29650: Ives (news): Transcript of WBAI's Haiti: The Struggle Continues (10/21/2006): Interview with Edwidge Danticat and Annette "So An" Auguste (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: K M Ives <kives@toast.net>

TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEWS ON HAITI: THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES
Broadcast on WBAI, 99.5 FM every Saturday from 3 - 4 p.m.
Hosts: Margareth Dominique, Kim Ives and Roger Leduc
Engineer: Marquez Osson
Contributor: Karine Jean-Pierre, Monique Fanfan

(Back programs can be heard online by visiting our archives at
www.wbai.org/archives. Scroll down to select Haiti: The Struggle Continues
on Saturday afternoon.)

PROGRAM OF OCTOBER 21, 2006
(WBAI Fundraising Special from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.)

1) From Miami, an interview with Edwidge Danticat, acclaimed author of "The
Dew Breaker," "The Farming of Bones," and many other books.

2) From Port-au-Prince, an interview with Annette "So An" Auguste, the
singer and political activist who was released from jail in August after
spending two years and three months as a political prisoner.


INTERVIEW WITH EDWIDGE DANTICAT

ROGER LEDUC: Haiti has a long and illustrious literary tradition, producing
novelists and poets like Felix Morisseau Leroy, Paul Laraque, Jean Bri rre,
Anthony Phelps, [Justin] Lhérisson, Jacques Stephen Alexis, and [Jacques]
Roumain. But all of these writers have written in French or Creole. The
first Haitian writer to win world-wide recognition for her writing in the
English language is Edwidge Danticat.

Margaret Dominique: Born in Haiti in 1969, Edwidge Danticat was raised
largely by her aunt and uncle after her parents had emigrated to New York.
At age 12, Edwidge joined them in Brooklyn, where she learned English and
attended school. She went on to earn a BA in French Literature at Barnard
College and a masters in creative writing at Brown University.

KIM IVES: Her thesis at Brown was her novel Breath, Eyes, Memory, which was
published in 1994 to great critical acclaim. It went mainstream when
selected by Oprah Winfrey's Book Club. Danticat produced other well received
books such as Krik? Krak! in 1995 and The Farming of Bones in 1998. In 2004,
she released "The Dew Breaker," winner of the Story Prize and a PEN/Faulkner
Award Finalist.

ROGER LEDUC: The New York Time Book Review called the book "breathtaking."
Quote: "With terrifying wit and flowered pungency, Edwidge Danticat has
managed over the past 10 years to portray the torment of the Haitian
people... In the Dew Breaker, Danticat has written a Haitian truth:
prisoners all, even the jailers." Endquote.

Joining us now by phone from Miami, we have Edwidge Danticat, to talk about
"The Dew Breaker," her other work, and Haiti. Edwidge, welcome to our show.
Hello, Edwidge? (...)

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Hello. Can you hear me?

ROGER LEDUC: Yes, we can hear you loud and clear.

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Oh, great!

ROGER LEDUC: Welcome to our show "Haiti: The Struggle Continues."

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Thank you so much. It's so wonderful to be with you.

ROGER LEDUC: Edwidge, in "The Dew Breaker" you take the reader from Haiti to
New York to Miami to sample, if you will, the many different faces of the
international Haitian experience. What inspired you to write this book?

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Well, the first thing, a couple of years ago, in the early
1990s, I worked on a documentary about a group of men and women who had
survived torture in Haiti, especially during the period of the first coup,
where people were in hiding. And there was an extraordinary woman - Alerte
Bélance - who we interviewed and other women who had been part of the
struggle and were tortured for it.

And really their stories started to inspire me to think about what the
legacy of torture is. And having grown up during the Duvalier regime, there
is always the echo of these stories. And I remember growing up - I grew up
in Belair - and there were days when you were so frightened, wondering what's
going to happen. Would there be an invasion that day? And school was closed
and all these other things, which, when you are a child, are fragments to
you of this experience of what it is to live under dictatorship. So what
inspired me to write the book was that experience.

And then living at a time in New York when many of these people who were the
former torturers were living in New York or now living in Miami, where I
live, so reconciling those truths in this one character was something that I
wanted to do for a very long time.

