19781: (Hermantin)Sun-Sentinel:Harrowing escape from Haiti turmoil haunts Lauderhill man

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Harrowing escape from Haiti turmoil haunts Lauderhill man

By Alva James-Johnson
Staff Writer
Posted March 4 2004

For three weeks, the Lauderhill man stayed in the Haitian countryside
visiting his girlfriend and her family, oblivious to the violence that
wracked the rest of the country.

All that changed Saturday, as Jacques Moreau tried to make his way back to
the Toussaint L'ouverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince to fly to
Miami.


Moreau said he and his girlfriend caught a bus at about 7 a.m. for the
150-mile trip to the nation's capital. As the bus traveled, it was stopped
some 15 times by gun-toting supporters of former President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide.

The young men, known as chimères, harassed the group and searched for
weapons, Moreau said. They said they were protecting the president.

"They kept scaring everybody. Little kids in the bus were crying."

The bus moved so slowly that Moreau and the other riders had to spend
Saturday night in a cemetery at Aux Cays to get some rest. The next morning
they got as far as Petit Goâve, where chimères again stopped the bus and
threatened to put a bullet through the driver's head if he went on.

Moreau and the other passengers got off the bus, and started their 40-mile
hike in the hot sun along National Route 2 to the capital. Thousands of
others were trying to make their way as well. They had no water or food for
miles, he said, except for rotten mangoes that Moreau purchased on the
roadside.

Sunday night he, his girlfriend and other travelers slept in an unfinished
house, packed like sardines. The next morning, he got up early and walked,
leaving his girlfriend in Petit Goâve. He said he would try to send someone
for her.

He again started walking to Port-au-Prince, where he hitched a ride on a
motorcycle.

When he arrived at the airport, Moreau said, it was surrounded by Canadian
soldiers. They told him that American Airlines had suspended flights out of
the country. They were evacuating Canadians, and would evacuate Americans as
well.

The Canadian Air Force, flew him to the Dominican Republic. He stayed in
Santo Domingo overnight, he said, and then flew to Miami on Tuesday.

"I've watched television and saw things like this happening in Somalia and
Iraq," Moreau said from his Lauderhill home on Tuesday. "I didn't know
anything like this could happen to me in Haiti."

Now that Moreau is safe and sound, he feels a duty to explain to the world
how horrific conditions are in the country.

"I promised all the people with me that if I made it, I was going to tell
somebody," he said. "If it cost me my life, I'm going to tell the story."

Moreau, 45, was born in Haiti and emigrated to Lauderhill in 1981. He said
his recent visit was his third to the country in recent years. He visited
last year, and that's when he met his girlfriend who lives in Jérémie, a
mountainous area in the south.

He said there was no communication in Jérémie due to the political turmoil,
and he was unaware how bad things were in the capital.

"Right now, if I had someone pass away in Haiti, I'd send money to bury
them, but I'm not going to that funeral," he said.

Moreau said he was an Aristide supporter before Saturday, when he witnessed
first-hand the wrath of his gangs.

"I heard about his chimères, but I didn't think I would experience it
myself," he said. "It was a nightmare."

"I wish the U.S. government will make Aristide pay for his crimes," he said.
"Believe me, I escaped from death. I was lucky enough to get away. But I
know there were many on the road who didn't."

Moreau said he found out about Aristide's departure Sunday morning on
someone's radio while he traveled among the throng of people to the capital.

"We couldn't even celebrate because assassins were all around," he said.

When he arrived in Port-au-Prince, he heard a lot of people chanting, and he
started dancing with them.

Now he's just happy to be in Lauderhill, but he's concerned about his
girlfriend. He can't call her because she doesn't have a telephone. He tried
calling a friend, but couldn't reach him, either.

"I'm worried very much," he said. "I don't know if she made it."

Alva James-Johnson can be reached at ajjohnson@sun-sentinel.com or
954-356-4523.      Email story


Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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