Quite lovely song and video about Ayiti Cherie. This shows the beauty of the country we all love.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Court hearing delayed for former Haitian President Aristide
[Mr. Aristide is also being brought to court by depositors who lost
their money in the 2002 crash of a government-endorsed cooperative
scheme. For more on the history of the cooperative scheme, please look here.
It is also worth noting that Mr. Aristide is being represented in Haiti
by Mario Joseph, lead attorney for the Bureau des Avocats
Internationaux (BAI), while in the United States he is frequently
represented by Miami attorney Ira Kurzban. Mr. Kurzban is one of the
founders, a member of the board of directors and major contributor to
the BAI's chief source of funds, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) and, as is by now widely known, his law firm was rather
lavishly compensated for its work on behalf of the Aristide government
while the latter was in power. MD]
Court hearing delayed for former Haitian President Aristide
Thu, Jan 3 2013
Court hearing delayed for former Haitian President Aristide
Thu, Jan 3 2013
By Amelie Baron
(Please read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Thursday won a delay until next week in a court hearing to address accusations he exploited former street children for political gain.
Aristide, who did not appear in court, has not been charged with a crime and a judge will ultimately decide whether any charges should be filed. His lawyer successfully argued that the hearing should be delayed to next Wednesday because the court summons was served improperly.
Police used tear gas to avert a confrontation between pro- and anti-Aristide demonstrators outside the courthouse.
A complaint against Aristide was filed by a small group of people who said they were former street children rescued by Fanmi se Lavi, an organization Aristide created in the late 1980s to house and educate such children. They said they were physically abused and were used to raise donations to further Aristide's political career.
About a dozen people saying they were former street children protested outside the courthouse on Thursday.
"I was 6 when Aristide took me from my mother's house," said Sony Telusma, 32. "With the other children from Fanmi se Lavi, he was using me as a puppet, making us play in front of foreigners in order to raise money for his own political interest."
Telusma said the children could not file a complaint earlier "as we were just kids, had no maturity. And also, one should not forget that Aristide was in power. He was the one who was controlling everything. Misery has made things clear for us. We are asking for justice and reparation."
From the other side of the street, dozens of supporters of the political party founded by Aristide, Fanmi Lavalas, sang and waved portraits of the former president.
Haitian police, assisted by a few U.N. soldiers, kept the two groups from clashing. But as the pro-Aristide group became too big to contain, the police used tear gas to hold back the crowd and hastily evacuated the former street children in a police truck.
Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, first became president of the impoverished Caribbean nation in 1991 and was ousted by former soldiers in 2004, before the end of his second term. He returned to Haiti last year after seven years in exile in South Africa.
He has not spoken publicly about the accusations involving Fanmi se Lavi.
Mario Joseph, a lawyer representing Aristide, came to court to explain why the former president did not attend.
"We are not avoiding the law. Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a citizen. When the procedure is going to be correct, we'll come again. We only received the order to come in court on Wednesday morning, but January 2 is a holiday," he said.
The chief prosecutor, Lucmane Delile, set a new hearing for next week.
"We are testing the good faith of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Justice is a blind woman. We are not taking sides. If any citizen has a grievance against former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, it's normal for us to hear it and to follow up the complaint," Delile said.
(Please read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Thursday won a delay until next week in a court hearing to address accusations he exploited former street children for political gain.
Aristide, who did not appear in court, has not been charged with a crime and a judge will ultimately decide whether any charges should be filed. His lawyer successfully argued that the hearing should be delayed to next Wednesday because the court summons was served improperly.
Police used tear gas to avert a confrontation between pro- and anti-Aristide demonstrators outside the courthouse.
A complaint against Aristide was filed by a small group of people who said they were former street children rescued by Fanmi se Lavi, an organization Aristide created in the late 1980s to house and educate such children. They said they were physically abused and were used to raise donations to further Aristide's political career.
About a dozen people saying they were former street children protested outside the courthouse on Thursday.
"I was 6 when Aristide took me from my mother's house," said Sony Telusma, 32. "With the other children from Fanmi se Lavi, he was using me as a puppet, making us play in front of foreigners in order to raise money for his own political interest."
Telusma said the children could not file a complaint earlier "as we were just kids, had no maturity. And also, one should not forget that Aristide was in power. He was the one who was controlling everything. Misery has made things clear for us. We are asking for justice and reparation."
From the other side of the street, dozens of supporters of the political party founded by Aristide, Fanmi Lavalas, sang and waved portraits of the former president.
Haitian police, assisted by a few U.N. soldiers, kept the two groups from clashing. But as the pro-Aristide group became too big to contain, the police used tear gas to hold back the crowd and hastily evacuated the former street children in a police truck.
Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, first became president of the impoverished Caribbean nation in 1991 and was ousted by former soldiers in 2004, before the end of his second term. He returned to Haiti last year after seven years in exile in South Africa.
He has not spoken publicly about the accusations involving Fanmi se Lavi.
Mario Joseph, a lawyer representing Aristide, came to court to explain why the former president did not attend.
"We are not avoiding the law. Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a citizen. When the procedure is going to be correct, we'll come again. We only received the order to come in court on Wednesday morning, but January 2 is a holiday," he said.
The chief prosecutor, Lucmane Delile, set a new hearing for next week.
"We are testing the good faith of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Justice is a blind woman. We are not taking sides. If any citizen has a grievance against former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, it's normal for us to hear it and to follow up the complaint," Delile said.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Haiti human rights organizations denounce threats against judge investigating rape allegations against CEP president Josué Pierre-Louis
Des organisations de droits humains interpellent le CSPJ sur de graves menaces contre un juge d’instruction
Lettre de 4 organisations et plateforme d’organisations de défense des droits humains aux membres du Conseil Supérieur du Pouvoir Judiciaire (CSPJ)
Document transmis à AlterPresse
(Read the original article here)
Honorables Membres du CSPJ
Les organisations de promotion et de défense des droits humains, signataires de la présente, soucieuses de l’indépendance du pouvoir judiciaire, s’empressent de porter à votre connaissance un fait qui nécessite votre plus urgente intervention.
En effet, Me Josué PIERRE-LOUIS, président du CEP contesté, est inculpé de viol sur la personne de Marie Danielle BERNADIN. Le Parquet près du Tribunal de Première Instance de Port-au-Prince, saisi du dossier en date du 28 novembre 2012, l’a transféré au Cabinet d’Instruction pour enquête judiciaire. Choix a été fait du Juge d’Instruction Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN, pour instruire l’affaire. A date, diverses étapes ont déjà été franchies dans le cadre de cette instruction notamment, l’audition de plusieurs personnes dont la victime ainsi qu’une interdiction de départ à l’encontre de Me Josué PIERRE-LOUIS.
