I haven't heard any news if they have returned, for those that don't the story here is the original article:
http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2009/2/5/30984/Thousands-of-Haitians-leave-Santiago-sectors-voluntarily
Thousands of Haitians leave Santiago sectors voluntarily

Santiago. - Around 3,000 undocumented Haitians living in three sectors of southern Santiago province (north) yesterday left the areas after Dominicans blamed some of the immigrants of committing crimes in the zone.

South Santiago Union of Neighborhood Boards president Jose Alberto Peña Wednesday told the press that they took the measure after several meetings with the residents of the sectors Yapur Dumit, Villa Verde and Arroyo Hondo, where the Haitians resided. "We did it in a civilized manner and without mistreatment, we simply said that we didn’t want them in our communities and urged them to leave."

He said the inhabitants in the zone agreed not to rent houses to the Haitians or give them jobs. “When they found themselves out of work, without a roof to sleep under and the decision of the inhabitants that they had to leave those places, they agreed without many difficulties."

The community leader said that faced with the alarming number of undocumented Haitians in the zone and the ambivalence of the Immigration authorities in those places, its residents decided to take the measure, "but always respecting the civil and human rights of those people, because the majority did so voluntarily."

by generoso Public opinion has to awaken to contain the Dominican-Haitian volcano that is brewing and getting ready to erupt. As economic conditions deteriorate further and the political season gets closer, more and more labor strikes and civilian disturbances will occur.
The unresolved continuous Haitian exodus and indifference by both governments will help fuel the fires of discord.
The DR and the Haitian government both conveniently do not make an effort to contain the Haitian invasion or take the necessary steps to police the border, so the situation is getting more and more flammable as time passes. The business sectors and security apparatus of both countries exploit with
impunity the obvious business advantages of cheap Haitian labor, depressing the Dominican worker's income. This together with the rising food prices are creating a desperate situation with a strong probability of civil disobedience and popular uprisings.
The international community including the USA, Canada, Brasil, France and England want the DR to act as "scapegoat" and to absorb the Haitian exodus and mass immigration,
and if we allow this there will be two failed states instead of one in the island,
as the Dominican republic will also join the ranks of the failed states in the near future.
Documentation of Haitian nationals is not our responsibility, repatriation is. An orderly and peaceful repatriation of Haitians is warranted. But it will be difficult to accomplish until better economic conditions exist in Haiti.
This is why is it our responsibility as well to make the citizens of Haiti aware, that the international community has GIVEN UP on a solution to the Haitian crisis and instead want the DR to "assimilate" the Haitian problem and accept the Haitian nationals invading our country as Dominicans.
Haitians need to understand that their survival as a nation is at stake, and they are the only ones that
need to take responsibility for the welfare of their country, not us.

A patriotic movement must be started in DR sooner rather than later, Haitians must do the same in their country, and the Dominican and Haitian diaspora must take a more proactive role.



generoso that is an excellent post. let me tell you something i was reading the daily news this morning. and i saw a very interesting article about a american citizen in long island, new york, who had been rejected for work on construction in favor of two mexican jornaleros. this american citizen got upset and he called the police and told them that he killed the two mexican because he got fed up how a american citizen be rejected in favor of two mexican . he also told the police he threw the body of two illegal mexican in the river. the police searched the river but came up empty. the guy got arrested for making a false report. my point is this happened right here in a first world country. i think what he did was wrong but at the same time i feel sorry for the man. there are a lot of american who think this way and when the problem intensify and it will under this ecoomy times thing will get real bad in usa with the illegal who keep breaking this country law. now imagine DR.


generoso read this opinion from el nacional.


De 1937, cuando se produce la matanza de haitianos ordenada por Trujillo, al 2009, han pasado muchos años. Mucho ha llovido desde entonces…

Más agua ha corrido río abajo desde aquel día del trabucazo que marcó la independencia contra los haitianos por aquellos años gloriosos de 1844.

