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[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Serge Pierre-Louis <sergepierrelouis@journalist.com>

Who was Amyot Métayer ?   Who ‘is’ Odonel Paul ?

“Madame, you just gave birth to a Cubain”, that is how a passante told the news to the boy’s mother. The facts are: 1) Amyot was born next to the street in the 3rd city named Gonaïves. 2) Since that day, the whole town knows him as Cubain because the baby was slightly skin-lighter than the average. 3) In 1959/1960, the successful Cuban revolution and the new Cuban diplomats in Haiti known as The Barbudos pleased most of the Haitian people, specially the way the Barbudos challenged the François Duvalier police.

Amyot grew up as a Lumpen product in the shadow of two Gonaïves popular leaders: Jean Tatoune and Joe Lucy, who both became famous in 1986 by playing a major role in the downfall of Duvalier regime. Amyot Métayer reached 42 years of age when he was assassinated on Monday 22nd  of September. There is no doubt in our mind that Odonel Paul, a friend of his, who works for the actual regime betrayed him, trapped him and answered  absent since then. We  will skip the period between  ’86 and ’90, we prefer to recall that in October 1990 a big and mostly spontaneous coalition supported the candidacy of Aristide: Lumpen proletariat,  sous-prolétariat, lower clergy, lower church, lower middle classes, intellectuals, progressive people, leftists etc. Amyot Métayer, understandably like many others for the same reasons chose Aristide, the poor priest of the shanty-towns.

 In 1998, we will discover Amyot Métayer in Gonaïves.  At that time the 1990 movement baptized Lavalas was already split up in two main factions: OPL and Aristide Family. ‘‘Cubain’’ leant on OPL. The 1st January of 1998, René Preval, officially ‘President’, important member of Aristide Family, went to Gonaïves. He just divorced from OPL which still had the parliamentary majority. Amyot Métayer made sure the city gave a hostile reception to Preval. Preval was so mad, he publicly spit like a volcano in eruption to one of his PR people, a native of Gonaïves… But in the meantime, another popular leader, sprung from the slums, is definitively born. His name is Amyot Métayer, alias Cubain

Preval had to return there. He had to get some triumph, to clean the blood. The whole Lavalas Family was deeply moved by the Gonaïves’ insult. The whole project of Aristide for-life could have been in jeopardy. Preval had to return there within two months, to make some points against OPL, the main enemy. How? Well… Must control the guy who controlled the town. Must control Cubain The acting President, using the old recipe, sent many emissaries to the Cité de l’Indépendance, (among them Jose Ulysse), with lot of bread and promises…

Since then Amyot Métayer, alias ‘‘Cubain’’ worked for the Aristide Family. Cubain became more than a popular leader, he became a very powerful personality. He put his people to all public administrations: The CNE (an illegal, but big money public organism created by the regime), APN, DGI, Custom services… He even appointed the actual executive representative in the Artibonite Department (Ketlyn Télémaque). Amyot became so powerful he refused any competition. In 2001, for having shot, 21st of January, Guy Poupoute, (a less famous leader from a nearby shanty-town called Décawau, the executive was forced to give him a sweet jail. While in jail he took care of business. All business. Including signing a peace agreement with Guy Poupoute on March 13, 2002, inside the National Penitentiary, co-signed by a presidential Commission. The day after, 14th of March, the appeal court of Gonaïves cleared Guy Poupoute for all wrongdoings. Then, the executive was forced to transfer Cubain to
 another sweet prison in… Gonaïves. The executive (that was certainly the plan) gave his partisans bulldozer to break the prison wall to free him, August, 2nd. Then the executive hired a bunch of “lawyers” and judges to tell the world Amyot was innocent. But because of Amyot’s role in the sad and violent day of 17th of December 2001, the OAS (Organization of American States) wanted him to go to jail. Instead, in the night of Sunday, 22nd of September 2003, Amyot Métayer is killed. Knowing the consequences of such assassination, would Aristide do it without the assent of OAS Gaviria, and specially the consent of James Foley, the new US ambassador in Haiti?  (To be continued)
Serge Pierre-Louis 2003-10-04