Aujourd’hui, le Magistrat Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN fait l’objet de graves menaces de la part d’un autre Juge d’Instruction du Tribunal de Première Instance de Port-au- Prince, Me Ikenson EDUME.
Ce dernier, frère de Me Josué PIERRE LOUIS, a entre autres, promis au Magistrat instructeur qu’il s’en prendrait à lui, s’il n’enterrait pas le dossier car, en aucune façon, il ne peut accepter que l’image de son frère soit ternie.
Devant la gravité des menaces proférées, le Juge d’Instruction Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN a sollicité et obtenu du doyen du Tribunal de Première Instance de Port-au-Prince, Me Raymond JEAN MICHEL, la convocation en urgence d’une Assemblée des Juges. Cette assemblée s’est tenue le 18 décembre 2012 avec la participation de vingt-six (26) Magistrats. Au cours de la rencontre, le Juge d’Instruction Ikenson EDUME a réitéré en présence de tous les Magistrats, ses menaces vis-à-vis du Magistrat instructeur Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN. Invité par le doyen à faire le retrait de ses graves propos contre un collègue Magistrat, le Juge Ikenson EDUME a catégoriquement refusé.
Dans l’après-midi du 18 décembre 2012, une délégation du Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH) a rencontré le Magistrat instructeur Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN qui a confirmé les menaces dont il est l’objet, ce, depuis le lundi 17 décembre 2012.
Honorables Membres du CSPJ
Les organisations de promotion et de défense des droits humains tiennent à rappeler à votre attention que le Magistrat Ikenson EDUME est un ancien suppléant Juge de Paix de Delmas révoqué pour malversations le 5 août 2010 par l’ex-Ministre de la Justice et de la Sécurité Publique Paul DENIS. En effet, ce Magistrat, par son fonctionnement, remplaçait le greffe. De plus, était impliqué dans le détournement, à Delmas, de corps du délit (bijoux volés, argent, volailles, etc.) et la libération de plusieurs prévenus contre des versements de pots de vin.
Mécontent, le Juge de Paix titulaire de Delmas d’alors, Me Al Duniel DIMANCHE, aujourd’hui Juge d’Instruction près le Tribunal de Première Instance de Port-au- Prince, demanda au Juge Ikenson EDUME de mettre fin à ces pratiques malsaines et de laisser le greffe jouer son rôle. Il s’en est suivi une altercation entre les deux (2) Magistrats et l’intervention du Parquet de Port-au-Prince à travers le substitut Commissaire du Gouvernement d’alors Berge O. SURPRIS.
Suite aux rapports reçus au Ministère de la Justice et de la Sécurité Publique contre Me Ikenson EDUME, il a été décidé de le renvoyer pour malversations. Il est revenu dans le système en catimini en juillet 2012 à la faveur des nominations irrégulières réalisées par l’actuel Ministre de la Justice et de la Sécurité Publique, Me Jean Renel SANON et a recommencé à travailler en octobre 2012.
Aujourd’hui, c’est ce Magistrat qui profère des menaces sur la personne du Juge d’Instruction Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN en charge de l’affaire Marie Danielle BERNADIN contre Josué PIERRE-LOUIS.
Honorables Membres du CSPJ
Le cas du Magistrat Ikenson EDUME est prévu et puni par le Code Pénal haïtien. De plus, c’est sur la base de l’article 22 de la Loi créant le Conseil Supérieur du Pouvoir Judiciaire que les organisations de promotion et de défense des droits humains signataires de la présente saisissent votre organe. En effet, cet article stipule qu’« En matière disciplinaire, le Conseil Supérieur du Pouvoir Judiciaire est saisi :
• Soit par le Ministre de la Justice et de la Sécurité Publique ;
• Soit par le Doyen du Tribunal Civil, en ce qui concerne les magistrats du siège en poste dans le
ressort de son tribunal et pour les juges du Tribunal de Paix ;
• Soit par le Président de la Cour d’Appel, en ce qui concerne les magistrats du siège en poste dans le ressort de sa cour ;
• Soit, selon les modalités énoncées à l’article suivant, par toute personne estimant avoir été directement victime du comportement d’un magistrat susceptible d’engager sa responsabilité disciplinaire. »
De plus, le procès-verbal de l’assemblée générale des Juges du Tribunal de Première Instance de Port-au-Prince tenue le 18 décembre 2012 et relatant les menaces du Juge Ikenson EDUME contre le Juge d’Instruction Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN est un élément de preuve tangible, établissant les menaces susmentionnées.
Honorables Membres du CSPJ,
La justice, pour être efficace et crédible, doit être indépendante des pouvoirs exécutif et législatif ainsi que des parties et des forces sociopolitiques et économiques. La justice doit être aussi indépendante par rapport aux individus corrompus et aux délinquants, quels qu’ils soient.
Pourquoi, ayant pour mission principale d’enquêter, de dénoncer et de saisir les autorités compétentes sur les cas de violation de droits humains, les organisations de promotion et de défense des droits humains, signataires de la présente, portent, par devant vous, ces faits qui constituent un exemple des cas typiques de pressions et de menaces qui entravent généralement les enquêtes des Magistrats instructeurs.
Les organisations de promotion et de défense des droits humains signataires de la présente vous exhortent donc à prendre des mesures conservatoires à l’encontre du Magistrat Ikenson EDUME et vous encouragent vivement à porter le Ministère de la Justice et de la Sécurité Publique à prendre toutes les dispositions nécessaires et urgentes afin de garantir la sécurité du Juge et Juge d’instruction Me Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN. Espérant que prompte suite sera donnée à la présente, les organisations de promotion et de défense des droits humains signataires de la présente, vous prient de recevoir Honorables Membres du CSPJ, l’expression de leurs respectueux hommages.
Liste des Organisations signataires :
• Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH)
• Plateforme des Organisations Haïtiennes de Droits Humains (POHDH)
• Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn (SOFA)
• Kay Fanm
Pour authentification :
Antonal MORTIME
Secrétaire Exécutif POHDH
Lettre de 4 organisations et plateforme d’organisations de défense des droits humains aux membres du Conseil Supérieur du Pouvoir Judiciaire (CSPJ)
Document transmis à AlterPresse
(Read the original article here)
Honorables Membres du CSPJ
Les organisations de promotion et de défense des droits humains, signataires de la présente, soucieuses de l’indépendance du pouvoir judiciaire, s’empressent de porter à votre connaissance un fait qui nécessite votre plus urgente intervention.