ROGER LEDUC: Edwidge, I see that in "The Dew Breaker," you have Ka, the
young Brooklyn-based artist. You put her face to face with her father as a
torturer, something that she never imagined. Are you sending us a message
that the torturers, that the Tonton Macoutes, are part of us and is
something that we have to face too so that we can find some kind of
liberation?

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Well, I think what I've seen, certainly since the time
that I was a child in Haiti, is that sometimes you have a reoccurring of
these types of forces so you have people who went from the Tonton Macoutes
to FRAPH [a paramilitary death squad, Revolutionary Front for the
Advancement and Progress of Haiti] and then to other manifestations. And so
when we - growing up the way I did and where I did - you didn't have the
luxury of distance from people who were considered bad, for example. So you
might say that there were people who were awful, who did awful things, but
you also knew their children, you know. You knew their family. So there was
a kind of interaction.

I think that if we... we have to try in some ways to understand what causes
that, what makes a person do these things, because ultimately these people
are also part of our society. So I wanted to examine a character from that
perspective because I think that maybe there is something in all of us that
leads to that, and it's an artist's job to not just condemn but to try to
understand the root of evil.

KIM IVES: And we are speaking with Edwidge Danticat, author of "The Dew
Breaker" and of "Breath, Eyes, Memory," and her book is being offered here
today at WBAI and we are learning a little bit about it. Hi Edwidge, this is
KIM IVES.

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Hi Kim.

KIM IVES: Hi. In the book, you never name your archetypal Tonton Macoute,
the father of Ka. Why is that?

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: He's not named in the book because ultimately he gives
himself a name. This is a... this character, the "chouk t laroze," the dew
breaker, is someone who ultimately was trying to erase his past. He tries to
just not leave traces of himself behind. He does give himself a name which
we find out at the beginning, but it's not his real name. And I think I try
not to name him - to go back to the last question - because, in a way, so
that there's less distancing, because he could be anyone. He could be anyone
who has taken that path.

KIM IVES: And we should say for our listeners that the "chouk t laroze" also
is the henchman in the countryside who would walk in front of...

ROGER LEDUC: He is the lowest person in the feudal justice system in Haiti.

KIM IVES: ... who would walk in front of the chef de section, the rural
sheriff, and shake the dew off the branches, thus the "chouket laroze" or
dew breaker.

ROGER LEDUC: You've mentioned women, children, reconstruction.... Those are
themes that I have always seen in your books, especially when I read "The
Farming of Bones." I was really impressed by your sensitivity. One of the
reviewers talked about how sensitive you are. And that sensitivity, I see it
really embedded in how you describe, in how you present, how you give voice
to children in your book. It seems to me that you have an extraordinary
memory of your childhood, of the childhood impressions that you had of Haiti
when you were living there. Is this something that you feel is crucial to
your art, to your voice?

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: I think probably I remember a lot because at the time I
left Haiti, I think [age] 12 is just about that time where you still have
solid childhood memories. And my brother, for example, who came at [age] 10,
remembers less than I do.

But at 12, you have a pretty solid grounding, and I think going back over
the years... And of course Haiti changes all the time. But I had enough of a
background there. And I think I had....

Because my family also, we were living in Port-au-Prince but we had a very
rural grounding. We always went to Léogâne, to the countryside for
vacations. So I feel like I had both an urban experience and a rural
experience, and we traveled a lot throughout Haiti with my uncle. So I had
very striking memories to begin with, that when I came here I really fought
to hang on to, because my migration, if you will, wasn't my decision. My
parents sent for me. So I had a sense that I was leaving, and I clung very
much to the memories that I did have.

ROGER LEDUC: And, it's not so much for me - to stick a little bit to that
issue - it's not so much memory of facts. What really strikes me is the
emotional memory, the memory of emotions and feelings that really kind of
frees you from being too prescriptive, from telling people 'this is what is,'
from being too preachy. Your book is not preachy. But at the end of it, the
message is captured very vividly through your memories.

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Well, I think that comes too from my whole background. I
feel I became a writer because I was told stories. You know, I have my
grandmothers who were very wonderful storytellers, even though they were not
people who could read.

