I don't argue with anything you have said and know from...
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Reply to Msg 15364
I don't argue with anything you have said and know from reading history the man had a bad reputation with Papa Doc but all I can say is that when I knew him he was a kind man to me. I had little knowledge of his business dealings in Haiti other than with Air Haiti and his aviation operation(s) which benefited Haiti by flying tourists in and out of the country.
If he engaged in bad business practices in other areas then I don't approve of that nor did I have any knowledge of his other business interests.
I have, since being in Haiti last time, read about the downfall of Baby Doc and understand it was directly related to Ernest Bennetts daughter and her high spending habits.
I do recall some meetings with Bennett and his other pilots when he would make comments like "We should ask the President about this", etc. so it was clear to me he had contacts with Baby Doc and on the wall in his office was a picture of the President and his daughter and, as a matter of fact, all over the country whenever there was a photo of Baby Doc there was a photo of his daugher beside the President.
Bennett would often drive me around town in his BMW with him driving and a bodyguard soldier in the right front seat carrying one of those little machine guns and I would be sitting in the back seat. He seemed to take a personal liking to me and we sometimes had meetings in a large warehouse that he apparently owned besides his car dealership which he called a BMW dealership but the only BMW was his own and all the other cars were Ladas imported from Russia.
I knew his daughter was married to the President and that he had influence but my workings were limited to aviation and I had no personal knowledge of his other business dealings.
It was only after I left Haiti that I read that his daughter and he were the ones most responsible for bringing down Baby Doc. The one good thing he did I can say for sure was start Air Haiti and its needs to be cranked up again to benefit the country financially.
Earl, June 29 2009, 5:58 PM
Topic: Hell is a Haitian prison
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