En effet, Me Josué PIERRE-LOUIS, président du CEP contesté, est inculpé de viol sur la personne de Marie Danielle BERNADIN. Le Parquet près du Tribunal de Première Instance de Port-au-Prince, saisi du dossier en date du 28 novembre 2012, l’a transféré au Cabinet d’Instruction pour enquête judiciaire. Choix a été fait du Juge d’Instruction Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN, pour instruire l’affaire. A date, diverses étapes ont déjà été franchies dans le cadre de cette instruction notamment, l’audition de plusieurs personnes dont la victime ainsi qu’une interdiction de départ à l’encontre de Me Josué PIERRE-LOUIS.
Aujourd’hui, le Magistrat Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN fait l’objet de graves menaces de la part d’un autre Juge d’Instruction du Tribunal de Première Instance de Port-au- Prince, Me Ikenson EDUME.
Ce dernier, frère de Me Josué PIERRE LOUIS, a entre autres, promis au Magistrat instructeur qu’il s’en prendrait à lui, s’il n’enterrait pas le dossier car, en aucune façon, il ne peut accepter que l’image de son frère soit ternie.
Devant la gravité des menaces proférées, le Juge d’Instruction Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN a sollicité et obtenu du doyen du Tribunal de Première Instance de Port-au-Prince, Me Raymond JEAN MICHEL, la convocation en urgence d’une Assemblée des Juges. Cette assemblée s’est tenue le 18 décembre 2012 avec la participation de vingt-six (26) Magistrats. Au cours de la rencontre, le Juge d’Instruction Ikenson EDUME a réitéré en présence de tous les Magistrats, ses menaces vis-à-vis du Magistrat instructeur Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN. Invité par le doyen à faire le retrait de ses graves propos contre un collègue Magistrat, le Juge Ikenson EDUME a catégoriquement refusé.
Dans l’après-midi du 18 décembre 2012, une délégation du Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH) a rencontré le Magistrat instructeur Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN qui a confirmé les menaces dont il est l’objet, ce, depuis le lundi 17 décembre 2012.
Honorables Membres du CSPJ
Les organisations de promotion et de défense des droits humains tiennent à rappeler à votre attention que le Magistrat Ikenson EDUME est un ancien suppléant Juge de Paix de Delmas révoqué pour malversations le 5 août 2010 par l’ex-Ministre de la Justice et de la Sécurité Publique Paul DENIS. En effet, ce Magistrat, par son fonctionnement, remplaçait le greffe. De plus, était impliqué dans le détournement, à Delmas, de corps du délit (bijoux volés, argent, volailles, etc.) et la libération de plusieurs prévenus contre des versements de pots de vin.
Mécontent, le Juge de Paix titulaire de Delmas d’alors, Me Al Duniel DIMANCHE, aujourd’hui Juge d’Instruction près le Tribunal de Première Instance de Port-au- Prince, demanda au Juge Ikenson EDUME de mettre fin à ces pratiques malsaines et de laisser le greffe jouer son rôle. Il s’en est suivi une altercation entre les deux (2) Magistrats et l’intervention du Parquet de Port-au-Prince à travers le substitut Commissaire du Gouvernement d’alors Berge O. SURPRIS.
Suite aux rapports reçus au Ministère de la Justice et de la Sécurité Publique contre Me Ikenson EDUME, il a été décidé de le renvoyer pour malversations. Il est revenu dans le système en catimini en juillet 2012 à la faveur des nominations irrégulières réalisées par l’actuel Ministre de la Justice et de la Sécurité Publique, Me Jean Renel SANON et a recommencé à travailler en octobre 2012.
Aujourd’hui, c’est ce Magistrat qui profère des menaces sur la personne du Juge d’Instruction Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN en charge de l’affaire Marie Danielle BERNADIN contre Josué PIERRE-LOUIS.
Honorables Membres du CSPJ
Le cas du Magistrat Ikenson EDUME est prévu et puni par le Code Pénal haïtien. De plus, c’est sur la base de l’article 22 de la Loi créant le Conseil Supérieur du Pouvoir Judiciaire que les organisations de promotion et de défense des droits humains signataires de la présente saisissent votre organe. En effet, cet article stipule qu’« En matière disciplinaire, le Conseil Supérieur du Pouvoir Judiciaire est saisi :
• Soit par le Ministre de la Justice et de la Sécurité Publique ;
• Soit par le Doyen du Tribunal Civil, en ce qui concerne les magistrats du siège en poste dans le
ressort de son tribunal et pour les juges du Tribunal de Paix ;
• Soit par le Président de la Cour d’Appel, en ce qui concerne les magistrats du siège en poste dans le ressort de sa cour ;
• Soit, selon les modalités énoncées à l’article suivant, par toute personne estimant avoir été directement victime du comportement d’un magistrat susceptible d’engager sa responsabilité disciplinaire. »
De plus, le procès-verbal de l’assemblée générale des Juges du Tribunal de Première Instance de Port-au-Prince tenue le 18 décembre 2012 et relatant les menaces du Juge Ikenson EDUME contre le Juge d’Instruction Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN est un élément de preuve tangible, établissant les menaces susmentionnées.
Honorables Membres du CSPJ,
La justice, pour être efficace et crédible, doit être indépendante des pouvoirs exécutif et législatif ainsi que des parties et des forces sociopolitiques et économiques. La justice doit être aussi indépendante par rapport aux individus corrompus et aux délinquants, quels qu’ils soient.
Pourquoi, ayant pour mission principale d’enquêter, de dénoncer et de saisir les autorités compétentes sur les cas de violation de droits humains, les organisations de promotion et de défense des droits humains, signataires de la présente, portent, par devant vous, ces faits qui constituent un exemple des cas typiques de pressions et de menaces qui entravent généralement les enquêtes des Magistrats instructeurs.
Les organisations de promotion et de défense des droits humains signataires de la présente vous exhortent donc à prendre des mesures conservatoires à l’encontre du Magistrat Ikenson EDUME et vous encouragent vivement à porter le Ministère de la Justice et de la Sécurité Publique à prendre toutes les dispositions nécessaires et urgentes afin de garantir la sécurité du Juge et Juge d’instruction Me Joseph Jeudilien FANFAN. Espérant que prompte suite sera donnée à la présente, les organisations de promotion et de défense des droits humains signataires de la présente, vous prient de recevoir Honorables Membres du CSPJ, l’expression de leurs respectueux hommages.
