17552: Lemieux: Miami Herald: Freedom can't be enjoyed yet, Haitians say (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

HAITI'S BICENTENNIAL
Freedom can't be enjoyed yet, Haitians say
As their homeland's bicentennial approaches, Haitians on
the island and in South Florida debate what they have to
celebrate.
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES AND JANE REGAN
jcharles@herald.com

Emboldened by Haiti's hard-won independence war, the feared
and revered Gen. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a former slave
turned revolutionary hero, addressed the first free black
republic in the Western Hemisphere:

``Citizens, it is not enough to have expelled from your
country the barbarians who have bloodied it for two
centuries . . . which held for so long our spirits in the
most humiliating torpor. . . . We must at last live
independent or die.''

The speech was delivered Jan. 1, 1804, in Gonaves, Haiti.
Dessalines was the proud black warrior who tore the white
out of the French flag to create a new banner representing
the only successful slave uprising in history. But in the
200 years since his rousing proclamation, Haiti has barely
tasted the fruits of independence.

Instead, the Haitian republic has endured decade after
decade of turmoil. The world beholds a country in shambles,
ravaged by AIDS and lacking even basic services such as
paved roads, running water and consistent electricity.
Democratic stability remains a distant dream.

On the eve of the 200th anniversary of the Haitian
Revolution, many Haitians are asking themselves whether it
is cause for celebration.

The answer is far from simple. For some, the fact that
their ancestors accomplished what no other black population
has -- topple slavery from the ground up -- is worth the
grand-scale celebration planned to start Jan. 1.

''This is important and we should make it as big as we
can,'' said 21-year-old Nayeli Fanfan, who moved to Miami
from Haiti three years ago. ``If we don't celebrate it, how
are we going to remind people of what we accomplished?''

For others, the occasion carries painful reminders of
turmoil fueled by dictatorships, coups d'etat, military
juntas and the undeniable casualties of black-on-black
violence.

HAPPY AND SAD

''I am happy we've been free for so long, but I am also
very sad at our present state,'' said Jessica Dorcee, a
19-year-old Miami Lakes resident born to Haitian parents.
She plans to spend Jan. 1 praying for ``my Haitian
people.''

``When I look at the present state of Haiti, there is
nothing much to celebrate. . . . What have we gotten out of
being free besides hardship, pain?''

Events in Haiti over the past few days have added to the
conflict many Haitians feel about the bicentennial. More
than three days of student-led anti-government protests
have crippled the capital, Port-au-Prince. On Friday,
government supporters set up burning barricades around the
National Palace to keep protesters away and police fired
tear gas at demonstrators.

A day earlier, about 50,000 protesters demanded the
resignation of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in one of
the largest protests in a decade. Dozens of people were
reported injured.

In South Florida, home to 214,893 Haitians as of the 2000
Census, Haitian Americans responded with sadness and
concern. In several businesses along Northeast 54th Street
in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood, the response was the
same: Aristide must go.

''How can you celebrate when people are dying?'' said a
store owner, who declined to give her name. ``The situation
in Haiti right now is one you cannot speak of.''

Alex Dupuy, a scholar at Wesleyan University in Middletown,
Conn., said fellow Haitians should approach 2004 with an
honest reflection on who they are and where the country is
headed.

''We should have a critical examination of what the
revolution was really about,'' he said. ``But nobody is
going to do that, certainly not the people in power. The
real celebration should be of the masses, those who rose up
against their oppressor. That is worth celebrating, but to
do so means we have to ask the question of what were these
masses aiming for and why didn't they succeed.''

More than 200 years after Dessalines helped Toussaint
Louverture, the leader of the revolution, empower slaves
with the famous cry, ''Cut off heads, burn down houses''
(koupe tt, boule kay), Haitians continue to battle for the
liberties the revolutionaries sought.

Haitians have to look no further than the very city where
Dessalines officially declared Haiti independent. Gonaves
is today the site of anti-government demonstrations and
reprisals from police that have left more than a dozen dead
since an armed gang in the seaside slum of Raboteau
revolted against Aristide in September.

The gang and its supporters -- whose numbers appear to be
growing -- say they want Aristide to step down. On Dec. 1,
assailants torched the City Hall for the second time in
months. It is being renovated for the Jan. 1 celebrations,
Aristide has announced.

''We believed in Aristide like Jesus Christ,'' Alvarez
Thermitus, a Gonaves resident who has gone from dreaming
about becoming a soccer star to wondering how to feed his
family, said recently before joining an anti-government
protest.

''I believe in God in heaven, but he was a god for us here
in Raboteau,'' Thermitus said of Aristide, a former priest.
``But he has done too much harm. His police are worse than
the army. He has forgotten the poor. He needs to go. We
need a different president. We won't drink pumpkin soup
[the traditional New Year's Day meal] with Aristide.''

If Haitians in the diaspora are torn, then those living
with the day-to-day reality of dashed hopes in Haiti like
Thermitus are even more conflicted about Jan. 1 and the
celebrations announced by Aristide's government.

A glance around the poor neighborhood of Fort Mercredi,
which overlooks Port-au-Prince and the harbor, tells the
story. A brand-new portrait of Aristide and a sign
demanding restitution and reparations of $21.7 billion from
France go mostly unnoticed by the men, women and children
wearily carrying buckets down the bumpy paths of this slum.

At a nearby primary school, a teacher is cynical.

''How can we celebrate 2004? Look, here we are practically
on the site of a fort our ancestors used to fight the
French,'' said the woman, who declined to give her name,
fearing reprisal from Aristide supporters. ``Today, it's a
couple of walls surrounded by the slum that has grown up
around it. We have no water, no electricity. Half the kids
around here don't go to school. Is this what 200 years of
independence got us?''

On the outskirts of the capital, the director of a
brand-new public high school, named after Dessalines,
disagrees.

`LIVING EXAMPLE'

''It's true the country has a series of economic problems,
but that doesn't mean that we can't celebrate 2004, because
2004 is the pride of all Haitians,'' Aldophe Bertin said.
``If people want to criticize the president, they can, but
right here before you is a living example of what he has
done for the country, and there are many others. I just
hope that over the next 200 years, the country changes and
develops like all other countries.''

Such hope for Haiti's future is also shared by Haitians in
South Florida, many of whom are planning to commemorate the
bicentennial by offering a special prayer for Haiti.

''Like all Haitians, I wish Haiti could change,'' said
Frantz Mortimer, a North Miami Beach social worker and poet
who was born in Gonaves 35 years ago. ``This is my dearest
wish.''


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