Gya: Seeing things as they are

WE AWAIT the outcome of Friday's talks in Washington between the US State Department and a Caribbean Community delegation on the deteriorating political crisis in the Republic of Haiti. Talks have also been scheduled between CARICOM and the Canadian Government.

One thing should be abundantly clear at this stage: There is no way that CARICOM can be part of ANY arrangement to compel the lawfully elected President, Jean Bertrand Aristide, to quit under pressures from opposition forces amid the prevailing bloody conflicts that are wasting Haitian lives.

Regime change must be based on the expressed will of the Haitian people and not bullets, machetes and grenades and a reign of terror from supporters of either government or opposition forces.

This makes you wonder if the editorial writer of Sunday Chronicle has a clue. Palaver about the Haiti situation is all well and good, but realism requires the acknowledgment of Haiti's volatile political situation. The change is not likely to come two years from now and at the ballot box. Rather, regime change in Haiti is highly likely to occur under a rain of "bullets, machetes and grenades and a reign of terror."