By Erin Mccoy
News of the war in Iraq has overshadowed reports of the massive danger and unrest that has stricken Haiti, the country that BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds has dubbed “Uncle Sam’s backyard.” But while the United States’ poverty-stricken neighbor seems plenty distant to the average American, for U of L exchange student and Haiti native Kethane Bois, the unrest in her country is more in the foreground than ever.
Bois received a phone call at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 2, to hear that her boyfriend’s stepfather, school-bus driver Ernest Jean, had been kidnapped in Haiti along with the 16 children he was transporting. Most of Bois’ family lives in Haiti, and her boyfriend, Wallace Despeines, is an American of Haitian descent.
“[Jean] was picking up kids for his school bus when the kidnappers came and asked him to move back in the car because they were requesting the car and the children and everything inside,” Bois said.
According to Bois, kidnappers promptly contacted the families of the victims, asking U.S. $50,000 each for their release. Bois said none of the families contacted the police for fear that members of the police force would report this communication back to the kidnappers.
“Sometimes even people from the police are part of it, too,” Bois said of the problems in Haiti. “It’s like a network – you don’t know who is part of it.” Human rights groups have also alleged corruption and brutality within the Haitian police force.
This is far from an isolated incident.
“You are talking on the phone and you say, ‘Who did they kidnap today?’ Everybody is expecting six or 10 people to be kidnapped,” Bois said. She speaks to her family on the phone often – she is a Northamerican Peacebuilders Program scholar attending the University of Louisville for the fall 2005 semester and a senior at the University of Montreal, so she keeps up with current events in Haiti through these phone conversations..
Violence and kidnappings erupted in Haiti after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in February 2004 by armed rebels and U.S. political pressure. Kidnappings were especially common when Bois was in Haiti this summer, she said.
Aristide is now exiled in South Africa.
Bois believes that supporters of Aristide are responsible for the kidnappings in Haiti. “I believe that [Aristide] is still in contact with some of them because the idea of kidnapping – it just happened,” she said. “They always say that he is still the president of Haiti. He wants to come back.”
Aristide, an ex-priest who took office in 1990, was Haiti’s first democratically elected president. Poor Haitians were hopeful that he would be their advocate, as he had risen from poverty himself. He was ousted in a coup d’etat in 1991, but in 1994 the U.S. helped forcefully reinstate him.
But Bois said that while Aristide was in power he covertly armed the poor, especially residents of the Cite Soleil, an area of Port-au-Prince without water or electricity, and encouraged them to rise from poverty by force.
“He is so smart – he doesn’t do anything overtly,” Bois said. “You don’t have proof – it is not tangible.” But she said many Haitians, though they are afraid to speak, have witnessed this first-hand.
After Aristide’s exile in 2004, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, “We all know the political history of Haiti is such that during Presdient Aristide’s time, he created a lot of division within the society – the polarization grew, the violence grew. There were many armed gangs that were directly associated with him and his rule.”
Bois agrees. “Under Aristide it was not a democracy. It was supposed to be, in the papers and everything, but it was not and it is still not.”
At 9 p.m. Thursday Bois received another call. The release of Jean and all 16 children had been negotiated for $40,000 total. For the moment, she was relieved, but she says now she worries for her family in Haiti more than ever.
“Haitians are not safe,” she said. “You send your kid to school, maybe she will arrive there, maybe she won’t. You go to work, maybe you will come back, maybe you won’t. –
“I try to call [my family] every day to ask, ‘Did my niece come back from school? Is everyone okay?’, because you never know.”
Bois said she usually visits Haiti whenever she has a break from school, but this winter new democratic elections in Haiti are set to take place, and violent resistance from Aristide supporters has made the country dangerous. Bois’ mother told her she will not permit Bois to visit this December because of the danger.
“I love Haiti, but that’s what’s happening,” Bois said. She hopes to visit again in the summer months.