So I feel like that's really where I learned to tell a story, by listening
to stories. And if you've ever been part of a storytelling session in
Haiti - and I've been part of them both as a child and as an adult - and you
get a sense that, you know, that the story is first meant to engage you, you
know, and if you're bored, there's a song, there's a kind of sense of
mystery, of suspense, within the storytelling itself. At the end, you learn
something and I feel like that's really my model for - as a writer - that
the first thing is to tell a story, tell an engaging story, and then you
hope, you know, I always hope that people will get something more out of
it...

My biggest goal in writing these stories, I feel - besides engaging someone's
imagination - is to hope that they will learn, that they will want to learn
more about Haiti, that they'll go beyond this book, that they will learn
more about the 1937 massacre, for example, that it will lead them on a
search of their own.

KIM IVES: We're speaking to Edwidge Danticat, the author of "The Dew
Breaker," of "Breath, Eyes Memory," of "Krik? Krak!," of numerous books, and
we have "The Dew Breaker" today. You can call in while we're speaking to
her, during this interview, and for [$75], you can receive the book and you
will also get a year's subscription to WBAI for supporting this station. We
ask that you to call while we're carrying out this interview...

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: I wanted, before the question - I really want to, in my
own voice, encourage the listeners to call in because one of the things I
miss about not being in New York is WBAI. I can get it on the Internet, but
only in pieces. And it's the station that always really stood out for, and
stood up for, the people, the people with the least other ways to speak out.
So I encourage the listeners to call in and make a pledge, with or without
the book.. but I really want to encourage them to call in.

MARGARETH DOMINIQUE: Edwidge, this is Margaret Dominique... In your work, by
telling these stories, you are in fact bringing about change by exposing the
various problems within Haitian society, such as in your book when you talk
about the restavek situation, the child slaves in people's homes and how
they were treated. So you're exposing these various issues that forces the
society to deal with [them]. So do you see how you are bringing about change
in the society and have any changes, as far as you know, taken place as a
result?

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Well, I don't know that there's... I think that it's a lot
for writers to expect change. I always think of the great African-American
writer James Baldwin and his saying that, you know, all we're here to do is
to love each other and to raise our children. And so, having been a child
raised in part in migration and in part without my parents, I have a
sensitivity to that...

Often, because I'm writing in English, I think sometimes people feel that I'm
trying to have a conversation more with the outside world. But I feel like,
in terms of change, I'm hoping to have a conversation also with people like
me, with people who have this experience of having spent part of their life
in Haiti in one place, and then to have to reshape themselves in migration.
I think part of that conversation is the uneasiness of writing things that
sometime we say just amongst ourselves, you know, sometimes things we'd
rather not talk about in the larger world.

But, to give you an example of this issue of the restavek - the children who
work in other people's homes - a couple of years ago, there was a girl, they
found a girl here in Miami, actually in Pembroke Pines, a sort of well-to-do
suburb here in Miami-Dade, where there was a girl who was 12 years old who
was a restavek in this very rich Haitian home in Miami. And there was a kind
of furor in the community - part of it because people were stunned that this
was happening here also.

But I hope also that the work that I do through these books ignites a kind
of internal conversation about things like this.

ROGER LEDUC: Edwidge, I don't think your writing in English is a handicap at
all because you manage to put yourself inside the story. The stories are
being pulled from within not from without. So in that sense, I don't think
that English would be any more of a barrier than French was for Roumain or
for Jacques Stephen Alexis, our great novelist that came before you, or even
Lherisson who wrote in a language that's... in a French that's tinged by
Creole.

Because of the feelings that you express, especially when you are dealing
with women and children (not that you really put any kind of distance
between you and the man you describe) but the feeling, and I can even
venture to say love, the love is there through your books, so any Haitian
who reads your books understands that it's somebody, it's a Haitian who is
in love with her Haiti, with her people, that is writing. And then you get
that feeling, that warmth, when you read your book. And I really have to
dare to compliment you about this, because whenever I read you, you leave me
with that kind of feeling. And I really have to encourage people out there
to go, if they have not done so, go pick up your book....

