PORT-AU-PRINCE

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, is adding her voice to the list of U.S. lawmakers concerned about growing gang-related violence in Haiti.

In recent months, gangs have been terrorizing the population, accused of massacring and raping poor Haitians and turning parts of the country into no-go zones. This weekend a police station in the rural Artibonite was attacked after a gang affiliated with a wanted warlord, Arnel Joseph, overpowered police.

Following a massacre in the La Saline neighborhood of Port-au-Prince in November, a bipartisan group of 104 House members called on U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last month to launch an independent investigation into the extrajudicial killings, as well as allegations of human-rights violation by the Haitian National Police during February’s violent protests that shut the country down for 10 days. Haiti’s ambassador in Washington has denied the accusations.

As late as last week, Haiti’s press reported that gangs have continued their attack on La Saline by setting fires to homes. The growing violence comes just months before a United Nations peacekeeping mission is scheduled to permanently end its presence in Haiti after 15 years, to be replaced with a special political mission.

“When we learned about houses being burned down, and the killings that took place, we were appalled and shock,” Waters said during a press conference at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport prior to leaving Haiti on Wednesday evening. “We listened directly to some of the relatives of victims and victims tell us about that.”

Waters, who was not among the signatories on the Pompeo letter, said the more attention brought to La Saline and the violence, the more it will help “to not only get some engagement with this administration here in Haiti to find out how this is happening, why this is happening, what are their plans, but using whatever leverage and power we have to help make it cease because this is not conscionable and not tolerable.”

She noted that the U.S. government “contributes substantially to Haiti,” aid that is very important for the Haitian government.

“We think that when we talk about how we care about Haiti, and why we’re able to contribute the way that we do, and we do not want to see that abused or misused or disregarded, I think that may give us a little leverage,” Waters said, vowing to get other members of Congress engaged.

Waters said her visit to Haiti was the result of an invitation by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to attend the graduation of medical students at his University of the Aristide Foundation in Tabarre on the outskirts of the capital. She was joined by actor Danny Glover, human rights lawyer and activist Brian Concannon of the Boston-based Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti and radio journalist Margaret Prescod. Prescod’s Los Angeles-based public affairs show, “Sojourner Truth,” recently featured a story on the LaSaline massacre.

While Waters met with U.S. embassy staff and praised their efforts, she did not meet with Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. She did have a great time with Aristide and his family, she noted.

Glover, who accompanied Aristide back to Haiti following seven years in exile in South Africa, said this marked his first visit to Haiti since Aristide’s 2011 return.

Concannon, speaking in Creole, said, “It’s important to have justice so that people are not once again victims.”

Dear lovers of books by Haitian authors and books about Haiti…

Today’s Haitian Book Club selection is Massacre River by René Philoctète (New Directions, 238pp, $13.95), a translation of Le Pays des Peuples mêlées (The Country of People of Mixed Blood), by Linda Coverdale.

If you’ve heard of Massacre River, you know it is right between the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and you probably are aware of the 1937 slaughter of Haitian sugar cane field workers in the Dominican Republic. And it probably won’t come as a surprise that the plot of the novel Massacre River treats that event.

Philoctète’s book is laced with so much lyricism, you wonder at times if you’re not reading a cluster of poems. A sample: “With an angry hand, Pedro Brito decapitates a flower whose name he does not know. A bitter perfume clings to his fingers. He dips his hand in the dew. The scent stays bitter and strong. Like the presence of the beast, or the servants of savagery.”

This flower-destroying Pedro Alvarez Brito is a sugar factory worker and the husband of Adèle Benjamin, a native of the Haitian town Belladère. Adèle is part of a generation of Haitians who are born in Haiti and who sometimes are buried in Dominican Republic territory. Pedro is born on the side of the border where there’s little distinction between Haitian and Dominican, so strong are their family ties.

Jacques Stephen Alexis’ book General Sun, My Brother treats the same subject as Philoctète, but apparently the books have different philosophies. The conclusion that one attained from reading the Alexis book is that there is no place like home, though elsewhere may have greener pastures. Through the relationship of Adèle and Pedro, Philoctète offers this concept of compromise and unity of two lands. Another aspect of Massacre River is the fictionalized glimpse into the inner workings of General Trujillo, the Dominican president who orders the massacre.

A border thrown into turmoil by color prejudices, the love between a Dominican and a Haitian, makes Massacre River not just a historical account of a devastating event, but an unforgettable, well-written love story.

In 1805 French troops were still posted on the eastern part of the island (mainly in Santo Domingo) led by the French officer Marie-Louis Ferrand. He mobilized his troops and ordered them to seize all black children of both sexes below the age of 14 years to be sold as slaves. When Dessalines learned the news, he was outraged and decided to invade Santo Domingo, with his forces looting several towns, such as Azua and finally laying siege to the city of Santo Domingo, the stronghold of the French.
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According to sources, General Henry Christophe (referred to as Enrique Cristóbal), under Dessalines, attacked the towns of Moca and Santiago. The barrister “Gaspar de Arredondo y Pichardo(1)” wrote, that 40 children had their throat cut. They finally retreated after their failed invasion attempt. –
The story continues and says that on 6 April 1805, General Christophe and his troops took all male prisoners to the local cemetery and slit their throats, along with 20 priests. Later he set the whole town on fire along with its 5 churches. On his way out he took along, fashioned like a herd, 249 women, 430 girls and 318 boys. Alejandro Llenas wrote that Christophe took 997 from Santiago alone, and “Monte Plata, San Pedro and Cotuí were reduced to ashes, and their residents either had their throats slit or were taken captives by the thousands, like farm animals, tied up and getting beaten on their way to Haiti.”
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Many challenge the occurance of this event or its outcome, some even use it to justify the tension between some hispaniolans. We share the infos available to inform and so you can have discussions on it.
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Sources:
1.Wikipedia
2.History of my departure from the Island of Santo Domingo on the 28th of April,1805.
3.Johnnenry Gonzalez Ph.D. gonzalez27@usf.edu (islandluminous.fiu.edu/part03-slide08.html)
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