My Experience During the 2004 Haitian Coup d’état
In September of 2003, Amiot Métayer, the infamous Haitian Gona?ves gang leader known as the Cannibal Army, was found dead in the streets. In a vicious and horrific assassination, his eyes had been shot out, and his heart carved out by machetes. His brother, Buteur Métayer, who then became the leader of the Cannibal Army, renaming it the National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti, swore to his death that he would avenge the slaughter. And he blamed no less than the sitting president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, for the murder.
It wasn’t long before Gona?ves, the City of Independence, whose residents had once proclaimed independence from slavery and created the first black republic in the history of the world, once again became a battlefield. My native city had an infamous reputation as a city that had given roots to revolutions, civil wars, and coup d’états. In an attempt to preserve that legacy, the paramilitary soldiers, after seizing control of Gona?ves, demanded in absolute terms the unconditional departure of President Aristide from the country with the utmost urgency.
“Aristide! I ask for you to flee the country immediately and get out within twenty-four hours,” the spokesman of the Cannibal Army proclaimed to the media, demanding his immediate exile. “If you don’t, we will march to Port-au-Prince, put a rope around your neck, and drag you down the street to our prison fortress in Gona?ves.”
As a twelve-year-old kid who had just started seventh grade in a new school, the College of Immaculée Conception, this volatile state of affairs impacted me directly. Schools would be canceled at the last minute because of fighting in the city streets. Sometimes classes were suddenly canceled after school had begun, without explanation, though we all knew why. It was an unstable situation, arriving at school and knowing that at any time, some kind of horrible, unknown violence could erupt.
The sights alone were horrifying, and they occurred in full view of the public. During one protest, a necklacing took place, whereby a student was burned right in front of my school. A rubber tire was forced around his body, filled with fuel, and set on fire, leaving him to burn until he succumbed to a slow, torturous death. When I arrived at school the next day, I could still see the ashes and the dark, burned ring on the floor as I passed by, ever so careful not to step on the once-living spirit etched there. Such was the grim reality in which students in Gona?ves were being asked to obtain an education.
We would hear the sound of gunfire off in the distance, and it was a daily thing, to the point that it became our resounding reality. As children, we might be playing soccer in the streets as shots rang out just a few blocks away. This became so normal that we’d often continue our game, barely noticing it and certainly not responding to it with alarm. Of course, we would run to take refuge inside a house if we felt the gunfire was too near us, only to return to our game when it was gone. For us, it was like a war movie—a simulation that brought so much suffering and violence. And we were actors on the set.
No matter the chaos surrounding us, to the extent that we could go about living our everyday lives, we did so. Meanwhile, the paramilitary managed to gather support from enough insurgents to take control of the town. They attacked the police station, brought in a bulldozer, broke down the prison walls, and allowed all the prisoners to escape. They also burned down the house of the city mayor, who had to flee for his life.
President Aristide had enough of the paramilitary, who wanted to oust him, and sent approximately two hundred riot police, known as CIMO (the Intervention and Maintenance of Order Corps), heavily armed with masks, to establish order in the city. Their mission was to eliminate the paramilitary groups near my neighborhood.
The adults in our lives warned us that the paramilitary insurgents would seek refuge inside our homes when a major attack was about to occur, urging us to always be on the lookout. All the windows were locked and, in our house, we blocked the windows and doors with additional objects in case someone tried to break in.
As kids, we felt curious and excited by the energy in the air. Even though we were afraid, we managed to find a hole in the window, which allowed us to observe the CIMO passing on foot, usually hunched in attack position and pointing their AK-27s and machine guns ahead of them. Then the guns would be fired in a thick rat-tat-tat of shots, bullets spraying everywhere, ending with a thud into bodies, buildings, and vehicles. My mom would grab Ally and me and hold us tightly under the bed, yelling, “Get down! Get under the bed! Be quiet!”
On the one hand, it was sometimes scary to think that my life might be in danger, but at the same time, as a na?ve kid, I thought it was thrilling to hide and keep myself from getting shot. Hide-and-seek was an integral part of every child’s life in Haiti, and we were no exception. But at the age of twelve, I could not distinguish fantasy from reality. Not once did I consider that a bullet could fly through a wall or window and penetrate our bodies, wounding or even killing us. Yet bullet holes would decorate the walls once the shooting was over, just like in the gangster movies I would later see in America.
Under these conditions, Mom expressed her wish that we go live with our father in Miami as he could provide a better, safer future than we had in Gona?ves. A few months later, President Aristide was exiled, the city returned to its former self, and life went on as usual. Though it seemed Gona?ves had once again succeeded in liberating Haiti, this would certainly not be the last upheaval, as Mother Nature through Hurricane Jeanne completely devastated my native city later that year.
Seventeen years after the 2004 Haitian coup d’état, Haiti is now in the midst of a deadly political, economic and social crisis that is destroying the fabric of our society. As a concerned Haitian American, who once faced the same plight as the millions of Haitian youth deprived of education because of the instability and violence, enough is enough. I call upon my native brothers and sisters and the Haitian Diaspora, and the international community to raise their voices and join together to help restore peace and stability in Haiti.
Steeve Simbert is the Founder of Governly, the author of Finding Hope in Chaos, and a Georgetown, Oxford, and Quantic alumnus.
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