MARGARETH DOMINIQUE: Also, I'd like to say writing in English, other people
from different places can identify with some of these very things happening
in their own lives, but it's really universal, I think.

(...)

ROGER LEDUC: I would like Edwidge, without embarrassment, to really tell us
the role of love in her writing...

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: The role of love: I think it's very important. I mean, in
the beginning, I started writing to go back home, and it was a way for me.
Between about 12 and 18 years old, I didn't go back to Haiti. I would read
to go back. I would write. That was through literature that I went back. So
I feel that any kind of art, any kind of task like this, you have to deal
with love. You have to, even for the worst of the characters, you have to be
able to step into their skin, to become them, in order to write convincingly
about them.

So love is very important, I think. Love for the craft, love for the
subject, and certainly for the country. And I think people who have been to
Haiti, who know Haiti, know that it's very seductive. Every time I take
friends, they fall in love. And it becomes a very big part of their lives.
So it's very easy to write and love with a subject like that because often,
even when there is difficulty, you write with a sense of almost wanting to
rewrite certain things... I am grateful for what you said, because I always
do write in love even when I do write harshly.

KIM IVES: On the question of craft, "The Dew Breaker" is a very
unconventionally structured novel. It is almost a collection of short
stories but they all interweave and intertwine and all, in a way, come to a
climax at the end. Was this something you calculated or did this just sort
of emerge?

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Well, it kind of just emerged, that structure... The first
story in the book is called "The Book of the Dead," and it's that story that
you mentioned of the confrontation between an artist and her father. I
simply started to write a story about this confession, and then once that
was done I was curious about what the father was confessing and then wrote
the larger piece in the back which is set in Haiti where you get a sense of
what brought the father to New York and what he had actually done.

So the pieces emerged in that way and it became a story about this man's
past and all the horrible things that he has done, and fragments of the
victims and the people whose lives he had touched and how they were faring
now.

So it wasn't in the beginning meant to be a novel. It was a collection of
stories. Different critics called it a novel. Some called it a short story
collection. But it was meant to be ambiguous, in a sense like a puzzle that
you put together. But when people do [read it]... I encourage them to read
it from front to back because if you read it like a collection of stories
and you skip around, you might lose the sense of it. If you read all the way
through, you kind of get a sense that you are putting together this puzzle.
And people tell me sometimes when they read it, "oh isn't this guy from this
other story?" And that's intentional. It's meant so that you piece together
the puzzle yourself.

KIM IVES: And it's a powerful puzzle. The New York Times Book Review called
it "breathtaking." The Los Angeles Times Book Review called it "thrilling."
USA Today called it "stunning." This is a truly remarkable work, "The Dew
Breaker," and we are speaking here with Edwidge Danticat, the author... Last
night, as I was preparing for this show, an actress called me, and she's
already made an audio book of "The Dew Breaker," and now she's doing
"Breath, Eyes, Memory." I thought this was interesting that these works are
being made into audio books. Are there any movies in the works for these
works, Edwidge?

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: "The Dew Breaker" was optioned by HBO. So with options,
you never know, but maybe one day it will be a movie. But it was
optioned....


(...)

Can I also add for the listeners. We're in this time where alternative media
is so important. It's so important in this age of Patriot Acts, and torture
and silencing that we have an alternative voice. So that's another reason to
support this radio station because there is glossy media, but it is so
pre-packaged... We have to have these alternative voices out there. That's
another reason to support this station because it does provide a voice that
you don't hear elsewhere... I'm a big "Democracy Now!" fan... Now I have to
pick and choose my programs. I have to listen to you guys on the Internet...

KIM IVES: Edwidge, "The Farming of Bones," can you tell us a little bit
about your research and your inspiration for that?

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Well, "The Farming of Bones," as you said, is a novel that
talks about the 1937 massacre of Haitian workers in the Dominican Republic.
I was inspired to write it by an artist friend whose grandmother had
survived the massacre, and he had painted her journey.

