Portion below; whole thing here:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4140
Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez found a hero's welcome when he visited Haiti on March 12. People from Port-au-Prince's poor neighborhoods lined the streets of the capitol to cheer, chant, dance, and sing, with all the infectious enthusiasm of Haitian celebrations. President Chávez returned the affection. He jumped from his motorcade and joined the party, marching, even running with the crowd. At the National Palace, Chávez climbed up on the perimeter fence to slap hands like he had just scored a World Cup goal. He publicly thanked the Haitian people for their hospitality and enthusiasm, and for their historic support for liberty in the world.
President Chávez and the Haitian people hit it off so well for reasons of principle and of practice. Haitians consider Chávez a leader in the fight against the global inequalities that keep people in Haiti, Venezuela, and the rest of Latin America poor, hungry, and uneducated. They admire him for standing up to the most powerful leader in the world, George Bush (whose name was frequently invoked that day, not charitably), and to the World Bank and other powerbrokers. Even better, unlike their former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (whose name was frequently, and charitably, invoked), Chávez keeps getting away with it.
In turn, Chávez knows that the Haitian people have been standing up to inequality and oppression for more than 200 years. He knows that Haitians won their independence in 1804 by beating Napoleon—the most powerful leader of his day—and that Haiti became the first country to abolish slavery. Chávez knows, and acknowledged at the National Palace, that Haiti played a critical role in his own country's independence. He also understands that the Haitian people are still fighting for their sovereignty, and will keep fighting as long as necessary.
President Chávez was also welcomed because he came bearing much-needed gifts. At the Palace, he signed a US$100 million agreement with Haiti's President Préval to provide Venezuelan oil, development assistance, and financial aid for the Cuba/Haiti partnership that supports Cuban medical professionals in Haiti's poorest areas and trains Haitian healthworkers in Cuban medical schools (Fidel Castro joined the Chávez-Préval meeting by phone). These gifts are particularly welcome because unlike the North American and European donors, Venezuela and Cuba do not condition their largesse on Haiti decreasing social spending or restructuring its economy to benefit multi-national corporations.
This public display of mutual affection contrasts sharply with the Haitian poor's relationship with other Latin Americans in Haiti, a relationship that is increasingly hostile. A few days before Chávez' visit, Edmond Mulet of Guatemala, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General, told Brazil's Folha newspaper that "a photo of Haiti today would reveal a horrible situation: poverty, the absence of institutions, debility, and the absence of the State." Brazil's Ambassador to Haiti, Paulo Cordeiro Andrade Pinto, told the newspaper that President Préval was "passive" and "sluggish."
Ambassadors Mulet and Andrade Pinto do not jump from their motorcades to join Port-au-Prince's street celebrations. They travel as quickly as possible between their homes in wealthy neighborhoods and their offices in wealthy neighborhoods, with armed escorts in large cars, windows tinted and rolled up, air-conditioning on. Their employees, the soldiers of MINUSTAH, the United Nations (UN) "peacekeeping" mission that Mulet directs and Brazil leads, do go to poor neighborhoods, but when they do they stay in armored personnel vehicles, their automatic weapons, rather than their hands, extended to the Haitian people.
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