throughout my "heavy-handed" sarcasm, I was 
questioning the value of the coup and the orgiastic convergence of 
democratizing forces in Haiti (sorry, my bad!) 
I must also confess that I was particularly puzzled by your specific reference 
to Jacques Roche in this manner: "- the name of Jean Roche is an interesting or 
not so interesting omission". In which way do you find the omission 
"interesting" or "not so interesting"? What are you trying, subtly or not so 
subtly, to insinuate with that comment??? I confess that I did not know about 
Mr. Roche prior to his villainous assassination, but I have read enough about 
him afterwards to know first of all that his first name is Jacques, not Jean. 
Also, I understand from numerous credible sources that Mr. Roche was a 
humanist, a patriot, and maybe a columnist/editorialist (but actually not a 
reporter, as one could reasonably describe the professional activity of Kevin 
Pina, Jean Ristil, and Guyler Delva). That's my impression, anyway, and I stand 
to be corrected if I am wrong in this regard. Soon after I learned about his 
kidnapping, torture, and murder, I decried the horror. Now, help me, if you 
please, with the point that you obviously are trying (unfairly and 
mischievously) to induce in the minds of your readers. Spit it out! Could it be 
that I care less about Mr. Roche than the others? How exploitive!! I hold at 
least one branch of the Boniface/Latortue government responsible for the 
threatened or factual acts of intimidation against Pina, Ristil, and Delva, but 
I see no way, no freaking way, that I should have drawn Mr. Roche into that 
list. I cannot implicate any government in his murder. As a lawyer, Mr. Dailey, 
you know that perfectly well. As far as I know, some people were arrested in 
the course of the investigation into Jacques Roche's murder. I have not heard 
anything about the criminal case, since. Perhaps, you have already decided who 
is guilty in this matter, as scores of people have already done, without a 
shred of evidence. But I prefer to respect and honor the memory of someone like 
Jacques Roche, of whom I have read much to admire, than try to score cheap 
political points by capitalizing on his name, in circumstances that I am not 
knowledgeable about and, I am willing to bet, you are not either. 
Finally, you claim that " MINUSTAH will continue to be seen as the one thing 
preventing the ultimate descent into a kind of Hobbesian universe " (Ah, just 
say "hell", that would suit you better) "and patriotic appeals such as 
Antoine's are likely to fall on deaf ears." I already knew they were falling on 
deaf ears, Mr. Dailey. Who wants to listen to a scoundrel? But I reserve my 
right to free expression, nevertheless. And through my ill-suited sarcasm, I am 
venting my frustration at the current state of human rights in Haiti. Deaf ears 
should not listen.