After talking to him, I went to the Massacre River, because there is a river
actually called the Rivi re Massacre on the border between Haiti and the
Dominican Republic. When I went there I was stunned that there were no
markers. There's no sign anywhere along the border that this had happened.
So I started writing this novel about the massacre. And it's a part of
Haitian history which is sort of glossed over - it's mentioned slightly in
Haitian history books.

When I started interviewing people, they didn't really like talking about it
even though it was such a big event of the 20th century for us. Part of it I
think is the discomfort of the fact that this is something that we are still
struggling with. Recently, Sonia Pierre, who is an activist in the Dominican
Republic, received an award. She'll be receiving the RFK, the Robert F.
Kennedy award, for human rights in Washington soon, and she's one of many
people who have been really struggling to better the condition of Haitian
cane workers in the Dominican Republic.

And so there is this discomfort that history is not something where we can
look back and say "this was a horrible time but things are better." People
are still living in slave-like conditions there in the Dominican Republic in
all the bateys that I visited during the writing of the book.

So it's a novel about the past but with sort of this uncomfortable cloud of
echo of something that continues to happen.

ROGER LEDUC: And Edwidge just referred to Sonia Pierre, who is from MUDHA,
the group that is defending Haitians in the Dominican Republic. We've had
Sonia here too to talk to us about the Haitian situation. Part of the
malaise, part of the difficulty in speaking about this thing that happened
in 1937 where upward of 20,000 Haitians died from the massacre waged by the
army of Trujillo, is because the Haitian bourgeoisie is very guilty in not
responding in any appropriate way to that massacre. And then that the
conditions that prevailed in 1937, when the massacre took place, those
conditions exist today. There is a cultural thing going on in the Dominican
Republic that's being nurtured by a lot of the newspapers, by a lot of the
so-called nationalists in the Dominican Republic, who claim that Haitians
are the source of all kinds of ills and have to be deported. These
conditions still exist in Haiti, and we've done our best to present this to
you, either by talking to Sonia Pierre or now, by talking about "The Farming
of Bones"...

KIM IVES: Edwidge, we know you have a young child. We know you have a busy
life. We'd like to keep you here all day but I think we're going to have to
let you go shortly. Could you just give the community and our listeners a
few parting words, your thoughts about our present moment in Haiti and, for
that matter, in the world?

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: First of all, thank you so much for having me. I really
enjoyed this time and I want to again encourage the listeners to call... It's
really important to have these kinds of conversations and WBAI makes it
possible and "Haiti: The Struggle Continues" brings Haiti to you. I'm one of
those people where my heart is both in Haiti and here where I live. But most
of it is in Haiti, and I look for every opportunity to learn different
things and WBAI and stations like this make it possible, and this program
makes it possible. So I want to encourage you guys to continue, to kenbe la.
I want to encourage the listeners to support you, and I want to send my love
to So An when you speak to her next.

KIM IVES: Thank you, Edwidge, and we hope a part of you is also in East
Flatbush, where you grew up, and we look to have you back on the program
again soon. Keep up the good work, and we look forward to reading more of
your craft, your thoughts and your love in the years ahead.

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Thank you so much, all three of you.



INTERVIEW WITH ANNETTE "SO AN" AUGUSTE

Margaret Dominique: Annette Auguste is a Haitian singer and activist known
as "So An," who became one of the most prominent political prisoners during
the most recent coup d'état in Haiti from 2004 to 2006. On August 14th,
after two years and three months behind bars without any trial, Annette
Auguste was finally released from jail by a Haitian court.

KIM IVES: U.S. Marines had stormed her home in the Delmas neighborhood of
Port-au-Prince in the middle of the night on Mother's Day 2004. The soldiers
blew open her front gate, killed her two dogs, shot open doors, tossed
tear-gas grenades, and then hooded and handcuffed, face down on the ground,
her entire family and staff, including her 5-year-old grandchild, her
68-year-old sister, and three young teenagers.

ROGER LEDUC: Now she is out of jail and reintegrating herself into life
after prison. Central to that is her work with the all woman choir she
founded named Koral la. With us now by phone from Port-au-Prince to talk
about her chorale group, her work and the political situation in Haiti is
Annette Auguste, So An. So Ann welcome back to Haiti: The Struggle
Continues. Hello? Hello?

