Thursday, August 27, 2024 [AlterPresse] — Justice has been silent for 30 years on the assassination of the committed Catholic priest of the Montfortian congregation Jean-Marie Vincent, shot dead at the age of 48, on the evening of August 28, 1994, at the entrance to the residence of the Montfortian Fathers in Port-au-Prince, observes AlterPresse.
Throughout the past 30 years, various organizations in society have continued to demand justice for this crime.
“We do not understand why the executive, legislative and judicial powers do not take their responsibilities, in order to shed light on this assassination and punish the criminals,” wrote the Jean-Marie Vincent Foundation, the Network of Organizations of the West Zone (Rozo), the Asosyasyon militan alfa pou patisipasyon pèp la (Amapp) and the National Union of Haitian Normaliennes and Normaliens (Unnoh) in a press release in 2017.
Who are the potentates in the state who have no interest in giving justice to the victim?, they wondered.
In recent years, the justice system has kept a complete silence on the case, which is now buried in drawers where new cases, some more heinous than others, periodically pile up.
Commitment to the peasant cause
Ordained a priest on January 8, 1971, Father Jean-Marie Vincent contributed, among other things, to the formation of popular and social movements in Haiti, notably the establishment of the gwoupman Tèt ansanm (community groups of peasants) and the constitution of very solid peasant movements in the North-West, such as Tèt ansanm, which would later be transformed into Tèt kole ti peyizan.
He escaped several assassination attempts by grandons (large landowners in the North-West) in 1986 and 1987.
While returning from a celebration, organized in Pont-Sondé (Bas Artibonite), in memory of the victims of the Jean-Rabel massacre (North-West department) on July 23, 1987, Jean-Marie Vincent suffered a broken arm and serious head injuries, following a military ambush, perpetrated on August 23, 1987 in Freycineau (about three kilometers south of Saint-Marc).
Jean-Marie Vincent made a significant contribution, with Jean-Rabel’s missionary team (composed of Haitians and foreign nationals) to improving rural conditions in this municipality in the northwest of Haiti. He also worked in Cap-Haïtien in Caritas du Nord, a structure within the Catholic Church focused on social actions, alongside evangelical actions.
Jean-Marie Vincent also wanted to establish alternative financing structures, with the aim of encouraging sustainable investments among grassroots communities, particularly peasants.
Born on October 21, 1945, to a family from Baradères (Nippes department, part of the South-West of Haiti), Jean-Marie Vincent was assassinated, at the age of 48, by armed men in front of the house of the Montfort Fathers, on Baussan Street in Port-au-Prince.
His funeral was sung on September 2, 1994, at the Congregation of the Montfortians.
Like many other cases of violence, state crimes and massacres, perpetrated from 1986 (after the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship / François Duvalier September 22, 1957 – April 21, 1971, Jean-Claude Duvalier April 22, 1971 – February 7, 1986) and not yet resolved by the courts, the assassination of the Catholic priest Jean-Marie Vincent, on August 28, 1994, remains one of the emblematic cases of the reign of impunity, which is rife in Haiti. [gp apr 27/08/2017 20:00]