Liste des Organisations signataires :
• Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH)
• Plateforme des Organisations Haïtiennes de Droits Humains (POHDH)
• Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn (SOFA)
• Kay Fanm
Pour authentification :
Antonal MORTIME
Secrétaire Exécutif POHDH
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Friday, November 30, 2012
Letter from Haiti
Letter from Haiti
By Michael Deibert
The Huffington Post
(Please read the original article here)
During late November, the clouds hung low over Port-au-Prince, pregnant with the threat of rain. When it did issue forth, life in Haiti's overpopulated capital, partially destroyed in a January 2010 earthquake but still vibrant between the Caribbean Sea and looming mountains, continued irrepressibly on. Moto-taxi drivers plied the streets in their jaunty raincoats, and people continued hawking anything there was to sell under any surface providing shelter from the deluge.
In the middle of one Saturday afternoon, with clouds rumbling down from the mountainside, a group of about 200 young men commandeered the central Place St. Pierre square in the tony suburb of Petionville, halting traffic and periodically hurling bottles in various directions (one of which shattered at my feet). The lads thumped their chests for about three hours before moving on. Their message was that life was too expensive for people in Haiti and that Haiti's President Michel Martelly, whom they said they had previously supported, wasn't doing enough to ameliorate the situation.
Martelly, in his previous life perhaps the most well-known (and most frequently cross-dressing) purveyor of the sinuous Haitian music known as konpa and popularly known as Sweet Micky or Tèt Kale (Bald Head), was not even in the country at the time, a fact not lost on the protesters.
In office since May 2011, Martelly was winding up a long trip to Europe during which he addressed the European Parliament, attended the Ibero-American Summit in Spain and met with the Pope at the Vatican. He was even absent from Haiti during the must-attend 18 November anniversary of the Battle of Vertières, the 1803 clash during which the rebel Haitian army defeated the French near the northern city of Cap-Haïtien and thus paved the way for Haiti's declaration of independence soon thereafter.
"He wants to work well for the people," said a middle-aged taxi driver named Jackson plying the road near the airport, summing up popular sentiment. "But the problem is his entourage."
Elected to succeed René Préval, the only democratically-elected president in Haiti's 208 year history to finish his term in office (a feat the wily, white-bearded Préval managed twice), the political novice Martelly inherited a to-do list that would have daunted even the most skilled politico.
Much of the country's capital was leveled and some 200,000 people believed killed in the January 2010 earthquake, which at one point had left at least 1.5 million people homeless. Tent encampments dotted the capital and its environs and a cholera epidemic, almost certainly brought to the country by the rather-unloved UN peacekeeping mission in place since the 2004 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has thus far killed more than 7,500 people.
The most basic services and healthcare remain out of reach of much of the nation's 10 million inhabitants, scattered in far-off provincial districts reached by badly decayed roads. A gradual diminution of Haiti's security situation since the tumultuous ballot that led to Martelly's election culminated last month with the spectacular arrest of Clifford Brandt, scion of one of Haiti's wealthiest families, as the alleged mastermind behind a long-running kidnapping ring.
Also arrested as part of the gang was the commander of a security unit from Martelly's National Palace (there has been no suggestion the president himself was involved), who entered prison as Calixte Valentin, a Martelly advisor accused of murder, exited it. Former members of the country's army, demobilized but not constitutionally disbanded by Aristide in 1995, continue to agitate for the force's reinstatement despite the existence of a police force - the Police Nationale d'Haïti or PNH - currently numbering some 10,000 recruits. A battle over the composition of the country's electoral council has raged for months.
"A stabilization process is taking place albeit a fragile one," says Mariano Fernández, the Chilean diplomat who heads the UN's peacekeeping mission, known by its acronym MINUSTAH, which is envisioned to be scaled back to around 6,300 military personnel in coming months. "We continue planning to reduce and reconfigure MINUSTAH in the coming years depending on the stability of the conditions."
The last caveat is an important one. Haiti's security forces have enjoyed a steadily-improving reputation since the 2006 inauguration of Martelly's predecessor Préval. It has been a marked change from Aristide's 2001-2004 tenure, when politically-connected partisans were inserted into the PNH regardless of their competency or culpability in various crimes, or that of a 2004-2006 interim government when police often made little distinction between armed pro-Aristide gangs and ordinary residents of the capital's poorer neighborhoods.
Until recently, the PNH were headed by Mario Andrésol, widely regarded as one of the most honest and competent officials in the country and who was replaced by Gotson Aurélus in August. Since then, something of a delicate realignment has been taking place. It is widely believed that Secretary of State for Public Security Reginald Delva exercises more operational control over the PNH than Minister of Justice Jean Renel Sanon, his nominal boss. A former senator, Joseph Lambert, now a Martelly advisor, is also spoken of as wielding influence beyond what one would expect.
Though the Brandt arrest was greeted with a gasp in much of the international community (this is, after all, the strata of society most international actors interact with) in Haiti the view was more circumspect.
"The bourgeois control the police with their money, and a lot of police officers also provide security for businesses and the private sector because there is no control, and they can receive more money for their work," says Pierre Espérance, the Executive Director of the Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, Haiti's most prominent human rights organization. "Each kidnapping gang has its connection with the police."
Despite such realities, one of Martelly's chief plans of attack appears to be an attempt to re-band Haiti and change its relentlessly negative image from a place solely of natural disaster, coups, misery and death to one of a place open to investment and boasting a vibrant and tourist-friendly culture.
Though this approach has been rather too smugly sneered at by the international chattering class that comments on Haiti, most people I spoke with in the country actually saw its value and supported it in principle, even if they didn't quite understand why the president was spending so much time abroad.
There is some evidence that Martelly's approach may be succeeding. The president, ever the extrovert natural showman, would seem a perfect fit for such a campaign. In July, the president even declared a three day out-of-season Carnaval des fleurs (Carnival of Flowers) designed to highlight the country's flair for music and pageantry. The camps from the central part of the capital have mostly been cleared, but with some to their inhabitants relocated to a windswept moonscape situated on denuded land on a road leading north out of the city
A new industrial park in the country's north - which itself has hardly been free from controversy - was opened in October, with, among others, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British billionaire Richard Branson in attendance. The lure of potential gold reserves in northern Haiti has brought a number of international mining companies, some with questionable records, to stake claims on huge swathes of land, creating economic potential but only of the most fraught kind.
