As part of the International Day to Commemorate the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Trafficking (March 25), Fritz Deshommes Rector of the State University of Haiti delivered a message of reflection on this commemorative day.

Introductory remarks by Rector Deshommes (Excerpts):

"[...] At this time when the Haitian Nation is living in its deep flesh an ordeal like no other, at a time when we combine generalized insecurity, economic and social misery, brain drain and arms, the increasingly pronounced erosion of the State and of public and private institutions every day, the lack of benchmarks and perspectives, it is good, it is comforting, it is beneficial to seize these opportunities to remind ourselves who we are, where we come from and the path traveled with its pauses, its accelerations, its jolts. Which allow us more particularly to go back to the sources, to understand, so that we manage to stay the course, to keep in mind that what is happening to us today is not the result of chance or inexorable fatality but the product of a set of facts, circumstances, tangible, measurable actions.

And which could inspire us with points of support, benchmarks, levers for the maintenance of hope, for the regeneration and recovery of our dear Fatherland.

In this perspective, the theme chosen for this commemoration could not be better chosen 'the consequences of slavery and the debt of the Independence of Haiti'.

[...] I cannot prevent myself from linking this theme and the presentations to which it will give rise to this solemn appeal that I had the opportunity to address to the States and to the French-speaking communities of the whole world in favor of our country bruised, during the launch of the Quinzaine de la Francophonie, on March 9th. As it is true that the slavery practiced in the richest colony of the time, Santo Domingo, and the debt - some say the ransom - of Independence are part of these actions carried out or these sacrifices made, voluntarily or involuntarily , who have contributed on the one hand to the misfortunes of our dear Haiti and on the other hand to the construction and influence of other sister nations, which actions and sacrifices deserve recognition, “ex-post reciprocity” (in quotation marks) or for to use a term much cherished by our CARICOM brethren 'reparation' [...]"

IH/ iciHaiti