Porter Goss: “A wise man once said: Four things come not back: The spoken word, the sped arrow, time passed, and the neglected…”

“A wise man once said: Four things come not back: The spoken word, the sped arrow, time passed, and the neglected opportunity. As I reviewed the observer reports from this weekend's elections in Haiti, this aphorism came to mind. We all congratulate the Haitians who worked so hard on election day, and those who came out to vote, despite the many factors that might have kept them away from the polls. But when 20,000 American troops invaded Haiti, as opposed as some of us here were to this action, we all hoped somehow the end result would bear fruit for our troubled neighbors in Hispaniola. Sadly, that opportunity has not been fully realized. This weekend's elections, the last in a cycle to create the institutions set forth in the 1987 Haitian Constitution, offer testimony to the disappointing reality in that country. Haitians, expressing disillusionment with democracy and certainty that the results were already determined, barely participated in their elections. Observers have placed turnout in the range of a dismal 5 percent. Why? After five rounds of voting in the past 3 years, many of the Haitian observers spoke with those who echoed sentiments like the Haitian who said: My children cannot eat this vote. They cannot eat democracy. They need food. Frustrated Haitians told observers I spoke with that 'At least when Duvalier was here, things worked. Today nothing happens. Today the machinery sits and rusts, and the people get nothing.'”