Haitians abroad want a voice in election
07 Feb 2006 20:13:41 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Jane Sutton

MIAMI, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Expatriates who account for the vast majority of educated Haitians and send home money equal to more than a quarter of their homeland's economic output are frustrated at their utter exclusion from Tuesday's election.

"We still love Haiti and want to give back what Haiti gave us," said Dr. Joseph Baptiste, a Haitian-born Maryland dentist who heads the National Organization for the Advancement of Haitians and has obtained U.S. citizenship. "We are still their brother and we are not going to let them starve," he said. Yet, "when I go to Haiti right now, my brother is Haitian but I am not."

One in eight Haitians has settled outside the chaotic, impoverished Caribbean nation, seeking better opportunities or escape from repression and violence. Many live in Florida, New York, Canada, France and neighboring Caribbean nations. Eighty percent of Haitians with college degrees live abroad. Their homeland's per capita income is under $2 a day.

Expatriates cannot vote from abroad in Tuesday's presidential election, because there are no absentee ballots. Those with dual citizenship cannot vote or run for office because the Haitian constitution considers them foreigners.

Haitians living abroad sent back more than $1 billion in remittances in 2004, equal to more than one-fourth of the country's annual economic output, the Inter American Development Bank, World Bank and U.S. State Department said.

"It is only family to family, friend to friend, or people who send money to projects they accept or view as being useful," said Fequiere Vilsaint, a biochemist who founded a Florida publishing company that distributes English and Creole texts and has written a book about the Haitian diaspora. Expatriate groups send doctors to Haiti, lobby for foreign aid, fund schools and orphanages and build pumping systems that provide clean drinking water in rural areas.

'FALSE HAITIANS'

But they say "diaspora" is uttered as an insult among Haitians in their homeland who consider expatriates "false Haitians" and welcome their money but not their votes. "Thanks to our money and our work, this country is still alive. And it is not very normal that we are not participating in the elections," said Lorfils Rejouis, president of the PAFHA, an umbrella group for organizations among the 60,000 Haitians living in France.

The group Baptiste heads, known as NOAH, offered to organize and fund absentee voting at Haitian embassies and consulates but was rebuffed in fear that expatriates would try to take over the government, he said. Nonetheless, Haitian candidates trooped to Haitian-American churches and community centers to solicit campaign donations and encourage emigres to press their cause back home. "I would guess people sending money to their family could also influence their choice for political selection," said Vilsaint, who met at least six candidates campaigning among south Florida's 245,000 Haitian residents.

Several Haitian expatriates said the diaspora vote would probably divide along the same educational, economic and social lines as back home, but hope the new president and parliament will amend the constitution to give them a say next time. Many also hope to return to their homeland but are reluctant to open businesses or invest in a nation where corruption, theft and kidnapping go largely unpunished.

"Because of the kidnappings and all of that, everybody's scared. You can't even trust your friends in Haiti. If you go there everybody says 'He's from the United States and has a lot of money,'" said Pascal Sinvil, 29, a security guard at a doughnut shop in a Haitian neighborhood in New York. "All the Haitians in America want to go back but there's too much violence. All we want is a change."

(Additional reporting by Kerstin Gehmlich in Paris and Dan Trotta in New York) [/i]

See also:

kendrickmeek.house.gov/pd...ctions.pdf