Though the vast overpopulation of the capital - a consequence in part of international economic policies inflicted upon Haiti - helped lead to the vast death toll from the earthquake, the decentralization of economic and political power from Port-au-Prince still remains an agonizingly slow and complex process. Privately, many in Haiti's business community, intensely nationalistic at heart despite their comfortable economic status, complain the country has been "invaded" by foreign companies and non-governmental organizations.
In some economically struggling communities, the feeling is one of hopes delayed if not dashed entirely.
"We liked Martelly and we thought he would help a lot of people," says Pè Nico, a diminutive young man whose moniker ("Father Nico") belies his youthful appearance. "But this neighborhood has always been forgotten."
Pushing 30 years old but looking barely into his 20s and resplendent in a Miami Heat baseball cap, Pè Nico leads an armed faction in the capital's quartier populaire of St. Martin, an area of deeply-rutted roads and at times precarious-looking structures from which the PNH and MINUSTAH appear completely absent.
Pè Nico's baz say they voted - "99%" in their words - for Martelly. In their neighborhood, once a war zone and still subject to occasional bouts of violence, residents have been tending to the Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Saint Martin, under whose aegis members of the private sector operating in the zone and local community leaders have sought dialogue and improvement in living conditions there. The two sides began talking in 2007 and, even through the earthquake and after, they are still talking. It is perhaps a hopeful sign.
I had known Martelly very slightly in his previous life as Sweet Micky. We spent a memorable evening more than a decade ago cruising through Port-au-Prince in his SUV with a loaded pistol between us as he bemoaned the state of Haiti and the irresponsibility of its leaders both political and economic, a scene depicted in a book I later wrote about the country.
When I visited Haiti in August 2011, just after Martelly's election, I found popular support for the colorful, eccentric president among the pep la, as Haiti's struggling class (which is to say almost everybody) is known, still high.
Despite the eroding of that hope when confronted with the immense challenge of governing Haiti and his own missteps, Haitians still seem to be giving Martelly the benefit of the doubt.
So many factors - rising food prices, civil unrest underwritten by various malefactors, another natural calamity - could change that. But in a country whose leaders have often promoted themselves through terror and abuse, Martelly - whose signature colour is pink - has offered something of a change of tone, however unorthodox.
On my last day in Haiti, purely by chance, my path overlapped with that of Michel Martelly.
Waiting at the airport to board my flight home, I saw Martelly's American Airlines plane fly in from Miami. As if on cue and so apt for a showman, the cloudy gloom that had plagued the capital for days broke and rays of brilliant golden sunshine spilled out of a blue sky. Diplomats, Haitian police officers in their crisp khaki uniforms and every airport worker that could sneak away from their job were standing there to greet him. He was going to be inaugurating a new arrival hall, they told me, then this week he would be leaving again, this time for Cuba.
Martelly disembarked from the plane, his bald head and smiling visage visible among the mostly smaller Haitians.
They cheered.
Michael Deibert's forthcoming book, Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair, will be published by Zed Books in cooperation with the Royal African Society, the International African Institute and the Social Science Research Council. His previous book, Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti (Seven Stories Press, 2005), was praised by the Miami Herald as "a powerfully documented exposé" and by the San Antonio Express-News as "a compelling mix of reportage, memoir and social criticism."
By Michael Deibert
The Huffington Post
(Please read the original article here)
During late November, the clouds hung low over Port-au-Prince, pregnant with the threat of rain. When it did issue forth, life in Haiti's overpopulated capital, partially destroyed in a January 2010 earthquake but still vibrant between the Caribbean Sea and looming mountains, continued irrepressibly on. Moto-taxi drivers plied the streets in their jaunty raincoats, and people continued hawking anything there was to sell under any surface providing shelter from the deluge.
In the middle of one Saturday afternoon, with clouds rumbling down from the mountainside, a group of about 200 young men commandeered the central Place St. Pierre square in the tony suburb of Petionville, halting traffic and periodically hurling bottles in various directions (one of which shattered at my feet). The lads thumped their chests for about three hours before moving on. Their message was that life was too expensive for people in Haiti and that Haiti's President Michel Martelly, whom they said they had previously supported, wasn't doing enough to ameliorate the situation.
Martelly, in his previous life perhaps the most well-known (and most frequently cross-dressing) purveyor of the sinuous Haitian music known as konpa and popularly known as Sweet Micky or Tèt Kale (Bald Head), was not even in the country at the time, a fact not lost on the protesters.
In office since May 2011, Martelly was winding up a long trip to Europe during which he addressed the European Parliament, attended the Ibero-American Summit in Spain and met with the Pope at the Vatican. He was even absent from Haiti during the must-attend 18 November anniversary of the Battle of Vertières, the 1803 clash during which the rebel Haitian army defeated the French near the northern city of Cap-Haïtien and thus paved the way for Haiti's declaration of independence soon thereafter.
"He wants to work well for the people," said a middle-aged taxi driver named Jackson plying the road near the airport, summing up popular sentiment. "But the problem is his entourage."
Elected to succeed René Préval, the only democratically-elected president in Haiti's 208 year history to finish his term in office (a feat the wily, white-bearded Préval managed twice), the political novice Martelly inherited a to-do list that would have daunted even the most skilled politico.
Much of the country's capital was leveled and some 200,000 people believed killed in the January 2010 earthquake, which at one point had left at least 1.5 million people homeless. Tent encampments dotted the capital and its environs and a cholera epidemic, almost certainly brought to the country by the rather-unloved UN peacekeeping mission in place since the 2004 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has thus far killed more than 7,500 people.
The most basic services and healthcare remain out of reach of much of the nation's 10 million inhabitants, scattered in far-off provincial districts reached by badly decayed roads. A gradual diminution of Haiti's security situation since the tumultuous ballot that led to Martelly's election culminated last month with the spectacular arrest of Clifford Brandt, scion of one of Haiti's wealthiest families, as the alleged mastermind behind a long-running kidnapping ring.
Also arrested as part of the gang was the commander of a security unit from Martelly's National Palace (there has been no suggestion the president himself was involved), who entered prison as Calixte Valentin, a Martelly advisor accused of murder, exited it. Former members of the country's army, demobilized but not constitutionally disbanded by Aristide in 1995, continue to agitate for the force's reinstatement despite the existence of a police force - the Police Nationale d'Haïti or PNH - currently numbering some 10,000 recruits. A battle over the composition of the country's electoral council has raged for months.
"A stabilization process is taking place albeit a fragile one," says Mariano Fernández, the Chilean diplomat who heads the UN's peacekeeping mission, known by its acronym MINUSTAH, which is envisioned to be scaled back to around 6,300 military personnel in coming months. "We continue planning to reduce and reconfigure MINUSTAH in the coming years depending on the stability of the conditions."
