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Wednesday, January 13, 1988/University Daily Kansan
Professor will observe elections during his visit to Haiti this week
By Brenda Finnell Kansan staff writer
Kansan staff writer
When U.S. citizens go to the polls, they either cast their votes behind a curtain or place their ballots in a box. But private voting is not a privilege Haitian citizens will have when they vote this Sunday, said a KU professor who will observe the presidential election during a visit to Haiti.
Bryant Freeman, professor of French and Italian, said Monday that Haitians must vote by publicly declaring their choices in the election place. Voting is mandatory, and election officials can write down each citizen's vote. Election boycotts can be punished with a jail sentence.
Haiti is an island nation in the West Indies, about an hour and 40 minutes by air from Miami.
Freeman left for Haiti yesterday on a weeklong visit. He plans to finish working on two books, but he also will observe the election. He said he would not be an official observer.
One of Freeman's books, sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development, will standardize the written form of the Haitian language and will be used in Haitian medical books a book is a manual of medical phrases or English speaking medical personnel working in Haiti.
Freeman has taught for 10 years at KU, which is one of only two universities in the United States that has a Haitian language program. The other is Indiana University.
Freeman said Haitian creating procedures should create extraordinary electoral circumstances. "It's going to be an amazing election," he said.
Haiti's elections this month come after violence closed the polls during voting Nov. 29. That day, polls opened at 7:30 a.m. and closed at 9 a.m. after 34 people were killed in election violence, Freeman said.
Freeman said members of the Tonton Macoutes, an organization of former Haitian president Jean-Claude Duvalier's, were responsible for the army of the provisional government, also aided this organization, he said.
Duvalier left Haiti Feb. 7, 1986,
ending a 28-year Duvalier family
dictatorship. Gen. Henri Namphy
now leads the provisional government.
Although he does not expect similar violence this time, Freeman said he would not take needless risks during his week in Haiti.
The U.S. government supplied military equipment that the Haitian army used in the November election violence, Freeman said. Consequently, Haitian citizens and government officials feel Haiti's relationship with the United States is tense and unfriendly, he said.
"America is very unpopular," he said. "The Haitian provisional government sees the U.S. as trying to interfere with the affairs of a foreign country."
After the November incidents, the United States cut off all aid to Haiti except humanitarian assistance, Freeman said.
The U.S. government believed the trucks, guns and other supplies would help the Haitian army ensure a free and orderly election, Freeman said. U.S. officials believed the provisional government represented law and order and did not expect the supplies to cause bloodshed at the polls, he said.
Robert D. Tomasek, KU professor of political science, also said the United States was surprised by the November violence. He said the State Department assumed Namphy would organize a stable election, but did not assess his motives correctly.
Tomasek also said some critics of the U.S. military aid thought the United States should have cut off aid before the November election to encourage Haitians to have a peaceful election.
Freeman said the United Nations declared Haiti one of the three poorest nations in the world. He said he had noticed the country growing poorer during his visits to that country in the last 30 years.
Overpopulation and soil erosion are two serious problems Haiti faces, Freeman said. In 1985, there were more than 5.7 million people living in the country, which is about the size of Maryland.
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