On Friday March 14, 2014, an historic step that will lead to peace and harmony among the Haitian people took place in Petionville, Haiti. An instrument that was labored over for weeks by the executive, the legislative and the political parties, under the observation of the judiciary and civil society, was signed.
The Catholic Church, under the leadership of his newly appointed Chybly Cardinal Langlois, served as the mediator, cajoling the parties to sit down, discuss amongst themselves without foreign intervention their concerns, and arrive at a consensus on critical issues such as governance, elections and the constitution.
These were only the beginning steps in a larger dialogue that will later delve into the structural underpinning that impedes the development of Haiti from a failed state to an emerging one. While the dialogue was applauded by the majority of the population and by the international community, a group of senators, as well as members of the opposition bloc bent on derailing the present government, has threatened to rock the boat and plunge the country into total chaos.
The Catholic Church, deriving from a call from God to Abraham to quit Mesopotamia (Iraq) and to go to Palestine, where 2,000 years later, the Son of God would freely give himself in immolation to replace the blood of the animals offered in sacrifice in expiation for original sin, is pursuing its role of making this earth better for each man and for each woman.
The new world order of charity, love, fraternity and hospitality offered by Jesus the Christ was spread to the world on the back of the Roman Empire. The history of the Catholic Church, an institution created by God but led by men, is filled with false starts and with major failures. I have in the past not minced words, making the observation that the Catholic Church is an excellent incubator of a mafia culture that infects the social, economic and political spirit of the countries where the Catholic faith is the strongest.
Yet the Catholic Church is also one of the best vehicles for civilization and for progress throughout the world. The republic of Haiti, ostracized by the entire planet after its independence from France, received recognition only from the Vatican in its universal quest to find teachers and preachers to render the former slaves fully equipped to lead a life of self-actualization.
From a clergy hailing from Brittany in France, Francois Duvalier, the dictator, transformed Haiti's clergy into a national one. At the departure of his son into exile, following a transitory period, a defrocked priest Jean Bertrand Aristide took the reins of power. It was neither for the good of the church nor for the country. Haiti knew a difficult time of dissension and disorder that pierced its ethos to the bone and almost brought the nation to the level of RDC (the Republic Democratic of Congo).
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church wanted to make amends and help the nation of Haiti reconcile with itself. Its role as mediator between the parties is subscribed to that effect.
The ink placed on the document by all the participants was not yet dry when the group of six senators and the opposition bloc which refused to take part in the dialogue started the process of dismantling the result and placing stumbling blocks before its implementation.
Their prime target was paragraph 12 of the agreement that calls for setting aside the articles of electoral law that have not been amended on time through dilettantism or obstruction by the opposing bloc in parliament. Considering that elections must take place by the end of the month of October to fulfill the requirements of amending the constitution, the framers of the conciliation process have agreed to take steps to prevent delaying tactics that could derail the election.
Amending the Haitian constitution to align all the elections in a five year period is a crucial step in avoiding repeated balloting and saving time and money for the country.
The opposing parties that refused to sit down and take part in the negotiation process are combing the fine lines of the agreement to find errant commas and other punctuation that would annul the terms of the conciliation.
Haiti fits squarely the parody suggested in the recent observation of Roger Cohen about Argentina. It is a poster child among nations that never grew up, blaming everybody and their father for ills that are internal in the first place.
It refuses to accept that a former dictator called Duvalier and a former president called Aristide have shaped an ethos of delusional power that refuses to face the realities of nation-building, which call for the rich and for the poor to hold hands together and continue the renovation of the legacy bequeathed by the founding father, Jean Jacques Dessalines.
The mediator through its principal, Cardinal Langlois, is offering the practice of full disclosure in response to the method of marooning practiced by the opposition forces. The Catholic Church in Haiti is pursuing, maybe for the first time since Constantine, the Roman Emperor in 313, a politics of state married with the faith in an effort to make a nation hospitable to its people.
Will the gang of six and the opposition succeed in putting enough stumbling blocks on the way to hospitality for all? This is the difficult question that the nation of Haiti will face. I am observing a country filled with young ladies and men eager to educate themselves but with no prospect of employment and no job creation in the pipeline. I am observing also a critical mass of the population living in abject poverty but preserving their dignity while praying for an end to their misery.
Would they stand in line to immigrate to Brazil, cross the border and face humiliation in the Dominican Republic or accept the lure of Canada for the best and the brightest, perpetuating the brain drain that hemorrhages from the country?
Cardinal Langlois has told all parties that frank negotiation is the only way to salvation for Haiti. Will the country remain in the barbarity of the age before Abraham or will it come into the age after Christ where solidarity, charity and love must be the lot of each and for each? Stay tuned!
o Jean H Charles LLB, MSW, JD is a syndicated columnist with Caribbean News Now. He can be reached at: jeanhcharles@aol.com and followed at Caribbeannewsnow/Haiti

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