KIM IVES: Alo, So An, sak pase? Ou la?

SO AN: Alo?

KIM IVES: OK, you hear us?

SO AN: Mwen pa tande ou tre byen.

KIM IVES: OK, ou pa tande nou byen men nou tande ou tre byen. So we are
going to talk in English. We know you are multi-lingual, like President
Aristide. So An, we spoke to you in August, just after your release. Can you
tell us what you've been up to since then and what you are presently
involved in?

SO AN: I'm involved in the same things I used to do: working with people,
working with my chorale, and everything. Helping people, that's what I do
every day.

ROGER LEDUC: So An, I've heard that you have not changed your message one
bit. You remain the same fierce warrior that you were before you went to
jail. You are still giving the people the message that they should keep up
the struggle, and they should fight for their rights.

SO AN: That's right. There is one thing. I told you that too: I am not free,
because they have so many people [still] in the jails, the same way I used
to be in jail. Because there are so many people, so many rats [slang for
poor political activists], so many Aristide people go to prison, so I am not
free. Since they are not free, I am not free.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say to the president, you
know, to get the prisoners out of the jail. They [the political prisoners]
didn't do anything. They just call them one word: association des malfaiteur
[associating with trouble-makers] or things like that. They [the
authorities] call them rats or anything they want to. But they [didn't] do
[anything illegal]. They have to get out of jail! I am struggling for all of
those people to get out of the jail. Get them out now, that's my duty: to
help those people get out of jail.

KIM IVES: And how are you doing that So An? How are you working to get the
political prisoners out, and how are you keeping in touch with them?

SO AN: With the president?

KIM IVES: No, with the political prisoners.


SO AN: I don't hear you well.

KIM IVES: How are you working to get the political prisoners out of jail
now?

SO AN: Yes, I talk to President Préval. I talk to the president about this.
They tell me that they told Mr. Claudy Gassant [Haiti's new chief
prosecutor] to take care of those people, to take care of those papers, you
know, to get those people out, but up until now, nothing has happened.
Nothing has happened...

I know those people. They [the prisoners] didn't do anything. They are in
jail, the same as I was. But they have to get out of the jail. The president
has to do what we want to get those prisoners out of the jail.

KIM IVES: So An, how do you see the present political situation in Haiti?
What is your assessment of President René Préval after five months -

SO AN: I can't talk about political things because President Préval is in
power, but it is not power for the Haitian people. We put President Préval
in power, but President Préval doesn't do anything for the people who sent
him to that job. All the people that fought for him are hungry, they don't
have jobs, they have nothing. He has... All those people who are working now
[in the government] are the same people who used to shoot, who used to kill
those people [the resisting popular masses], to beat them in Belair, Cité
Soleil, La Saline and everywhere. The same people who used to be with
Latortue, the same people, those people are still there in power.

That's [thanks to us] President Préval is there. President Préval, you know,
is working against all those people [the Lavalas masses that voted for him].
For me, he is working against all those people because President Préval
doesn't do anything for the Lavalas thing that put him in power. I talked to
him about that. He said "Ok, So An, ok, blah blah blah blah blah." But
nothing happened.

Those people, they don't get any jobs. They put them out of a job since
Latortue [came to power] two years ago... President Préval is in power now,
and he doesn't do anything for those people. So what's going to happen to
the country now? You don't have any political things. Haiti is closed. They
put the key somewhere. I don't know where they put the key. Haiti is closed
now.

KIM IVES: We're speaking with Annette Auguste, "So An," from Port-au-Prince,
on Haiti: The Struggle Continues on WBAI, 99.5 FM in New York.

SO AN: Could you imagine? Could you imagine what Cité Soleil was[like] two
days ago? The MINUSTAH [U.N. Mission to Stabilize Haiti] went to Cité Soleil
two days ago. They broke everything in sight. They broke all the houses...
They want to put... They said they want roads, they want ways, they want
roads, etc. But they killed so many people. Eleven people were killed that
day.

MARGARETH DOMINIQUE: So An, are you saying....

SO AN: What's going to happen?

MARGARETH DOMINIQUE: Is it like the Latortue regime is still continuing?

