ARTICLE - ARMY WILL BRING MONEY TO STATE

THE ARMY WILL BRING MONEY INTO THE COFFERS OF THE HAITIAN STATE !
(Haiti Libre) -

Georges Michel, historian, and a member of the "State Commission for the organization of the military component of the public force" has wanted to put an end to the interpretations and unfounded speculations, stating what had been done and will be done by the commission, as well as the outlines of what would be the new army.

"...The Commission is vested of a dual mission by the President of the Republic. The first mission was to give to the President, the outlines, a timetable. We had 40 days to do it and we have fulfilled this mission in 21 days by delivering to the President of the Republic, Friday, December 23, 2011 at 5:00 pm, the preliminary report of the Commission [...] The second mission of the Commission which is the largest, will now begin. This is a dialogue between different sectors of national life, to hear their views on the project and also for us commissioners, we present to them the project, that we will explain to them what will be done, what this force will be, and what this force will not be.

We will have an army that will be based outside of the cities. We know that we will have a Republican army, close to the people, of a defensive type and small in size. We also know that we will have an army where there will be an engineering and health body. We know that we will have foresters, because we have forests that should be guarded by the army,.... it's he only way to save what is necessary to save. This army will also have as its mission to guard the border, .... what the national police can not do. There is smuggling on the border, .... a loss of income for the State estimated at between 300 and 500 million dollars [...] the State loses money, the State is unable to enter this money into coffers by locking the 83 border crossings between Haiti and the Dominican Republic where clandestinely the flow of goods pass. These goods will have to pass through one of the four customs stations[Ouanaminthe, Belladère, Malpasse and Anse à Pitre], and this will bring money into the coffers of the state. This army will earn money for the Haitian state.

What happened on November 18 was that there were people who had good and bad intentions, but who had not understood what President Martelly wanted to do, a completely new army [...] what the President did was to choose a way much more gradual, much less spectacular in order to achieve [...] the realization of his project. I believe that during the mandate of the Head of State, we will see the force established and providing service to honor the successor of President Martelly in 2016."