http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/national_world/stories/2010/02/13/Haiti_WP_0213.ART_ART_02-13-10_A3_TAGJ4AC.html said:
Haiti quake blamed on 'evil'
Religious service marks beginning of mourning period
Saturday, February 13, 2010 3:08 AM
By Edward Cody
The Washington Post
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Reeling from the earthquake that devastated their country one month ago, Haitians have turned to their vivid and sometimes quirky spiritual life in a search not only for consolation but also for an explanation of why such a catastrophe happened.
The depth and breadth of Haiti's spirituality was put on display yesterday, the first of three days of mourning decreed by the government of President Rene Preval.
Tens of thousands of people gathered on the Champ de Mars, a broad esplanade in front of the collapsed National Palace, to pray, sing religious songs and listen to Roman Catholic, Protestant and voodoo preachers in a government-organized memorial service for the more than 200,000 killed.
"Everybody is praying together, Catholics, Protestants and voodoo believers," said Joseph Ardouin Dubois, an evangelical Protestant at the service. "There is only one God."
But in the crowd, and among the nearby tents and plastic shelters where homeless families by the thousands have taken refuge, many blamed the Jan. 12 quake on the government itself, saying that Haiti's leadership was evil because it ignored spirituality and refused to grant a higher minimum wage.
The sentiments suggested that long-term political repercussions from the earthquake could extend beyond the immediate question of whether Preval and his government preside over efficient relief efforts.
"If this tragedy has befallen Haiti, it is because our leaders, our politicians, are not spiritual people," said the Rev. Vladimir Justal, 34, an evangelical minister. "They have no religion."
"They are pagans, that's what they are," commented a teen-ager standing nearby.
"We are going to ask God to give us spiritual men to lead us," Justal said. "Otherwise, we are heading for another catastrophe."
Four women sitting on the ground nearby waved their arms back and forth and sang a traditional Haitian hymn: "Now I know my life is safe," their voices floated out in soft Creole, "no matter what happens tomorrow."
But Patrick Edouard, a 41-year-old refrigerator repairman who lost his wife and 14-year-old daughter in the earthquake, was less confident. He said God visited the tragedy on Haiti because "Haitians are all mean." He added, "The worst of them all, it's the government. There is no work, no food, nothing to do."
Edouard said the main proof of the government's evil nature was its refusal to grant long-standing demands for an increase in the minimum wage to $6 a day. But saying that all Haitians were evil also suggested he was uncomfortable with underground voodoo practices, which some Haitians consider immoral.
The sight of voodoo priests among the religious leaders startled many Haitians.
Officially, nearly 80 percent of Haiti's 8.4 million people are Catholic, but a majority practice voodoo at the same time. In more recent times, more than 15 percent of the population has gravitated toward an evangelical Protestantism that also steers its followers away from traditional voodoo rites.
One of the speakers at yesterday's memorial, for instance, was Jinou Brutus, known as Sister Jinou, who announced on Haitian television that she had visited Preval months ago to inform him that an angel had come to her in a dream and told her that Haiti would suffer an earthquake soon.
Sister Jinou, a Haitian who reportedly lives in Orlando, Fla., went on television again after the quake to announce the country would soon fall victim to a volcanic eruption, a prediction that, some Haitians explained, led Preval to declare the three-day mourning period to get right with God despite the urgency of recovery efforts.
After recalling her earthquake prediction to the crowd, however, Sister Jinou this time announced she had some good news: The angel had again appeared in her dream, she said, and told her that within seven years Haiti would be so prosperous it would export food to other countries.