Haití y República Dominicana comparten la misma isla y casi la misma historia hasta la llegada de los españoles, los franceses y los negros.

Con los años Haití se formó diferente a la República Dominicana y al resto de los países latinoamericanos y caribeños. Su idioma, su religión, su música, su folclor, en fin, su cultura, lo separan enormemente de las demás naciones del hemisferio.

Nadie lo quiso así. El caso es que Haití es uno de los países más pobres y deprimidos del mundo, con escasos recursos naturales y una sobrepoblación sin educación ni medios materiales para sobrevivir.

Ha padecido, al igual que nosotros, dictaduras implacables y sanguinarias, gobiernos duros y corruptos a los que no les ha importado su pueblo a no ser para explotarlos como esclavos.

Durante muchos años los haitianos fueron los trabajadores indispensables en los campos para el corte de la caña de azúcar. Los bateyes eran su centro. Allí vivían y morían. Su trabajo era duro. Se les pagaba poco. El profesor Juan Bosch describe mejor que nadie la situación de los haitianos en los bateyes en su magnífico cuento Luis Pie.

El caso es que los haitianos no eran tantos. Todos sabíamos que estaban entre nosotros, pero no todos los veíamos. Mucha gente de las grandes ciudades no sabe o no supo lo que es un batey.

De los bateyes, los haitianos pasaron a otros campos para trabajar en la recogida de café y de otros productos agrícolas. El número de haitianos en nuestro país fue aumentando en la medida en que la pobreza y la muerte en su país también crecían.

Pasaron del campo a la ciudad. Pasaron a la construcción. Tanta importancia adquirieron en esa área que Diandino Peña, siendo secretario de Obras Públicas, llegó a declarar que sin la participación de los obreros haitianos la economía dominicana se derrumbaría. No hay una obra importante donde la mano de obra haitiana no sea determinante.

Los haitianos no están en la agricultura, también están en la construcción, en el turismo, en el servicio doméstico, en la vigilancia de edificios y residencias, en las esquinas como vendedores ambulantes, mendigos, chóferes de carros públicos, taxistas, etc.

Si antes no se veían más que en los bateyes que nadie conocía, ahora están como el arroz blanco, en todas partes.

¿Cuántos haitianos hay en nuestro país? Nadie lo sabe. Todos los días entran y salen. La frontera es una puerta abierta por el dinero que ha enriquecido a las autoridades civiles y militares. Los haitianos han sido un gran negocio para muchos.

Hay quienes hablan de dos millones; otros dicen que tres millones. No se sabe. Lo cierto es que son muchos, demasiados; tantos, que hace tiempo se convirtieron en un problema de tanta envergadura, que atenta incluso contra la nación dominicana.

Hace unos días conté 12 haitianos en una esquina. Dos mujeres famélicas cada una con un niño casi muerto entre sus brazos; otros cansados del hambre tirados en la acera, mientras algunos adultos vendían periódicos, tarjetas de teléfonos móviles, etc.

Haití no puede ser responsabilidad económica de República Dominicana, que es un país muy pobre, aunque no como el vecino. Las grandes potencias pretenden que seamos los dominicanos quienes carguemos con Haití, algo imposible. Su estrategia es que más temprano que tarde se produzca una fusión, que República Dominicana y Haití sean un solo país. La integración. Como si fuera tan fácil y, tan simple. Y no lo es.

Quien suscribe no tiene nada contra los haitianos. Al contrario, lo considera un pueblo digno y valeroso, capaz de hacer una de las revoluciones más hermosas y trascendentes de la historia de la humanidad. Reconoce su grandeza y su nobleza. Igual que Santo Domingo. Los haitianos en su territorio y los dominicanos en el nuestro, hermanados por la tierra y por la historia. Pero cada cual en su lugar. Así debe ser. Pero nuestros gobiernos han actuado irresponsablemente frente al problema haitiano. ¿Qué tal si ahora que hablamos de debatir los problemas nacionales colocamos en carpeta el tema haitiano como uno de esos males a los que hay que buscarle una rápida solución?

