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From: zili danto <erzilidanto@yahoo.com><br><br>
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Haiti unrest reminded me of apartheid - Tutu<br>
February 17 2006 at 05:50AM<br><br>
By Dominique Herman<br><br>
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has described how
"apprehensive" he was as he faced down an angry crowd of over 5
000 Haitian demonstrators, saying it reminded him of "the bad old
days of apartheid".<br><br>
Tutu was airlifted from Haiti by military pilots from the Dominican
Republic on Tuesday night - an evacuation he described as
"uneventful".<br><br>
And he revealed on Thursday that the United Nations had sent a helicopter
to evacuate him on Monday after rumours swept the Haitian capital of
Port-au-Prince that he had suffered a heart attack.<br><br>
"It was insane because I was as hale and hearty as you can be at
74," Tutu said from a seminary in Virginia, in the United
States.<br>
"I said, 'No, I'm not going away,'" upon being offered a ride
out of Haiti.<br><br>
Instead he stood on the balcony of the luxury Montana hotel and spoke to
the crowd, and, according to international reports, his address visibly
calmed the protesters.<br><br>
"It resembled some of the times back in the bad old days but one was
able to address them," he said.<br><br>
The only difficulties were that he did not speak French and he did not
have a loud hailer to make himself heard.<br><br>
"You are apprehensive," he said, about the experience of
confronting thousands of angry protesters, but he said many people were
praying and "God looks after those doing good work".<br><br>
"What was fantastic, what I can't get over, was that with over 5 000
people - and some stormed the hotel looking for members of the electoral
commission - they didn't break or steal a single article.<br><br>
"The people are good. They were angry and they could have gone on
the rampage, but they left peacefully."<br><br>
He said he sympathised with their anger as they had been waiting a long
time for the election results.<br><br>
"I'm feeling very sad just now that leaders can let their people be
done by so badly," he said.<br><br>
Protests in support of presidential candidate René Préval paralysed the
city of Port-au-Prince on Tuesday. Angered by a slow vote count and
indications that Préval had not gained enough votes for an outright win,
his supporters took to the streets.<br><br>
The mass unrest caused the cancellation of all commercial flights, which
is why Tutu had to be airlifted out - an experience he described as
"totally uneventful".<br><br>
Blocking roads with car wrecks, rocks and flaming tires, Préval's
supporters had stormed the gates of the Montana hotel where Tutu was
staying.<br><br>
Tutu remarked on the differences between the two countries that exist
"cheek by jowl" on the island of Hispaniola - on Haiti's
poverty and squalor and the prosperity of the Dominican
Republic.<br><br>
Tutu said he spoke to Préval on the phone and was very impressed that
despite his overwhelming support in Haiti and in the international
community, he was willing to go though with the process of the commission
to look at the results.<br><br>
"He could have dug his heels in," said Tutu.<br><br>
Préval was declared the country's next president on Thursday after a deal
was reached following charges of vote fraud. The deal gives Préval 50.9
percent of the vote and averts a run-off, which was scheduled for
March.<br><br>
Tutu arrived in Haiti on Saturday to urge reconciliation between the
country's tiny elite and its mass of marginalised poor.<br><br>
He said the Dominican Republic's President Leonel Fernandez had initially
requested a meeting with him, but he had replied that he could not fit it
in on this trip.<br><br>
"But God has his own plans," Tutu said. Upon his arrival at 9pm
on Tuesday after an hour-and-a-half flight, he did have an audience with
Fernandez.<br><br>
"He's a very impressive and good person," he said.<br><br>
From there he flew to Miami and on to Washington. Tutu will return to
South Africa on March 1.<br>
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