After being part of the “indissoluble majority bloc”, the Agreement of December 21, 2022 now advocates “permanent consensus” within the Presidential Transitional Council, in the midst of a crisis. In this open letter addressed to the presidential body, dated May 6, 2024, and a copy of which reached AlterPresse, signatories to the Agreement of December 21, 2022, allies of former de facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry, believe that “any blind hegemonic quest will doom the ‘Presidential Council’ to its greatest loss.”
To the members of the “Presidential Council”, we, the signatories of this letter, aware of the serious issues of the day and our historical responsibility relating thereto, address this letter which is intended to be open. Among other explanatory causes, this approach is the fruit of mature patriotic reflections between us at a time when collective delirium seems to keep reason in check. Convinced that the current decline of Haiti cannot be explained by any historical fatality and is not justified by any crippling vice, we allow ourselves to prefer the optimism of the will to the pessimism of reason when it comes to foreseeing our become collective. However, so that this optimism is not deemed smug and flatly naive, it will be necessary not to repeat the same errors of judgment and behavior of which our tumultuous national history offers such a sad spectacle.
First of all, we want to emphasize that the current composition of the “Presidential Council” is a symbolic invitation to a fruitful process of national reconciliation. We therefore express the hope that the “Presidential Council” will be this great historical crucible capable of melting and overcoming the multiple contradictions in the name of which we have set the country ablaze in the past with our convulsive excesses of rage, violence, frustrations, agitation and self-destruction. Without wishing to exaggerate, we dare to think that you, the current members of the Presidential Council, are endowed with a highly historic mission, apart from the formalism of the road map which will serve as your compass: to erase differences, to mitigate differences, to serve of links between the members of the great Haitian family.
We, being signatories of the agreement of December 21, have designated Doctor Louis Gerald Gilles within the “Presidential Council”. An experienced, competent and good-natured man, he enjoys our trust to do valuable work alongside you.
However, it is not in vain to point out that the current context recommends the primacy of the collective over the individual. In this sense, it is the entire Council that deserves our patriotic concern given that its failure or success will first and foremost be that of Haiti. The “Presidential Council” is no longer, in our eyes, a juxtaposition of representatives of disparate parties in a Tower of Babel. In other words, there is no reason for the Advisors to confine themselves to their respective ideological-political comfort zone but to open up to each other for the benefit of Haiti.
From the above, it is obvious that any blind hegemonic quest will doom the “Presidential Council” to its greatest loss. Only permanent consensus can exorcise the old demons of the ego. Demons so detrimental to national harmony.
Blood is flowing freely in the city! Despair can be seen on the faces of all our contemporaries! The chaotic migration of our young people gives us the measure of the ambient social anomie. The State is on its knees, the famous “lost territories” increasing in number. The economy is running out of steam. The school is declared a “non grata” institution. The UEH is vandalized. Pharmacies attacked, looted and burned. It is the resurgence of the “time of the bayonets” with a surplus of disorder and violence making even the caco-looters who brought Davilmar Théodore to power in Port-au-Prince pale. A sneaky embargo isolates us from the rest of the world, weighing a heavy burden on the “primum vivere” of several million fellow citizens. Thirty-eight (38) years after 1986, democratic gains were shattered. Even procedural democracy does not hold water, the holding of elections being an extremely rare commodity here.
In the meantime, socio-economic apartheid knows no bounds, due to accelerated impoverishment. In summary, there is not a power to conquer, but a country to build. A country to build! To build TOGETHER!
Critical questions need to be asked during this transition. Key responses are also expected from this interim framework. Unfortunately, time is not our best ally in this great and perilous race against time. If it is true that Security remains the absolute priority, the fact remains that institutional reforms must suggest a better formula for reappropriation of the State by the NATION. And, this will necessarily go beyond the boundaries of formal democracy to lay the foundations of a more substantial common project imbued with social justice. In other words, the next twenty months must be foundational. If there will be no miracle, we can at least initiate major reforms to be deepened within the framework of a global agreement spread over at least twenty-five (25) years. Our wish is clear: that this political transition will ultimately be the last in our history!
Ladies/Gentlemen, members of the “Presidential Council”, choose to enter History through the great door of the transcendence of particular affiliations to stand together at the bedside of our Haiti sick with its socio-economic apartheid against a backdrop of political and political instability. acute security crisis. May the illustrious Founders of the nation infuse you with the moral and political magistracy necessary to guide the destiny of Haiti in these moments of general convulsions characteristic of a society in deep agony. Long live Haiti!
The petitioners :
Jorchemy JEAN BAPTISTE
Pascal ADRIEN..
Abel DESCOLLINNES
Ing-Agr. MSc Vikerson GARNIER
Me Tarly GUIRAND