SO AN: That's right. That's the Latortue regime. All those people in power
now are [from the] Latortue regime.

KIM IVES: At the beginning of last month, on Labor Day, I traveled with you
in Cité Soleil. I saw the response of the population to you. Everybody
called you "manman," called you "mother." You have clearly a very close
rapport with the population of Cité Soleil. What are they telling you about
the situation right now?

SO AN: They called me about the situation. They said the MINUSTAH came to
Cité Soleil, broke every house that they found. They said they want roads.
They want Cité Soleil to be clean. But they kill so many people. They fire
guns, fire guns, fire, fire, fire, fire: eleven people were killed that day.
They don't say that, but I know that eleven people were killed. Eleven
people were killed that day.

So I called Préval's sister [Marie Claude, a political advisor]. I told her:
if you don't stop those things, things are going to happen. Because, you
know, the people, you can't stand on them, to wait for the people, the
MINUSTAH to come and kill them like that. You have to catch someone. You
have to say something. You have to do something for the people, because, you
know, they are not unarmed now [although] so many people gave their arms to
Préval. Now they [the government] are only, only, only in power with their
mouth. That's it.

But if you go to Cité Soleil, you want to get a way [road], call Travaux
Publiques [the Public Works Department]. Travaux Publiques is there for
that...

MARGARETH DOMINIQUE: But is it because Préval is only a puppet of the
occupation of the U.S. and U.N. troops that he cannot do anything?.

SO AN: I don't know because they [the international community] say that they
are going to give them [the Haitian government] money. I don't see any
money... The American people, the U.S. is still in power [in Haiti]. Those
people are still in power everywhere, everywhere in the world...

KIM IVES: And we are speaking with Annette Auguste, "So An"... So An, we
just had Edwidge Danticat on the program too and she sends her love...

SO AN: If you sell those CDs, it is not only for me. It's for my people, you
know. I have hungry people with me every day. I have people who can't find
work every day. People who can't go to school.

Because you know that, Kim, if I have money for my people, everything I've
got is for my people. I cannot see my people hungry and to have only one
plate of food once a day. That's the way the country is working now: nobody
can eat, nobody can go to work. Only the people of Latortue are in power now
with Préval. Lavalas has nothing. It has no directors, no ministers,
nothing, nothing, nothing. So what can they be? (...)

Anyway, I am not talking to Republicans. I'm talking to the American people.
Because I know American people. I spent a lot of years living with the
American people. I know their hearts. I know the way they think of Haiti.
Because so many things happen in every country in the world, but you know
what's happening to Haiti now, because so many people are still hungry.
Hungriness is so far [extensive], so far. If you can help me to help those
people, frankly... I have hope that you will do something for them, not for
me. That I can eat one day. That they can eat one day. But if you want to
help me, you'll help me with those people. Please do it for them, not for
me...

I want you to make a marathon for the Haitian people... Everything is on my
head now. My head is so, so crowded... Like a scrambled egg. When you
scramble an egg, that's the way my head is now. Do anything you can, in your
power, do anything, American people... I am somebody who cares about my
country, Haiti. I know that you care about your country. I know that
everybody is working for something. But if you can help, help. Everybody has
problems. Every country has problems....

MARGARETH DOMINIQUE: So An, this is Margareth. It's amazing and wonderful
that you are putting back together your life after being released from jail
in such a short period of time and you have put together a choir made up of
women you call "Koral la." Can you tell us a little bit about "Koral la?"
Pale nou de "Koral la."

SO AN: The chorale is made up of many people who used to be in an
organization with me. It's people from La Saline, Cité Soleil, Belair...
They know nothing about singing but, you know, I prepared them. Now when you
hear their voice, you will see something. They are still with me now. I am
going to have a rehearsal with them. Because every day, every day, we have
to do something for [unintelligible]. I have to help those people to get
something. Because they can't work, they don't do anything, they have
children to go to school.... I have to help them.

That's why the chorale is a good chorale. One of these days, I would like to
bring the chorale to New York City and everywhere, because, you know, those
people they fight, they are fighting every day. They're fighting, fighting.
They are fighters. So if you can do something for them....

