Cayes, Friday July 26, 2024
It has been exactly one month since the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mrs. Dominique Dupuy, announced with great fanfare on her X account (formerly Twitter) that she will begin a major reform in Haitian diplomacy. And to begin with, she added that after evaluating the profiles, she gave the order to recall, according to the procedure, more than eighty (80) diplomats stationed abroad, including about forty Heads of Mission. As always, we applauded such a measure with both hands when we know that Haitian diplomacy has recently been the subject of numerous scandals on several proven cases of corruption in diplomatic missions abroad. And not to mention the shameful media scandal that two former MAE holders had previously offered to the population, each accusing the other of corruption on the airwaves of a radio station in the capital, and one of them had presented the candidacy of Mrs. Dupuy as a member of the Transitional Presidential Council who should represent his political party. As we see nowadays, our leaders will not finish tarnishing the image of our country in the face of the world with their unbridled desire for easy gain.
But let us rather return to this famous reform so highly praised by Mrs. Dupuy. At the time of writing, we have confirmation that the majority of recalled diplomats are still stuck in the countries where they were accredited since they have not yet received the recall fees equivalent to two months’ salary or the plane tickets for their spouses and children who live with them. These career diplomats now find themselves without legal status in these foreign countries and without a roof over their heads with their families since they are obliged to hand over the residences they occupied to their new replacements. It even happens for some of them that the MAE owes them several months of arrears of salary and representation expenses as well as other amounts for expenses they have incurred with their personal funds for utility work either in the buildings housing Haiti’s diplomatic representations or in the private residences of the heads of mission.
And yet, when questioned precisely about the recall costs during her famous cry for reform, the minister had given the firm guarantee that they are already available for those concerned. So, we can clearly see today that the truth is far from being stuck to her jacket. Did Ms. Dupuy at least think that if her choice as Minister of Foreign Affairs was not approved by the CPT she could have also found herself today in this list of recalled diplomats, without any consideration, and for the most part former colleagues or collaborators with whom she often complained about the mistreatment of past administrations? It must be said that we have a very short memory as Haitians when we become leaders in this country and we want to exercise our power over those who do not have the adequate means to defend themselves.
Minister Dupuy had spoken of reform, hadn’t she? But does she really know what it is and how to go about implementing it? Because reform has to be prepared and a plan and available resources are needed to implement it. That is not the case at the moment, at least from what we can see. It is never done on impulse or through amateur improvisation. And if we are to believe the information that reaches us, it would seem that this so-called reform initiated by Mrs. Dupuy is rather similar to this traditional practice of witch hunting “retire lòt moun poum mete moun pam ak moun pa zanmim”, since it is widely rumored that the new diplomats promoted or appointed by Mrs. Dupuy are mostly pawns of the same former minister and Prime Minister who had appointed her herself in diplomacy at the UNESCO mission that she headed before occupying the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs. A very good way, one might say, to protect the corrupt and perpetuate corruption in this sector. It would be wiser for Mrs. Dupuy who is taking her first steps in politics to learn instead to apply the law fairly and to bring her former allies closer to her instead of creating new enemies because power in Haiti has been very ephemeral for some time. Recent history is there to remind us of this.
Once again, we urge Mrs. Dominique Dupuy, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to look with all the sense of responsibility that her position requires of her into the situation of our diplomatic brothers and sisters abandoned to their fate in foreign lands and who, for the most part, are much better qualified and experienced than she is. In doing so, she will thus spare the Haitian population a new snub and the great disappointment of having once again been fooled by a young politician with honeyed language but full of malice just like her mentors who gave her a leg up.
Make no mistake, Madam, the Haitian nation always demands accountability, sooner or later, from all those who amuse themselves by violating the rights of its real children!
Jean Guérard Métilus
Les Cayes, July 24, 2024.
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