Cheryl Mills: Please Listen to the Haitian People!

Dear Chief of Staff Mills:

For the last two years, the Haitian people have been telling us that they will only accept fair, inclusive elections. When the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) illegally excluded Fanmi Lavalas , Haiti’s most popular political party from Senate elections in 2009, over 90% of the voters refused to participate in the charade. When the Council illegally excluded 15 parties (including Fanmi Lavalas) from the legislative elections and 15 candidates from the Presidential elections held last November 28, human rights groups and political parties across the spectrum protested, parties boycotted, and over 75% of voters refused to participate. On election day, when over 100,000 registered voters did not receive their voting cards, an uncounted multitude could not find their voting center and the fraud was rampant, people took to the streets to reject the elections.

The international community has not listened to the Haitian people. Instead, the United States, United Nations and others have provided generous financial, logistical and political support to the flawed elections.

The imposition of an unpopular government on Haiti will not work. The protests that shut Haiti down for much of December will likely continue as long as any government resulting from the unfair November 28 elections is in power. This in turn will hobble the urgently needed work of earthquake reconstruction and fighting cholera, for as long as five years.

It does not matter how the November 28 votes are apportioned –they will always be the results from a restricted group of voters choosing from a restricted group of candidates. The top three vote-getters collectively received the support of less than 15% of Haitian voters. That is not the fair election that the Haitian people need. Haiti’s voters must be allowed to freely choose their leaders in a new, fair election run by a new, credible Electoral Council.

The Haitian people have been insisting on fair elections, through boycotts, protests, reports, analyses and the press, but the international community refuses to listen. They will keep trying until they find a language we will listen to. In the meantime, Haitians will die of cholera and starve in the tent cities. The United States can stop this needless suffering by joining the Haitian people’s insistence on fair and inclusive elections. I urge you to immediately announce that the United States will provide no more support to the current CEP and will not recognize any government resulting from this CEP’s elections.

Sincerely,