Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 26, 1993 TAG: 9312250113
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cody Lowe
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In Haiti, half the children born since Christmas 1988 weren't alive to see this one.
Thousands of those who did survive were lucky to get anything at all to eat. Thousands live in shelter at least as humble as the stable in which a baby named Jesus was born.
The island nation is generally considered the poorest in the Western Hemisphere and one of the three poorest in the world.
This is a season in which many of us are motivated to try to provide some spiritual and material comforts to those who don't have them. Fortunately, some people are willing and able to try to do that all year round.
Bob and Adele DellaValle-Rauth believe their Christian duty is to go to the Haitian people, let them know they support their desires for freedom, and try to spread the word about the suffering there.
When Bob, a 67-year-old retired RCA engineer, and Adele, a 61-year-old former nun, married 30 months ago, they ``made a commitment to try help the people of Haiti to the best of our abilities.''
They had met working with the Justice and Peace Commission of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond. A shared concern for the people of Haiti brought them together, they said in an interview in their Smith Mountain Lake home after a recent trip to Haiti.
Adele had been working with Haitian refugees in Western Virginia for a decade, even learning to speak their Creole language. Bob's first contact came on a diocesan retreat to the country in 1984.
Since then, he's made three trips to Haiti, and Adele has made four.
They don't try to organize the people to act on their own behalf - into labor unions, for instance - though they support the work of Haitians who are attempting to do that on their own. But they believe in a mysterious but almost tangible way their presence offers encouragement and hope to the poorest of the poor.
Exposed to that extreme poverty, they themselves are transformed as well, the couple said. They are compelled to do what they can here, in the comfort of the United States, to make others aware of the crying needs.
U.S. government policy is perpetuating the grinding poverty of Haiti, the Dellavalle-Rauths believe.
Since the primary goal of American policy in countries such as Haiti is stability, Bob says, our government has been reluctant to support any kind of change.
Though President Clinton gave lip service to the return of the constitutionally elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide - a man the Dellavalle-Rauths have met several times - there has been little action.
The Dellavalle-Rauths don't believe accusations that Aristide is emotionally or mentally unstable and believe the CIA has deliberately tried to discredit him for its own ends.
They contend that during the seven months Aristide was in power, before he was overthrown by a coup 28 months ago, benefits - including money - trickled down to the peasant population.
Almost all of Haiti's land is held by 30 families, whose power is supported by the military. There are more than 100 American-owned industries, which coax Haitians off the land to work for the equivalent of about 14 cents an hour.
Most Haitians could support themselves off the land, the DellaValle-Rauths believe, if they could be given a fresh start there and a ticket out of the city slums.
But while the couple believes the United States contributes to and supports the perpetuation of the poverty there, they concede that much of the injustice is homegrown.
So, what can people of conscience do?
For the DellaValle-Rauths, deeply committed to nonviolence as a personal as well as an international lifestyle, maintaining the current embargo seems the only answer.
Yes, they say, the poor will suffer. But they are suffering now, and they are willing to suffer more for a cause as precious as their own freedom.
An embargo will eventually hurt the rich. It will take time. But a commitment to nonviolence means a commitment to take the time necessary to see such action work, they say.
The other action some can take is to go to the people of Haiti and tell them others care about them.
Unfortunately, the DellaValle-Rauths say, the establishment Catholic church has been ``an embarrassment ... shameful'' by not speaking out against the dictatorship.
But they believe that the ``Ti Legliz'' - the ``Little Church'' - a movement of priests and lay people who try to educate and organize the peasant population is making a difference there.
And the people welcome visits by U.S. citizens, who - most Haitians believe - have the power to change the world.
So, that comes to the Christmas present the DellaValle-Rauths would like to bring from Haiti and give to the United States - an awareness of the true situation there.
``No one should live like the people of Haiti,'' Adele said. Write your congressman, write your senator, write your president, she said.
``Open your heart.''
by CNB