Food for thoughts, not for only the so-called MRE (Morally Repugnant Elite) of Haiti

Violence intruding on elite in Haiti (Miami Herald, 8/16/2005)

Haitians of means have always occupied a tenuous position in their impoverished nation. Now a wave of violence has pushed many out.

BY JOE MOZINGO

jmozingo@herald.com <mailto:jmozingo@herald.com>

PORT-AU-PRINCE - In the quiet green hills above this lawless city, a couple hundred of Haiti's well-to-do gathered last month in the upscale Hotel Montana to attend a daylong seminar. The subject: How to keep one's sanity under the constant threat of violence.

In the past few months, a surge of kidnappings and killings has traumatized Haiti's upper classes. Women and children have reportedly been raped in front of relatives, men have been tortured and families have paid ransoms, sometimes only to retrieve their loved ones in the form of a mutilated corpse.

Some of those wealthy enough to afford it have fled the country, cooling their heels in Miami and Paris and hoping to return once the chaos runs its course. Those who have stayed live in a strange state of comfortable siege, holed up in hillside homes behind iron gates and shotgun-wielding guards, while making panicked runs to work, the grocery store and the rare social event.

These days, having money in the hemisphere's poorest nation does not always entail the easy lifestyle that once got Haiti's privileged few branded by foreign diplomats as MREs -- Morally Repugnant Elites. Now, theirs is a narrow, paranoid world, growing more so.

'My family calls me from Miami and says: `What are you, nuts? When are you getting out of that place?' '' said Jean Pierre Mangones, who runs a program that promotes Haitian crafts and owns a second home in Plantation. ``A lot of my friends have left. My wife will be leaving before November.''

No one knows how many have left, but the number of Haitians with the money to get a visa and fly out is relatively small. The average Haitian earns less than $1 a day, and there have been estimates that 1 percent of the country's 8.1 million people controls nearly half its wealth.

The current bout of violence began last year during the armed rebellion that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had vowed to help the poor and had vilified the well-off and the skewed distribution of wealth. Since then, the political warfare has evolved into waves of brutal crimes blamed on almost anyone from street criminals to political gangs to drug traffickers.

WANTS TO STAY

Mangones plans to stay. He says Haitians' long tradition of fleeing abroad when things get dangerous at home has created a devastating, long-term brain drain.

''We are a repugnant elite because we haven't taken any responsibilities, which is what the elite should do,'' Mangones said. ``Instead, we leave for a year and come back when somebody fixes it for us.''

And really, nothing is ever fixed.

Wealthy Haitians -- some truly rich, others middle class by American standards -- simply circumvent the country's problems with money. Electricity doesn't work? They buy generators. TV is spotty? They hook up a satellite. Roads are awful? They drive four-wheel-drives. Police force barely functions? They hire armed guards.

And even in relatively peaceful times, the opportunities for education, high culture and amusement are so limited that Haitians of any means tend to have one foot out the door. They send their children to summer camps in the States, or college in Canada. They buy homes in Florida and the Dominican Republic and take long vacations in Europe.

''If you want to open the horizons for your children, you have to,'' said Mangones, whose son attended Barry University in Miami Shores and whose daughter went to American International in Massachusetts.

But many leave for good, particularly middle-class professionals with no land or business holdings in Haiti.

FACTORY OWNER

Georges Barau Sassine, who owns a garment factory, lost numerous supervisors, his executive secretary, his head mechanic and his computer expert in recent months. Only the latter is expected to return -- his son, whom Sassine told to stay with relatives on the French Riviera until the situation calmed down.

Sassine said he has seen friends kidnapped and had employees who were hit by stray bullets while on the job. The owner of a nearby business was executed on the dirt road in front of the factory.

''People on the street told us we were next,'' he said.

STRESSFUL DRIVES

In July, when kidnappings hit a frightening high, Sassine woke up in a sweat every day before dawn, worrying about the morning commute.

''I would drive down with one hand on the wheel and one hand on my gun,'' he said at his office earlier this month. ``The second I arrived, I called my wife and told her I'm here.''

In the past few weeks, a slight lull in the crime -- what Sassine calls the ''eye of the hurricane'' -- has allowed him to put the gun back under his seat. Sassine accuses Aristide loyalists of waging the campaign of violence, sowing chaos to prevent the U.S.-backed interim government from gaining any effective authority. Aristide supporters deny he or his Lavalas Family party are behind it.

As president, Aristide attacked the elite as a light-skinned minority aligned with U.S. business interests and perpetuating a class system that has kept most Haitians in abject poverty.

Business and academic leaders reacted against Aristide in an opposition movement that gained supporters across all sectors, while a band of gang members and ex-soldiers forced him out.

Since then, life for rich and poor alike has just grown worse, and the specter of class war continues to loom over Haiti as it prepares for national elections, scheduled for November.

Business leaders say economic growth is the only way to lift most Haitians out of poverty. Sassine employs 700 workers now, sewing sweat pants for Hanes. If he leaves the country, his employees join the estimated two-thirds of Haitians who have no jobs.

But he says he has no plans to. ''We're stuck here,'' he said. ``I have no capital. The hits we have taken have dilapidated our reserves.''

After work, he unwinds when he can, but there is little to do. The roads are rife with carjackers and kidnappers. He no longer goes hunting for guinea fowl and doves in the Artibonite Valley. He does not relax on the Ctes des Arcadins, where some own beach homes.

ANXIETY ABOUNDS

Ginette Maguet, a psychologist in the capital who helped organize the Montana Hotel seminar on keeping one's sanity, said the violence is causing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder -- trembling hands, insomnia, anxiety attacks.

To help them cope, Maguet tutored the participants in yoga and breathing techniques, and urged them to go easy on the sedatives. She told them to be aware of their surroundings without becoming hyper-focused on the possibility of violence.

''We have to be vigilant about being safe, but we don't have to think of it all the time,'' Maguet said. ``Some people just listen to the radio all day and it just increases the fear.''

Bernie Leon, 46, joined dozens of others at the Petionville Club on a recent night to drink and get away from that kind of paranoia. A cheerful bear of a man who runs one of the capital's port terminals, he mingled amid the flow of alcohol, beat of music and tropical heat.

It was a momentary break from a different reality. Earlier in summer, his wife moved to Miami due to the violence. While the relief of not having to worry about her was like ''taking a piano off my back,'' the distance has put an obvious strain on his relationship. ''She said if I don't move out in a year, we're getting a divorce,'' he quipped.

He hopes circumstances change and allow him to stay. ``I'm devoted to this country. I don't need to be here. I could easily get on a plane and drink piña coladas with you in South Beach tonight, but I don't.''

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"Se prendre en charge ou disparaître".   Is the disappearance already here? The highlights above are from me!