The Haitian dilemma has to be solved within it's borders, the Dominican Republic is unfairly targeted because we share the same island. How many Haitians must enter into our land space before we become one with Haiti, the estimate are as follows 1 million is the old stat, and anyone with common sense knows that number has multiplied more like 1.5 million to 1.8 million to 2 million Haitian nationals and there off springs. We need a new political party that will adress this as the number one issue and threat affecting the country if not than things will get worse for the average Dominican. Sonia Pierre

Vacanos:
Great editorial, thank you for sharing it. I am thankful so far that we have not gotten yet into the usual
name calling and hate posts that really are counter productive and just make everyone feel bad afterwards. I have to say mea culpa as well.
The 21 ST century Haitian slavery is being perpetuated by the economic leeches and blood suckers in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti that want the status quo to remain.
Those who want cheap slave labor to continue and the Haitian misery to never end, are the sponsors
of the NGO's.
The Haitian living conditions in the bateyes and construction slums can not be tolerated in a civilized society. Dominican and Haitian elite, military and government are exploiting the Haitians laborers that are working for peanuts for the big agricultural and construction moguls. Some of these heartless big shots got kicked out of Cuba and now are in the Dominican Republic doing what they know best, cracking the whip against these poor and unfortunate humans.
The Haitians illegals also serve a double purpose, they are the excuse that keep the wages of Dominican laborers low in order for them to compete with the Haitians.

GENEROSO
Great editorial, thank you for sharing it.
The 21 ST century Haitian slavery is being perpetuated by the economic leeches and blood suckers in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti that want the status quo to remain.
Those who want cheap slave labor to continue and the Haitian misery to never end, are the sponsors
of the NGO's.
The Haitian living conditions in the bateyes and construction slums can not be tolerated in a civilized society. Dominican and Haitian elite, military and government are exploiting the Haitians laborers that are working for peanuts for the big agricultural and construction moguls. Some of these heartless big shots got kicked out of Cuba and now are in the Dominican Republic doing what they know best, cracking the whip against these poor and unfortunate humans.
The Haitians illegals also have a double purpose, they are the excuse that keep the wages of Dominican laborers low in order for them to compete with the Haitians.

GIZMO
What Haitian elite? why this so called Haitian elite can provide any jobs for Haitians. Dominicans exploit Haitians for their own gain, while the common Dominican becomes marginalized and the Haitians work for the lowest wages. The problem here as i sent you a message earlier already is, Haiti's goverment that can't provide the basic living conditions for the masses of people, that have been marginalized by the dwindling mulatto minority in Haiti since the colonial era. Haiti has not changed much since it became an independent nation.

http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/activist.html#NGO
[B]NGOs in Haiti counterproductive, says activist [/B]

By Ashley Joseph
Oct 02, 2008, The McGill Daily

Haiti’s long history of international interference has crippled the country’s ability to sustain itself in times of disaster, according to Montreal writer and political activist Yves Engler.

After Haiti was pounded by four tropical cyclones last month, Engler – speaking Tuesday night at a conference on the environmental devastation in Haiti, organized by QPIRG Concordia and Haiti Action – examined the role that the U.S., Canada, and France have played in Haiti’s ecological crisis.

“Our analysis is that it’s not a natural disaster,” Engler said. “It’s a human-made disaster.”

[U][B]Since government coup of 2004, an operation organized in Ottawa by the Canadian, American, and French governments has had the bulk of public services for the country being left in the hands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).[/B][/U]As a result, the Haitian state has been dwarfed in its capacity to provide public services to the country. Of the country’s $95-million budget, $85-million is provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and ends up in the hands of NGOs that constitute 80 per cent of Haiti’s governmental services, Engler said.

