#2226: Haiti's President and First Lady at OAS!! (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: BriceWebb, Carline <CBriceWebb@oas.org>

Haiti's President and First Lady at OAS

Haiti's First Lady, Géri Benoît-Préval, on Thursday evening, February 3,
opened a 54-piece exhibition at the OAS entitled  "Journey Towards Freedom,"
featuring drawings and prints by Haitian-American artists Ulrick Jean-Pierre
and Raymond Pressoir. The First Lady was accompanied by President René
Préval, who met earlier with OAS Assistant Secretary General Ambassador
Christopher Thomas, Permanent Council Chairman Belize Ambassador James
Murphy and other OAS officials-a meeting Mr. Préval described as "very
constructive, very good" as he made mention of the electoral observation
mission the OAS is preparing to send to Haiti for the upcoming legislative,
municipal and local government elections scheduled for March 19. Mme. Préval
said "this year's exhibition displays the sequence of our long journey
towards freedom, in order to remind us not only of the glory and splendor of
Haiti, but also our long struggle against slavery and all kinds of
intolerance." Ambassador Thomas hailed Haiti's renown in the artistic world,
noting that "the works displayed here were selected from a large and
important collection of prints, lithographs and other works related to the
struggles of Black people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." 


The exhibition runs through February 10.