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From: Haiti Action Committee <haitiaction@yahoo.com><br>
Subject: Fwd: Haiti - Letter to the NY Times and Corrections to the
Bicentennial Story<br>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 14:14:09 -0800 (PST)<br><br>
<br>
Just in case you did not see the corrections in the NY Times regarding
the Haiti Bicentennial story, they are reproduced below the following
letter to the NY Times from the General Counsel for the government of
Haiti, Mr. Ira Kurzban, Esq.<br><br>
To provide truthful information about Haiti to the public and members of
the media, please help us circulate this message.<br><br>
Thank you for your assistance.<br><br>
The Haiti Action Committee<br>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>
Kurzban letter to New York Times re: Polgreen article<br>
Ms. Lydia Polgreen<br>
New York Times<br>
New York, New York<br><br>
Dear Ms. Polgreen:<br><br>
I write to you and your editors
because of numerous factual errors contained in your story on the January
1st celebrations in Haiti marking the 200 anniversary of that country's
independence. I assume that the factual errors arose from your lack of
familiarity with the political situation in Haiti or because you have
been provided a good deal of misinformation. The article that I will
address below was published on Friday, January 2, 2004 in the
International section of the New York Times.<br><br>
First, your article states
that: "Mr Aristide was re-elected to the presidency in voting
that many observers said was flawed" and that as result "the
country had been locked in political crisis." You further stated
that: "The dispute led international donors to suspend $500 million
in aid¦" These statements are inaccurate. Such erroneous statements
regarding Haiti often arise from the common confusion between the May
2000 parliamentary elections and the November 2000 presidential election.
In May, 2000, there were 30,000 candidates who ran for 7,500 positions
ranging from mayors and department representatives to Senators and
members of the lower chamber. Of the 7,500 elections, the Organization of
American States challenged the methodology used in counting 8 senate
seats. While the independent electoral council (called the
"CEP" in Haiti) claimed that the methodology used in counting
the victors in those elections had been used in previous elections, the
OAS observers disagreed. The OAS report is clear that there were no
credible allegations of wide spread fraud in the elections.<br><br>
In any event, no responsible
international organization or observers contended that Mr. Aristide's
election which occurred in November, 2000 was invalid or tainted in any
manner as you suggested in your article. I invite you to review the OAS
reports. It was clear in November, 2000 that Mr. Aristide's election was
not marred by fraud or allegations of impropriety.<br><br>
As soon as Mr. Aristide took
office in February 2001 he used the power of his Presidency and as the
head of his party to encourage the senators from the 8 contested seats to
step down and pave the way for a new election. The seven senators from
his party, Lavalas, agreed to do so. The eighth senator, who came from an
opposition party, declined to do so.<br><br>
The second error in your
article is the claim that the international embargo was the result of Mr.
Aristide's election. Again, this is erroneous. The international embargo
began toward the end of Mr. Preval's term and had nothing to do with Mr.
Aristide's election. Indeed, the United States government has repeatedly
taken the position that Mr. Aristide is the democratically elected
president of the nation. The embargo was continued under President
Aristide's term under the claim that funds would not be released until a
settlement was reached with the opposition, notwithstanding the fact that
the seven senators had resigned. The embargo, which continues to exist
today, and makes it impossible for the government to have any success in
alleviating the poverty you address in your article, is therefore not in
response to solving the political impasse. That impasse was solved when
the senator's stepped down. Nor can the financial embargo be seriously
linked to progress in making the country more democratic, because the
World Bank, the United States, France and the European Union, who today
refuse to provide any direct assistance to the Government of Haiti,
provided financial assistance to the Duvaliers during their dictatorship,
as well as the military governments that succeeded Duvalier. I leave it
to your judgment and good sense as to the true reasons for the embargo.
In any event, they are completely unrelated to President Aristide's
election.<br><br>
The third error in your article is simply baffling. I assume you attended
the January 1st ceremonies at the National Palace in Port-au-Prince based
upon the information contained in your story. The Miami Herald stated
that there were "hundreds of thousands" of Haitians at the
National Palace. Even the most minimum reasonable estimate of the number
of supporters at the National Palace on January 1st, had to range
conservatively from 50,000 to 100,000 people. Your description that
Aristide spoke to a "small but enthusiastic crowd" simply
blinks reality. I have taken the liberty to send photographs to a
professional service that will provide me and your editors with a true
count as to the number of people who appeared at the National Palace.
Although the numbers game can be tricky and I am not assuming you had any
bias in writing your article, one would literally have to be blind to say
that there was a "small" crowd at the National
Palace.<br><br>
Your
article also states that President Mbeki was the only head of state to
attend the ceremonies. Your article states: "But it was a measure of
Mr. Aristide's political isolation and Haiti's persistent troubles that
only one [head of state] showed up." Your own article contradicts
this assertion as you state later that the Prime Minister of the Bahamas
attended the ceremonies. Indeed, as you were at the National Palace, I am
sure you heard Prime Minister Perry Christie state that this was an
historic occasion because it was the first time a head of state from the
Bahamas had visited the Republic of Haiti. I understand that this may not
detract from your general statement, but it certainly is misleading to
single out Mr. Mbeki, to ignore Prime Minister Christie, and to ignore
the scores of delegations from around the world who attended the
celebration.<br><br>
Finally, there is the question of violence. Your article was
remarkably silent on the violence perpetrated by the opposition on
January 1st and before that date. Opposition members burnt a police car
on January 1st. They blocked all three major roads into the center of
Port-au-Prince by setting fires in the road and placing boulders
throughout the city. I am sure you witnessed all of these events if you
were in Port-au-Prince. Yet your article makes the opposition appear as
law abiding democratically-motivated individuals who are subjected to
tear-gassing by the police on one hand and violence by Aristide
supporters on the other. Had you inquired sufficiently, you would have
learned that more supporters of Lavalas have been killed since December
5, 2003 than in the opposition. I am not condoning violence on either
side. However, it is misleading to suggest that the violence is simply
directed at one side as opposed to the other.<br><br>
In light of the numerous errors in the article and as the counsel for the
Government of Haiti in the United States, I kindly request that these
errors be corrected publicly in a manner the New York Times deems
appropriate.<br><br>
As I am certain there was no intention on your part to be biased in the
presentation of the facts, I would be honored to have the opportunity to
discuss with you any of these or other matters that are of interest to
you concerning the Government of Haiti.<br><br>
<br>
Sincerely,<br><br>
Ira J. Kurzban, Esq.<br>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>
The New York Times corrects two points in its Bicentennial
story<br><br>
The New York Times saw fit to correct two points in their article on the
Bicentennial which ran on January 2, 2004 entitled 200 Years After
Napoleon, Haiti Finds Little to Celebrate By LYDIA POLGREEN and has added
these two paragraphs as an addendum to the original article:<br><br>
"An article on Friday about the bicentennial of Haiti's independence
misidentified the election that outside observers called flawed, a
finding that led to the suspension of $500 million in foreign aid to
Haiti and contributed to the current political crisis there. It was the
May 2000 legislative election, in which the Organization of American
States disputed the counting method used in eight Senate races ” not the
November 2000 election of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which the
O.A.S. said was not fraudulent."<br><br>
"Because of an editing error, the article also referred imprecisely
to the size of the crowd that attended the bicentennial celebration
outside the presidential palace. While the government estimated it in the
hundreds of thousands, and outside journalists' estimates ranged as low
as 15,000, the crowd was not small."<br><br>
<br><br>
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