“There has been a plan from Washington and Ottawa to implement a neoliberal program of downsizing the state, and at the same time channeling what money goes into the country into NGOs,” [U][B]Engler said. “[NGOs are] eroding the legitimacy, will, and capacity of the Haitian state, weakening Haiti’s capacity to build itself.”[/B][/U]
Colonial and imperial interference in the country has, over time, stripped the land of 99 per cent of its forests, and left Haiti exponentially more vulnerable to natural disaster, Engler claimed. He said deforestation began with exports of mahogany to Europe in the colonial period, and worsened when Haiti’s plantations took over the economy.

Seventy-five per cent of Haiti was forested when colonizers first arrived; 25 per cent in 1950; four per cent in 1994. Today, a mere 1.5 per cent of the country is forested.

Since no other fuel is available, Haiti’s peasantry continues to cut down trees for charcoal. According to Engler, they know that cutting down trees will have serious long-term consequences, but still do it anyway.

“Desperation means that people have to cut down trees...just to have some food today,” he said.

According to Engler, the destruction of the countryside fits into the IMF’s economic plan for the country.

“The IMF has long seen Haiti’s advantage as a place of cheap labour,” Engler explained, “so one of the positive effects of destruction of the agricultural sector is that it pushes people into cities.”

[U][B]He explained that rural migrants are willing to work for low wages in the city, and that many find themselves producing t-shirts in factories for less than a dollar a day. Montreal-based t-shirt producer Gildan, which capitalizes on cheap labour in Haiti and Honduras to keep its production costs low, was one of his examples.[/B][/U]
According to Paul Farmer, founder of Partners In Health, a non-profit healthcare organization whose largest and oldest project is in Haiti, the country needs to invest in infrastructure and forestation. In the short term, he argued, Haiti needs relief from disaster – water, food, shelter, and boats.

“People were already living on the edge and dying on the edge before these storms,” Farmer said in an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. “The storms may actually wake people up to the gravity of the situation.”

http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/MaxwellOct_08.html#WorldBank

Racism and Poverty
The reason Haiti is in its present state is pretty simple. Canada, the United States and France, all of whom consider themselves civilised nations, colluded in the overthrow of the democratic government of Haiti four years ago. They did this for several excellent reasons:

• Haiti 200 years ago defeated the world’s then major powers, France (twice) Britain and Spain, to establish its independence and to abolish plantation slavery. This was unforgivable.

• Despite being bombed, strafed and occupied by the United States early in the past century, and despite the American endowment of a tyrannical and brutal Haitian army designed to keep the natives in their place, the Haitians insisted on re-establishing their independence. Having overthrown the Duvaliers and their successors, the Haitians proceeded to elect as president a little black parish priest who had become their hero by defying the forces of evil and tyranny.

• The new president of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide refused to sell out (privatise) the few assets owned by the government (the public utilities mainly);

• Aristide also insisted that France owed Haiti more than $25 billion in repayment of blood money extorted from Haiti in the 19th century, as alleged compensation for France’s loss of its richest colony and to allow Haiti to gain admission to world trade;

• Aristide threatened the hegemony of a largely expatriate ruling class of so-called ‘elites’ whose American connections allowed them to continue the parasitic exploitation and economic strip mining of Haiti following the American occupation.

• Haiti, like Cuba, is believed to have in its exclusive economic zone, huge submarine oil reserves, greater than the present reserves of the United States


• Haiti would make a superb base from which to attack Cuba.

