Since a question has been raised about what Dr. Paul Farmer actually said in his Senate testimony of July 15, 2003, here are statements of his from the question-and-answer period, based on notes I personally took at the hearing:
It was a tribute to the peaceful nature of the Haitian people that only stones were thrown at the Group of 184 in Cité Soleil. The Group of 184 was an elite, bourgeois group. The people of Haiti were for Aristide and the Convergence and Group of 184 would be massacred at the polls.
Dr. Farmer was commenting on Sen. Christopher Dodd’s allegation at the hearing that the Group of 184 had provoked the violence by going into Cité Soleil.
In his concluding comment, namely that the opposition would be massacred at the polls, Dr. Farmer meant that it would be severely outvoted, not physically massacred.
Both Senator Dodd’s and Dr. Farmer’s comments were posted on this web page as “Group of 184 Provoked the Violence” on the date of the hearing.
James R. Morrell, executive director, Haiti Democracy Project