The last caveat is an important one. Haiti's security forces have enjoyed a steadily-improving reputation since the 2006 inauguration of Martelly's predecessor Préval. It has been a marked change from Aristide's 2001-2004 tenure, when politically-connected partisans were inserted into the PNH regardless of their competency or culpability in various crimes, or that of a 2004-2006 interim government when police often made little distinction between armed pro-Aristide gangs and ordinary residents of the capital's poorer neighborhoods.
Until recently, the PNH were headed by Mario Andrésol, widely regarded as one of the most honest and competent officials in the country and who was replaced by Gotson Aurélus in August. Since then, something of a delicate realignment has been taking place. It is widely believed that Secretary of State for Public Security Reginald Delva exercises more operational control over the PNH than Minister of Justice Jean Renel Sanon, his nominal boss. A former senator, Joseph Lambert, now a Martelly advisor, is also spoken of as wielding influence beyond what one would expect.
Though the Brandt arrest was greeted with a gasp in much of the international community (this is, after all, the strata of society most international actors interact with) in Haiti the view was more circumspect.
"The bourgeois control the police with their money, and a lot of police officers also provide security for businesses and the private sector because there is no control, and they can receive more money for their work," says Pierre Espérance, the Executive Director of the Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, Haiti's most prominent human rights organization. "Each kidnapping gang has its connection with the police."
Despite such realities, one of Martelly's chief plans of attack appears to be an attempt to re-band Haiti and change its relentlessly negative image from a place solely of natural disaster, coups, misery and death to one of a place open to investment and boasting a vibrant and tourist-friendly culture.
Though this approach has been rather too smugly sneered at by the international chattering class that comments on Haiti, most people I spoke with in the country actually saw its value and supported it in principle, even if they didn't quite understand why the president was spending so much time abroad.
There is some evidence that Martelly's approach may be succeeding. The president, ever the extrovert natural showman, would seem a perfect fit for such a campaign. In July, the president even declared a three day out-of-season Carnaval des fleurs (Carnival of Flowers) designed to highlight the country's flair for music and pageantry. The camps from the central part of the capital have mostly been cleared, but with some to their inhabitants relocated to a windswept moonscape situated on denuded land on a road leading north out of the city
A new industrial park in the country's north - which itself has hardly been free from controversy - was opened in October, with, among others, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British billionaire Richard Branson in attendance. The lure of potential gold reserves in northern Haiti has brought a number of international mining companies, some with questionable records, to stake claims on huge swathes of land, creating economic potential but only of the most fraught kind.
Though the vast overpopulation of the capital - a consequence in part of international economic policies inflicted upon Haiti - helped lead to the vast death toll from the earthquake, the decentralization of economic and political power from Port-au-Prince still remains an agonizingly slow and complex process. Privately, many in Haiti's business community, intensely nationalistic at heart despite their comfortable economic status, complain the country has been "invaded" by foreign companies and non-governmental organizations.
In some economically struggling communities, the feeling is one of hopes delayed if not dashed entirely.
"We liked Martelly and we thought he would help a lot of people," says Pè Nico, a diminutive young man whose moniker ("Father Nico") belies his youthful appearance. "But this neighborhood has always been forgotten."
Pushing 30 years old but looking barely into his 20s and resplendent in a Miami Heat baseball cap, Pè Nico leads an armed faction in the capital's quartier populaire of St. Martin, an area of deeply-rutted roads and at times precarious-looking structures from which the PNH and MINUSTAH appear completely absent.
Pè Nico's baz say they voted - "99%" in their words - for Martelly. In their neighborhood, once a war zone and still subject to occasional bouts of violence, residents have been tending to the Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Saint Martin, under whose aegis members of the private sector operating in the zone and local community leaders have sought dialogue and improvement in living conditions there. The two sides began talking in 2007 and, even through the earthquake and after, they are still talking. It is perhaps a hopeful sign.
I had known Martelly very slightly in his previous life as Sweet Micky. We spent a memorable evening more than a decade ago cruising through Port-au-Prince in his SUV with a loaded pistol between us as he bemoaned the state of Haiti and the irresponsibility of its leaders both political and economic, a scene depicted in a book I later wrote about the country.
When I visited Haiti in August 2011, just after Martelly's election, I found popular support for the colorful, eccentric president among the pep la, as Haiti's struggling class (which is to say almost everybody) is known, still high.
Despite the eroding of that hope when confronted with the immense challenge of governing Haiti and his own missteps, Haitians still seem to be giving Martelly the benefit of the doubt.
So many factors - rising food prices, civil unrest underwritten by various malefactors, another natural calamity - could change that. But in a country whose leaders have often promoted themselves through terror and abuse, Martelly - whose signature colour is pink - has offered something of a change of tone, however unorthodox.
On my last day in Haiti, purely by chance, my path overlapped with that of Michel Martelly.
Waiting at the airport to board my flight home, I saw Martelly's American Airlines plane fly in from Miami. As if on cue and so apt for a showman, the cloudy gloom that had plagued the capital for days broke and rays of brilliant golden sunshine spilled out of a blue sky. Diplomats, Haitian police officers in their crisp khaki uniforms and every airport worker that could sneak away from their job were standing there to greet him. He was going to be inaugurating a new arrival hall, they told me, then this week he would be leaving again, this time for Cuba.
Martelly disembarked from the plane, his bald head and smiling visage visible among the mostly smaller Haitians.
They cheered.
Michael Deibert's forthcoming book, Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair, will be published by Zed Books in cooperation with the Royal African Society, the International African Institute and the Social Science Research Council. His previous book, Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti (Seven Stories Press, 2005), was praised by the Miami Herald as "a powerfully documented exposé" and by the San Antonio Express-News as "a compelling mix of reportage, memoir and social criticism."
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Hommage a Préfète Duffaut
Hommage a Préfète Duffaut
Dr Frantz Large
Tous ceux qui se rendent a la ville de Jacmel connaissent cet endroit précis de le route ou, tel un flash leur est donnée une première vue du lieu ou ils se rendent : Jacmel.
Oui c’est bien cela, un flash. Baignés de soleil, les collines, les pâtés de maison, et, bien évidemment ce qui baigne tout, ce qui explique tout : la Mer
« Un peuple prisonnier de la mer » disait Barthes au sujet de l’Iphigénie de Racine.
A Jacmel, la ville natale de Préfète, tout est prisonnier de la Mer : on l’entend gronder la nuit, lorsque tos les autres bruits se sont tus. C’est d’elle que vient la vie, mais c’est d’elle également que peut venir la mort.