Gizmo:
Sorry I just read your PM and have to agree with our conclusions. But it is not enough to "militarize" the border, and leave all the responsibility to the military, as the border has been a source of money making for the corrupt military for many years.
We have to build a huge impenetrable concrete wall and build it fast and ask the Israeli's for advise to get the plans similar to the wall in Gaza.
The border can not remain a porous border for many reasons, it has to be contained as well as policed.
There are many groups that want the border to remain porous among them the usual used clothes merchants, drug traffickers, arms merchants, slave traders, contraband sponsors, illegal trip sponsors,
including Cuban, Chinese and other nationalities.
Add to these the sugar cane barons that live in the 1950's and treat their laborers like in the 17 th Century, and the big agricultural and construction moguls that claim that "they will go broke" if they have to raise their salaries 10 pesos a day.
The Haitian elite have different denominations and colors, most of them are mulatto and live and have big businesses and property in the DR, and are just has bad as the rest.
But just like the famine and genocide in Africa the richest continent due to bad governments, Haitians have been their own worst enemy having terrible governance as well.

http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/haiti-business-elite.html

[B]AN INSIDE LOOK AT HAITIíS BUSINESS ELITE [/B]

An Interview with Patrick James

Patrick James is the alias of a U.S. businessperson who previously lived and worked in Haiti. This interview was conducted prior to the negotiated ouster of the illegal Haitian military government and the restoration of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, but it remains relevant and timely for the insights it provides about class divisions, power, exploitation and human rights in Haiti.

Multinational Monitor: How would you characterize the Haitian business class as a community?

Patrick James: The interconnectedness of the Haitian business community is amazing. I worked for a company and the guy right across the hallway from me, one of the partners, was General Cedras's brother; the other was a European businessman. My company had one partner whose sister is married to the European businessman, who's in business with Cedras's brother. The elite are somehow interconnected or related. Basically they have to work together in order to keep their power intact.

You can imagine what kind of pressure that must be when you know that there are six million peasants that basically could rise up and tear your house down some night, which, also, I experienced. I've witnessed what they call dechoukage where they just basically firebomb, loot and gut a house. Its a terrifying thing.

This is always in the mind of the elite Haitians. They ride around in their armored vehicles, they have their Uzis in their house. It's not uncommon to hear machine gun fire when you're in Port-au-Prince just because there's a thief trying to break in somewhere. And you'd better believe these rich people have got machine guns. The poorest Haitians cannot rise up. I mean there will not be a revolution in Haiti because you cannot fight these machine guns with sticks and rocks and machetes. Thereís only so far you can fight.

MM: Where do the U.S. businesses fit into that whole picture economically and politically? Are they part of that elite?

James: The rich Haitian families basically run their own empires. You have partnerships with American businessmen, European businessmen that are very lucrative because you have a monopoly situation in Haiti. There are only a certain amount of players, and if you can provide something that no one else can provide, you're in. If you have a sister-in-law that's, say, from Vietnam or Thailand who has connections who can get you all the rice you want to import, then you're the guy that owns the rice market in Haiti.

MM: What are the leading empires?

James: There are probably a group of about 30 families, big families. Then, after that, maybe another hundred or two hundred [at the] next level. There arenít many people, relative to the entire population, running the show. And, let me tell you, the wealth is unbelievable. I know some of these people that send their kids to private schools in Florida and Switzerland, grammar schools where they're paying $18,000 a year for one childís tuition. They are multi-, multi-millionaires. They have a monopoly on the situation. Theyíre maybe importing rice, then they may export coffee or oranges or whatever. And of course they are making their money from the sweat and blood of the poor Haitian, who's making maybe $20 a month, if he's lucky.

MM Have the labor costs been that low for a long time?

James: Always, and the rich plan to keep it that way, that's how they make their money. Slavery is alive and well in Haiti. That's what it is, slavery. It's even worse than slavery, really, because at least with slavery you were offered some fringe benefits, as far as housing. In this situation, you're offered hard labor and that's it. If you get enough money to buy a machete so you can chop down a few trees to weave together a hut and pack mud on the side of it, good for you. If not, tough luck. They don't provide housing, they don't provide food for these people, they just use them for labor.