MARGARETH DOMINIQUE: So An, if people want to send you and the chorale their
support, what number or address can they contact you at?

SO AN: My address is Delmas 16, Number 30, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

KIM IVES: So An, how did you form your chorale, and how did you select your
singers?

SO AN: I selected them from the organization. Because if you can find a new
voice - soprano, alto, you know - I chose them that way. But I have a good
chorale now. We can go everywhere, we can go anyplace...

KIM IVES: These were women working in popular organizations. Is that true?

SO AN: That's right, that's from popular organizations. Because I don't get
tchilichichi [fancy pants, elitist] people in that chorale, you know? I
choose people from the low people because that's the way I am. I take people
on the ground and put them up. That's the way I am...

MARGARETH DOMINIQUE: So An, di yon ti bagay an krey l pou chofe Ayisyen yo,
non.

KIM IVES: ... k ap siv pwogram nan... Ou met pale wi.

SO AN: Mwen menm, tout sa m ka di avek Ayisyen parey mwen yo... Yo konn ki
moun ki So An nan, paske So An pa yon demagog; mwen pa konn fe demagoji.
Mwen se yon moun kelke swa sa m di, se yon bib li ye. Mwen menm mwen pa yon
moun, kom si m ta di w la, k ap f demann pou yon moun, epi se demagoji. Tout
sa m f ekzakteman se sa ou w a. Sa m di se sa l ye. Mwen pa yon moun, kom si
m ta di w la, k ap f yon bagay, epi ale ki se yon lot bagay ke map f . Se
pou rezon sa a, mwen ta renmen tout Ayisyen pou yo ede m nan sa k ap f t la.

Si Ayisyen ede m, m ap pi byen kontan toujou. L se Ayisyen parey ou k ap ede
w, yo met men yo nan pat la, l sa a mwen pi al z, paske m w Ayisyen vreman
konprann sa Ayisyen parey yo ap soufri.. Sa n ap sibi isit....

`Paske l ou ap leve nan yon kay, ou w yon pak t moun nan kay la. Moun yo f
demi maten nan yon jounen, yo f jounen an... ou oblije f de gwo chody manje
pou blije bay chak moun yon plat manje, paske moun nan li chita la, li pral
jouk 4 , 5 lan apre midi.

Al nan yon kondisyon parey, pa gen yon moun kap lonje men banmwen, mwen pap
travay. Mwen sot f 2 zan prizon, 2 zan 3 mwa prizon. Se mwen k ap ede tout
prizyone yo te arete kom ras... Mwen menm, mwen pa gen anyen anko mwen kapab
f . Se nou menm Ayisyen ki pou ede Ayisyen parey nou. Mete men nan pat la
pou nou w si nou kapab f Ayiti vin yon l t Ayiti, pou nou pa p , pou nou pa
gen moun k ap vole. Paske l moun nan grangou, li k ap f nenp t ki bagay. Nou
pa di se se grangou ki f moun ap kidnape moun, nou pa di se paske moun
grangou. Paske l moun gen konviksyon, ou pa oblije al f yon seri bagay ki pa
sa. An menm tan tou, fo moun yo nan aksyon sosyal tou. Yo pa gen posiblite
pou yo manje, y ap f yon seri bagay ki pa sa. Al , mwen ta renmen nou pran
sa an konsiderasyon, pou nou pa kite se l t moun ki pou f pou nou. Se nou ki
pou f pou t t nou anvan.

ROGER LEDUC: So An, we know that all those people from the GNBists [pro-coup
groups], the putschists, those people that give the coup d'état, they are
still threatening people like you. How safe do you feel in Haiti right now?
How about your security? Talk to us about your safety.

SO AN: Let me tell you something. Since I returned to Haiti in 1994, I never
had security. My house is always open, the door is always open for everyone.
I want security from no-one, because if you have security, you have to get
guns or arms or something like that. I don't deal with these things.

My security is in my heart. That's the way I feel, that's the way people
feel too. When I am in my house, I know so many people who don't even know
that I am somebody [unintelligible]. I am somebody clear. If you want to do
something to me, do it. But I know God is my power.