Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 22, 1994 TAG: 9408220102
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Even after the beatings and the threats, Paul Prophete, Eloi Jean Sauveur and Alphonse Carmeleau Brutus consider themselves among the fortunate ones.
They made it out of Haiti with their lives and their families.
Driven from their homeland by the brutality of a military junta intent on extinguishing the sparks of support for exiled leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the men now are members of a growing Haitian community in the Roanoke Valley.
On a recent afternoon, they gathered at the Roanoke Refugee and Immigration Services office to talk about the crisis in their homeland.
The three newcomers spoke little English; their guest knew no Haitian creole. Interpreter Jean Baroulette fought to keep up.
The words were unfamiliar, but not everything had to be translated.
A clenched jaw, a humorless laugh, a dismissive wave - the men spoke the universal language of frustration and anger as fluently as their native tongue.
They were adamant: The Haitian crisis is not a game. Yet it has become a test of international political wills, they said, a fruitless standoff with no clear winners and too many innocent losers.
Had they not chosen to seek refugee status, these three men could have been among the losers. All Aristide supporters, all members of grass-roots organizations founded by the ousted leader, they were prime targets for persecution by the military leadership.
Prophete, 26, was secretary-general for a popular unity movement and worked in the planning department under the Aristide administration - until the coup forced him out of the government.
He was forced into hiding when former co-workers joined a pro-military organization and pointed him out to authorities. He sought asylum and arrived in Roanoke in May with his pregnant wife and three children.
Membership in another political party, the United Organization of Young Democrats of Delmas, marked Sauveur, 31, for trouble at the hands of the military. He came to Roanoke two months ago.
Brutus, 37, was arrested several times by the military regime for his work organizing peasants and for his membership in a political party allied with Aristide.
Offered asylum by U.N. representatives after one of those arrests, he chose to stay in Haiti to support the pro-Aristide movement.
But the persecution and the fear finally became unbearable, he admitted. There were beatings, confrontations, threats against him and his family. The last straw came when military supporters beat him and covered him in feces for refusing to renounce Aristide.
Within weeks, Brutus, his wife and his four children were headed for the United States.
Many Aristide supporters faced with the same heart-rending decision - leave and save their lives, or stay and support the pro-Aristide movement - have opted to remain in Haiti and face the consequences of their convictions, Brutus said.
Staying usually means facing the brutal pro-military forces - usually groups of paid "volunteers" - who rob and kill their way through pro-Aristide homes.
Even Haitians who do not openly support the return of Aristide often are in danger, Baroulette said.
He recounted the story of a member of Parliament who alleged the military regime had acted illegally when it declared a state of siege. He never claimed to be pro-Aristide; he merely questioned a government action.
The next day, he was shot while in his car.
Despite the repression, Haitians still call for the overthrow of the military and the return of Aristide.
"The poor have said they would suffer - they would eat salt - to get Aristide back," said Adele DellaValle-Rauth, director of the Lynchburg Peace Education Center and a former staff member at Refugee and Immigration Services in Roanoke. She was instrumental in bringing a group of Haitian men to the Roanoke Valley in the early 1980s.
In the face of such staunch support from the persecuted Haitian people, the reluctance of the international community to respond with force to the junta's actions has been especially hard to swallow.
So far negotiations - mere words - have gotten the Haitian people nowhere, the men said.
"You can't really negotiate without two equal parties," said Baroulette, who left Haiti some 25 years ago and now works with a Roanoke-area Haitian organization.
The junta already controls most of the nation's weapons, he said. Why should its leaders want to negotiate with the powerless Aristide supporters?
Military leader Raoul Cedras doubtless would be more willing to listen to a military presence - provided that presence carried guns, Baroulette said.
"They say they're not afraid of dying," he said of the pro-military forces in Haiti. "That's because they haven't had anyone shooting over their heads."
The only way the Haitian military will be forced to face gunfire is for the international community to recognize its duty to the Haitian people, Sauveur said.
The world was present when Aristide was elected; international watchdogs made sure the contest was fair, he said. Now those same bystanders must get involved to restore the election winner to his rightful place, he said.
Although even some Aristide supporters have expressed reservations about the ousted leader's commitment to democracy, he was popularly elected in 1990 and therefore must be returned to power, Baroulette said.
"Aristide represents more of a principle than someone who's a savior," Baroulette said. "It has nothing to do with allegiance to Aristide or any other person."
Merely replacing the military regime with a "back-room" puppet government will not solve anything, he said.
"You cannot really restore democracy in Haiti unless somehow, some way, you try to erase the coup d'etat and break that cycle, where elected governments are thrown out by people with guns," Baroulette said.
Only by giving Aristide the opportunity to finish his term can the world show a true commitment to Haitian democracy, Baroulette said.
Returning Aristide to power would by no means solve all of Haiti's problems. Even before the current crisis, the tiny island nation was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with a per-capita yearly income of $370. Adult literacy hovers around 35 percent; life expectancy, around 56 years.
But ridding Haiti of its current military leadership at least would give the people the chance to recover - as a united nation - from the years of forced poverty and persecution, Sauveur said.
Near the end of the meeting, he began writing on the legal pad he had been holding throughout the afternoon.
"Alone, we are weak," he wrote.
It was the rallying call for Lavales, the political party of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
"Alone, we are weak.
"Together, we are strong.
"Together, together we are Lavales."
by CNB