The first day I was at my office, one of the Haitian businessmen came in and I said, "I can't believe how poor these people are." This guy was one of the elite, light skin, blue eyes, and he said to me: "Oh yeah, we have to keep these people tired and hungry, otherwise they'll rise up against us."

MM Do you think people would rise up if they had more resources?

James: No doubt about it. That's the thing the [elite] Haitians are so afraid of. When there's a mob mentality, anything can happen. I remember the night of the coup, I was asleep in bed. At about one o'clock in the morning I heard loud explosions, gunfire, chanting, screaming. I got up and looked out of my bedroom window. I was up on the side of a mountain and I could look down over the whole city. I saw different places on fire and I could tell there was something wrong. So I went outside to ask the night watchman what was going on. He was listening to the radio and said something happened to Aristide. I asked myself, "Am I the good guy or the bad guy?" I didn't know. I didn't know if the average Haitian would look at me as a white, a blanc, as the enemy, or if I was just someone that was not involved in the situation so they wouldn't even bother me. I didn't know what to do and I heard people chanting, coming up the side of the mountain. I could see different places on fire already on the mountainside.

So I turned around and went back to my house. I went back into my room and packed my backpack and I took the machete from under my bed and I went back outside to the night watchman. I asked him what we should do, and he said he didn't know. So we hid. It was a bright moonlit night and we hid in the garage. I could see now there was a crowd out in front of the house, probably 200 people, flaming torches and machetes, and of course I start sweating bullets. They started chopping down the fence and the night watchman said, "We have to go out, otherwise theyíre going to come in here.î So I just kind of took a deep breath, and the two of us walked into the moonlight and held our machetes. And I just remember looking up and at that point I could hear them yelling ìBlancs, blancs, blancs restent ici," meaning, "Whites stay here, whites live here." And then, one by one, they started running away.

I spent the next two or three nights crawling around on my hands and knees on the floor listening to bullets whizzing by, and to gunfire.

During one of those days, I went over to a hotel where a bunch of my friends lived. I was sitting on the terrace of the hotel with the owner of the hotel, drinking coffee, talking about the situation, and all of a sudden I hear some screaming and I hear a truck winding up the mountainside. Suddenly, they let the back of the truck down and all the soldiers pile out and start chasing people around the hotel shooting them!

MM Who were they chasing?

James: Just average Haitians. So the owner of the hotel and I wondered what the hell was going on. The two of us just stood up and went out and stood on the veranda with our hands on our hips watching this. And these guys went around and actually shot people, and went up on the side of the mountain, burned down peopleís huts, and basically terrorized people.

MM You were safe. They weren't going to attack you?

James: No. At this point I started to realize, well, there's something going on here that I donít understand.

MM What was that?

James: Well, that's when I realized that the military was on the side of the rich and that, as an American, I had nothing to worry about. And that was the case most of the time in Haiti.

MM Does the U.S. business community fear an uprising?

James: I donít think the American business community has to worry about it as much, because they have got less to lose, they've got a place they can fly away to. It's the Haitian business community that basically keeps the system in place.

Of course, if you're an American businessman and you're offered to become a part of this system where your risks are much lower than they are for the average Haitian businessperson but your profits are equal, of course you're going to buy into the system. It's a good deal. In Haiti, I was making about $800,000 or $900,000 a year. I lived in the lap of luxury, with a huge estate with gardens, gardeners, maids, cooks, laundry women. It was a lifestyle that would take me a lot more work to accomplish in the United States.

MM How profitable are the U.S. companies that have assembly operations in Haiti?

James: These companies benefit from Caribbean Basin Initiative tax incentives for companies that import materials from the United States and then process them in Haiti and send them back. And of course being able to take advantage of the labor costs in Haiti is very advantageous. As far as the profits they take out, I would only be speculating.

