Bahamian-Haitian Relation’s Cordial
By Gladstone Thurston
Bahamas Information Services
01/February/2004
Kingston,
Jamaica - Relations between the Bahamas and Haiti remains very cordial,
Ambassador Dr Eugene Neury said.
He
insisted there were no anti-Bahamas or Caricom demonstration outside the
Bahamas’ embassy following last week’s meeting with Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti.
Dr
Neury also denied reports that Haitians were unhappy that the Bahamas and
Caricom were “interfering” in their internal political affairs.
“On
the contrary,” said Dr Neury, “the average Haitian is happy that people care
enough for them to (mediate a settlement to the political impasse that has
threatened to send Haiti into civil war).”
Dr
Neury was a member of Prime Minister Perry Christie’s delegation to the third
in a series of talks aimed at saving the fledgling Haitian democracy.
Also
from the Bahamas were Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell, Education
Minister and Attorney General Alfred Sears, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
undersecretary Carlton Wright.
Five
Caricom prime ministers, and representatives from the United States, Canada,
the OAS, the European Commission, and the European Presidency hammered out a
series of political reforms with President Aristide during their meeting at
Jamaica House in Kingston on Saturday.
Dr
Neury said Haitians “love the fact that people are paying attention to try to
help them get out of this predicament. They feel that this is what neighbours
do. A friend in need is a friend indeed.”
Following
the third meeting - the first in Nassau and the second in Haiti – “there are
good reasons to look with optimism to the future,” said Dr Neury.
“If
the president can achieve the things that he has committed himself to then I
think the whole region, especially the Bahamas, will benefit.”
Haitians
admire the Bahamas as a successful neighbour “very much,” he said
“The
average Haitian does not want to come to the Bahamas,” Dr Neury added. “That’s
a Bahamian perception. However, the Haitians would like for their country to be
like the Bahamas in terms of the economic success.
“Most
Haitians in Haiti have a very serious perception of the integration of their
brothers and sisters in the Bahamas. The presence of Haitians in the Bahamas
has economically helped the Haitian population back home.
“It
is very much like when the people in the days of the project in the United
States sent money back home to the Bahamas. Haitians send back literally
hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars from the Bahamas to Haiti
every year.
“But
that’s earned money. It isn’t as though they went there and took the money. So
Haitians admire the Bahamas. It is wrong to think it any other way.”
Dr
Neury described Bahamians as “a very accommodating people. In percentage terms,
the Bahamas probably more than any other country in the world has successfully
integrated thousands of Haitians and their families without any bloodshed and
without any violence.”
Dr
Neury said the gathering of thousands of Haitians on the park opposite the
Bahamas’ embassy in Haiti had nothing to do with any ill-will towards either
the Bahamas or Caricom as was earlier reported.
“There
was no confrontation,” he insisted. “I was at the embassy.”
He
denied that his vehicle was jostled by the angry crowd.
“My
car never stopped for one moment and in fact the leaders from the opposition
groups opened the way for my car,” said Dr Neury. “There was some
misinterpretation of what people were seeing.
“It
is insulting to suggest that the people from the opposition were not aware that
the Bahamas’ embassy including its gate is a foreign country and that to attack
a foreign embassy is to attack the country which that embassy represents.”
Except
for Haiti, no other country stands to benefit more from these negotiations than
the Bahamas. After three meeting Dr Neury was asked for a prognosis.
“This
is the first time that any international group has been able, on such a
sustained even short period of time, to achieve what has been achieved in the
last two weeks, and the whole international community benefits from this.”
But,
unless the opposition in Haiti accepts the reforms including the release of
political prisoners and police protection for opposition demonstrations, and
compromise on its insistence that President Aristide steps down, then there
will be no movement.
“You
have to understand the Haitian mentality of bargaining,” said Dr Neury.
“Haitians are masters at bargaining.”
The Islands’ Haitian Situation – Part 1