Les figures architecturales de la Mer, aussi impressionnantes que fugaces, auront laissé peut être leur empreinte a la ville, traversée d’invraisemblables rues en escaliers, s’efforçant par deux bras de ceinturer la mer, et ne réussissant qu’a rendre cette dernière encore plus bouillonnante, encore pus incontrôlable.
Tout dans la vie du peintre jacmeilien Préfète Duffaut, gravite autour de la mer.
Il vient comme moi de Cyvadier, ou l’air est saturé du sel de la mer, et ou un escalier construit par mon oncle Felder Large ( parrain du mariage de l’artiste ) permet d’avoir accès a la mer toute proche. C’est d’ailleurs l’un des fils de Felder , Michel, qui , aux dires de Préfète, lui aura donné, tout petit , sa première leçon de dessin.
Il a perdu sa mère très tôt. Comme tout le monde à Cyvadier vit de la mer, on lui a appris à faire des bateaux.
L’expérience aidant, le groupe dont il fait partie reçoit davantage de commandes, et il se retrouve, par la force des choses , à l’ ile de la Gonâve pour satisfaire à l’une d’ elles.
Et c’est la que l’histoire commence
L’histoire ou la Légende ? Qu’’est ce qui est l’un et qu’est ce qui est l’autre ?
Apres tout qu’importe ?
Un soir à l’ile de la Gonâve, une belle dame lui est apparue, et lui a demandé de lui peindre un autel à son Eglise.
Oui….il sait peindre. S’est il souvenu des leçons de Michel ? Sont-ce les illustrations qu’il trouve dans les livres ? La vérité est qu’il passe tous les moments de liberté que lui laisse la construction des tableaux à couvrir de dessins ses cahiers. Ceux qu’il trouve bien, il les colle sur les murs de sa cahute.
Oui il sait peindre, et à la Belle Dame il peindra son autel. Lors de mon dernier voyage pour une journée de consultations a l’Anse a Galets, je l’ai cherché cet autel. Je promets de le faire avec plus d’attention la prochaine fois.
Préfète a répondu sans arrière pensée à la demande de la Belle dame, mais celle-ci n’oubliera pas ce geste.
A son retour a Cyvadier, Préfète apprendra que des étrangers lui ont acheté ses petits dessins.
A coté des billets , il y a une enveloppe avec la dedans une adresse à PAP : le Centre d’Art.
On est en 1944 : Préfète vient d’avoir 21 ans.
La fantastique aventure vient juste de débuter.
Deux théories s’affrontent alors au Centre d’Art, une école d’art fondée par Dewitt Peters , un objecteur de conscience d’origine hollandaise envoyé par le gouvernement américain pour apprendre la peinture aux haïtiens
D’abord la thèse originale de Dewitt , qui semble être celle d’artistes haïtiens comme Maurice Borno : apprendre aux haïtiens intéressés aux arts plastiques à discipliner leur talent a l’intérieur des limites rigides de l’art classique.
Et puis , il y a la thèse de Selden Rodman, vice président du Centre d’Art : n’imposer aucune limite à l’imagination des artistes, leur fournir uniquement les voies et moyens de s’exprimer totalement.
Bien heureusement c’est a Selden Rodman que va être confié le soin de la décoration des murs de Cathédrale Sainte Trinité.
Pourquoi les murs de l’église épiscopale ? A ce que m’a rapporté Selden Rodman, on aurait eu d’abord le projet de décorer les murs de la cathédrale de PAP. L’idée- qui aura constitué toute sa vie l’obsession de Selden Rodman- était d’avoir un nouveau Rinascimento , de faire de la cathédrale de PAP l’équivalent de la Santa Maria della Rovere de Florence, des Obin Benoit Bazile Duffaut les nouveaux Giotto della Francesca, Ghirlandajo et Botticelli.
Ceci dit le père Froisset ne l’entendait pas de cette oreille ; que voulez vous mettre sur les murs de ma cathédrale ? Vociféra ce prélat que les signes avant coureurs de Vatican 2 n’avaient en apparence pas effleuré.
On se tourna vers l’église anglicane dont l’évêque Voegeli accueillit l’idée avec enthousiasme.
Se mirent alors au travail des hommes qu’on se serait davantage attendu à voir décharger des sacs de marchandise qu’à manier des pinceaux. Ces noms se sont déjà imposés parmi les grands noms de l’art mondial : Obin Bazile Benoit Bigaud, Leveque, Jasmin Joseph.
Parmi eux un jacmelien de 21 ans : Préfète Duffaut.
Préfète va avoir deux commandes : la Tentation du Christ et la Procession de la Croix.
Ces deux fresques, peintes avec du jaune d’œuf comme liant, et qui se trouvent Dieu seul sait dans quel état actuellement ne vont pas seulement constituer deux chefs d’œuvre
Elles vont complètement révolutionner l’écriture picturale
Prenons d’abord la Tentation du Christ.
Jouant sur les contraintes de l’ouverture de la fenêtre, Duffaut va avoir l’idée géniale de dresser l’une en face de l’autre les deux tours de la Cathédrale de sa ville de Jacmel.
Au dessus de chacune des tours, les deux forces primordiales de la création : jésus et Satan
Jésus est vêtu de la robe rouge d’Ogoun le dieu de la guerre. Le diable est en noir, les murs de là cathédrale en blanc, les couleurs sont d’une formidable intensité , en diapason avec celle du drame qui se joue, oui d’une intensité insoutenable , même lorsqu’on les compare à celles de l’autre jacmélien de Sainte Trinité, Castera Bazille.
Mais il y a plus : sur les murs de la cathédrale se trouvent des symboles étranges , issus d’on ne sait quel grimoire de conjurations : araignées , images d’embarcation d’autres carrément indefinisssslbes.
Jamais l’imagination ne s’était libérée avec une telle puissance.
Sur le mur d’en face une autre composition de Duffaut : la Procession de la Croix. La seule composition qui de prés ou de loin me rappelle l’œuvre de Duffaut est « L’Entrée du Christ à Bruxelles » d’Ensor.
Mais cette toile que Duffaut n’a évidemment pu avoir sous les yeux est loin d’avoir la puissance de celle du peintre jacmélien :
Cette dernière, même lorsqu’on l a compare aux autres œuvres de la Cathédrale Sainte Trinite, s’inscrit dans une logique de rupture.
