18702: Benodin: Press Release from the Board of Directors of FOKAL (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

Press Release from the Board of Directors of FOKAL
(Soros Foundation in Haiti)

On Saturday February 14, 2004, the Board of Directors of Fondation
Connaissance & Liberté/Fondasyon Konesans ak Libète-FOKAL (the Soros
Foundation in Haïti), was holding its regular meeting at the foundation’s
office on Avenue Christophe. At about 1 :00 pm, a dozen policemen, some in
plain clothes, some in gray uniform, all heavily armed, under the command of
inspector Jackson Bernard (known under the nickname Big Jack as he himself
indicated) surrounded the foundation’s building and pointed all guns in our
direction.

FOKAL’s security guard reported to us that the man in command of this police
detachment was giving the director one minute to come to him otherwise his
men would open fire.

FOKAL’s Executive Director, accompanied by the General Program Coordinator,
decided to respond right away and went out to meet the police. Dressed in
civilian clothes, the inspector wanted to know whether a meeting was taking
place inside and if so what kind of meeting it was.

The executive director explained that it was a Board meeting, the kind of
meeting that is held at least once every three months, generally on a
Saturday morning. The answer appeared satisfactory and the inspector ordered
his men out of the foundation’s property.

The Board decided to pursue with the meeting as there were still a few
points on the agenda. Five minutes later, we saw the police detachment
return and deploy in the same manner. This time the inspector, accompanied
by one of his men, came inside the building all the way to the office where
our meeting was being held. He introduced himself to all present and stated
he had received orders to come back and take the names of all present.
Considering the obvious deployment of force, we felt we had no choice but to
comply. The inspector was given the complete list of all present (with their
function on the Board) on foundation letterhead and he left with his escort.
At that point, the Board felt it would be prudent to adjourn the meeting.
Upon leaving the building, some of us noted that those same policemen had
remained in surveillance of the premises for a while at the corner of an
adjacent street.

The Board of Directors of the foundation wishes to stress that FOKAL is an
institution that has been working for the past 8 years in Haiti in the
fields of education, culture and development. It received a special
government recognition in 2000 (reconnaissance d’utilité publique) and has
established institutional relations with partners such as: Agence
Universitaire Francophone (AUF), UNESCO, American, French, Canadian and
Japanese Cooperation, the Monique Calixte Association in France, the
National Archives and the National Library of Haiti, the State University of
Haiti, Quisqueya University, GRET-Haiti, etc., as well as with many NGOs
working in similar fields; a network of fifty community libraries throughout
the country and a considerable number of grassroots organizations (peasants,
women, youth) throughout the country. The foundation’s Board is
representative of those different sectors.

FOKAL is a Haitian foundation, duly registered according to Haitian law, and
a member of the network of foundations throughout the world financed by the
Open Society Institute (OSI) created by philanthropist George Soros. It is
with OSI funding that FOKAL was able to build the Resource Center of Avenue
Christophe which houses the Monique Calixte Library (BMC), a community
library which now counts around five thousand members (mostly children and
youth from underprivileged neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince), but which we
have not been able to open since January 2004, as we are no longer able to
ensure our young readers’ safety in this neighborhood.

The Board protests in the strongest terms this illegal interruption of a
meeting by armed policemen who treated the entire premises as enemy
territory. Have we come back to the times of dictatorship we thought would
never return? In those days, every meeting was suspect, was cause for spying
and denunciations, and would often incur the arrest or “disappearance” of
those who had dared exercise their basic citizens’s rights.

The Board reiterates to the staff of FOKAL and of the Monique Calixte
Library, to all partners and beneficiaries throughout the country, its
commitment to the struggle we must all continue together for freedom,
learning, solidarity and justice, in complete respect for fundamental human
rights.

Port-au-Prince, February 16, 2004

The signatures below are those of members of the Board and Executive office
of FOKAL. These names are those that were communicated to the police on
Saturday February 14.

Ms Inette Durandis, Chair                                Dr Daniel Henrys,
Vice chair

Abner Septembre, Secretary                            Professeur Vertus
Saint-Louis, member

Dr. Nicole Magloire, member               Patrick Vilaire, member

Ms Danièle Magloire, member

Ms Michèle D. Pierre-Louis, Executive Director
Ms Lorraine Mangonès, Program Coordinator