The problem for these companies is the political situation and the instability. Companies are not willing to invest a lot in setting up a manufacturing plant in Haiti for the very reason that happened a couple years ago. You have a coup, and all of a sudden you donít know whether thereís going to be an embargo placed on you or what. If you have orders to fill, people don't like to hear that youíre in Haiti, because if theyíre going to make a contract to sell these certain products, they want to make sure youíre going to be able to deliver. So this is a big problem for Haiti and a big obstacle as far as having any long-term investment in manufacturing.

MM So most of the foreign investment has been for light assembly that goes in and out?

James: They have made a very low investment because they have portable machinery that they can pack up and pull out any time things start to get a little hot.

The U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID] did a report a few years ago where it talked about the importance of the low wages as a big advantage for U.S. companies. How can you beat $5 a day in wages?

MM Do you think the U.S. firms feel they have a stake in maintaining that system?

James: I would imagine that there are reasons why the Americans would want to keep that system in place. One being the cost advantage. Another that they provide fruits and other commodities at very low prices. If their wage costs start rising, then the costs of their products are going to start rising and all of a sudden mangoes cost a lot more money in Florida.

MM: Do you think the U.S. government fears a possible uprising?

James: An uprising of the peasant majority? Thereís no way that the Haitian peasants can rise up. You have one section of the black population which is now aligned with and making money with the rich. Not much, but more than they could make as a farmer cutting mangoes. So now they have a gun and are in control. Theyíre making a few bucks. The rich tell them to go out and take down some village, shoot up a couple of people, chop their face off, leave them in the street, and theyíll do it.

MM: How might U.S. intervention work to keep a lid on the situation?

James: Whether or not the United States wants to prevent the Haitian population from rising up, I think they should align themselves, or at least work with, the military. Try to separate the police force from the military so that there is some type of civilian protection. They should try not to go in as the aggressors who are trying to wipe out the military, but to go in and say "weíre here to retrain the army; weíre here to work with the army."

MM: Did you have a sense of how the U.S. embassy or U.S. business people felt about Aristideís coming to power, and the whole popular movement?

James: I think there was worry about how far Aristide was pushing, especially for a minimum wage, trying to set up a social security system, things like this.

When Aristide first came in he said, "Thereís going to be a mandatory $5 minimum [daily] wage, everybody has got to do it." It was just so outlandish that nobody even took it seriously. You figure the average Haitian probably makes about 20 dollars a month, so youíre talking about five dollars a week to five dollars a day!

MM: What impact would that have on the way the Haitian economy works?

James: For the average worker, it would have increased their wages, so income would have increased. The effect on the economy would have been inflationary because the businessman is not going to settle for not making enough money. All prices would increase relative to the currency exchange. It would have balanced out ultimately, but the initial impact would have been a strain on the businessman.

MM: What kind of profits do local business people usually make?

James: I would say the average retailer will make something like a 60 percent profit. As far as importing and then distributing, a lot depends on the currency exchange. Right now [during the embargo], profits may be as high as 400 percent ó thatís just the law of supply and demand. When you have sanctions that are limiting the supply, of course your prices are going to increase.

So Aristide, I think, had some ideal things he wanted to accomplish, but he just moved too fast. He didnít consider the establishment that had been in place for 200 years, and out of his frustration he started making very passionate and radical speeches about how to break down the economic system that was in place. And, unfortunately, he pushed too far.

MM: What was the overall business objection to social security?

James: My own personal fear was that I didnít know how long this government would last, so I didnít want to start putting money into a fund that could disappear and then wonder whoís getting all the money when the next coup takes place. I told government officials who asked for social security payments that I wasn't going to pay into it, that Iíd rather give my workers extra money every week.

MM: Did many businesses react that way?

James: I think there were probably some that had more pressure on them than I did, especially if they were Haitian run. Because I was an American, because I was white ó it sounds pretty arrogant ó I could basically call whatever shots I wanted just because of the color of my skin and my eyes. I could say: "No, Iím not doing it."

MM: Even when it comes to paying a tax?

James: Yes, yes, and I didnít do it. n