Elle est la seule ou aucune mention n’est faite du sujet : dans la pièce en question, il n’est, du Christ et de son supplice, pas une trace
Il y a par contre autre chose, quelque chose de puissant , quelque chose qui explique tout :
La Route.
La route qui se tourne et qui se retourne
Sur la route les promeneurs et de chaque cote de la route, les points ou l’on s’arrête pour des motifs divers : il ya des boutiques le bureau de police, le télégraphe.
Et puis la route s’élève, et s’élève et s’approche du ciel. Au dessus , pour tous ceux qui connaissent ma ville , il y a le cimetière de Jacmel
Et de ce cimetière une vue de ce qui ceinture et qui explique notre ville : la mer.
Avec cette œuvre, un constructeur d’embarcations agrandit la thématique des arts plastiques d’un nouveau titre : celui des villes imaginaires
Oh oui ces villes : on les a vues et revues et encore vues
Elles prennent corps dans notre âme comme les murs de la Citadelle prennent corps dans notre sol, comme la voix prenante de ti Paris et le tambour d'Azor pr4nnent corps dans nos tripes.
Elles sont bien sur, comme on l’a dit sa ville , c'est-à-dire ma ville, Jacmel imprévisible Jacmel de tous les héroïsmes et de toues les douleurs, Jacmel a chaque instant ouvert sur la mer, mais elles sont également notre vie.
Parce que dans ces constructions qui défient les lois de l’équilibre, dans ces routes sans début ni fin, ces routes qui serpentent a l’infini, réveil de Damballah- Kundalini ou préfiguration du spiralisme que Franketienne nous donne comme la réponse dialectique a l’affrontement entre la ligne et le cercle, entre la progression et le statisme, a travers cette route qui ne s’arrête jamais, c’est nous , c’est notre Destinée qui est représentée dans un instantané saisissant de nos multiples moi, c’est l’expression saisissante de l’aphorisme de Patanjali : tout arrive en même temps, c’est la traque impitoyable de l’Etre a travers ses catégories identitaires, et puis…
Et puis enfin, et puis surtout, c’est la mise a nu, en nous , d’une puissance inimaginable de rêve et de tendresse.
Il aura fallu attendre Jacques Derrida et les post structuralistes pour nous entendre dire ce qu’ ici nous savions depuis longtemps : que l’œuvre d’art dessine le spectateur.
C’est vrai.
En nous laissant capter par le recourbement infini de ces rues et de ces ruelles, par l’éclat de la mer et la pureté immaculée du ciel, c’est un nouveau moi qui se découvre un moi plus en phase avec ce qui l’entoure, un moi plus libre et plus serein.
Ne nous y laissons pas tromper : si les constructions de Duffaut défient toutes les lois physiques, si la mer par moments semble plus haute que la terre et rejoint le ciel, à aucun moment tout cela ne nous choque.
C’est que celui qui savait construire des embarcations capables de résister a la fureur des flots sait comment mettre à jour d’autres embarcations, qui naviguent dans les méandres du rêve avec la même assurance que les autres se frayaient un chemin au sein des ouragans
C’est que – par delà l’apparente anarchie de la composition- il y a tout un jeu subtil d’équilibres, un maniement instinctif de la perspective chromatique qui s’opposant a la perspective linéaire emprisonne tout dans un espace fictif sans rapport avec l’espace réel, ( il s’agit de l’espace haïtien dont le Dr Lerebours a si heureusement dit la spécificité ) il y a , grâce au mouvement de la route , une multiplication des points de fuite, une superposition d’espaces , tout cela débouchant par le jeu d’audaces a la fois graphiques et chromatiques , a la mise en place de l’ un des univers les plus achevés de la peinture moderne
Cet univers, et le message qu’il porte : un message d’affranchissement de purification, sont l’un des legs les plus merveilleux qu’un artiste ait pu faire a son pays, et que notre pays au sein d’autres merveilles ait pu faire a l’Humanité
C’est pourquoi a cet homme a ce concitadin que j’ai connu toute mon existence, avec qui je travaille depuis quarante ans, avec lequel j’aurai réalisé une vingtaine d’interviews, je dis aujourd’hui ;
Dors de ton dernier sommeil, mon ami, mon frère, et en quelque sorte mon moi.
Dans un pays ravagé et humilié, entre droit dans l’histoire avec rayonnant autour de ta personne l’éclat resplendissant qui est celui de nos plus grands héros.
C’est désormais dans tout ce qui nous reste de toi : ton œuvre, qu’il nous faudra rechercher ce qui m’attirait le plus en toi : ce sourire de triomphe ce sourire merveilleux que seuls arborent les vainqueurs que seuls arborent les gagnants
Ton corps s’est peut être éteint un triste 6 octobre, mais nous savons tous que , tant qu’il y aura des âmes pour rêver et des cœurs pour contempler, subsistera quelque chose qu’aucune hémorragie cérébrale ne saurait éteindre :
La palpitation immense de ton art et de ton génie
Ce 12 octobre 2012-
Dr Frantz Large
Membre de ‘association internationale des critiques d’art
Vice président de l’Association Haïtienne en Histoire de l’Art et en Esthétique.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
A view on the Haiti protests
With dueling protests in favour and against the government of Haitian president Michel Martelly occurring in the historic city of Gonaïves and eslewhere, a few people have asked me what my take on Haiti's latest chapter of unrest is.
I haven't been on the ground in Haiti since last August (a state of affairs I am hoping to remedy in the near future if I can piece together funding for a trip) and, as such, I am hesitant to make pronouncements from afar. But it appears to me that the usual political actors are taking advantage of the Martelly government's missteps and the desperation of the population to attempt a lunge for power.
Alas, Haiti continues to have the lowest level analysis of it by outsiders of any country I've ever reported on, so don't look to the international press or most academics focusing on the place to provide you with any clues as to what's happening.
What we are witnessing is a dance that has been played out time and again in Haiti's history and one which unfortunately always seems to find willing dance partners both at home and abroad.
I haven't been on the ground in Haiti since last August (a state of affairs I am hoping to remedy in the near future if I can piece together funding for a trip) and, as such, I am hesitant to make pronouncements from afar. But it appears to me that the usual political actors are taking advantage of the Martelly government's missteps and the desperation of the population to attempt a lunge for power.
Alas, Haiti continues to have the lowest level analysis of it by outsiders of any country I've ever reported on, so don't look to the international press or most academics focusing on the place to provide you with any clues as to what's happening.
What we are witnessing is a dance that has been played out time and again in Haiti's history and one which unfortunately always seems to find willing dance partners both at home and abroad.
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