Mr. Joseph Michel Martelly, President of the Republic of Haiti, in his offices,
It is with anger and resentment that we are writing this letter. We forget all notions of good education to recognize the work you perform in the country since your arrival to Presidency, May 14, 2011, the day when you swore on the 1987 constitution, within the parliament, a pillar of democracy we are trying to establish in recent years. And then, the way you lead the country, does it deserves really any praise from us?
"We are a group of students, teachers, staff, men and women of the State University staff who are watching with great concern your suspicious actions at the head of state. The latest scandal caused by your intrusion within the Faculty of Ethnology forces us to break our silence.
"Like many sectors of society, we wonder if you would not have the intention to establish a dictatorship in Haiti. We will not say you’re a dictator yet, but we will tell you that only the enemies of democracy act against institutions like you're doing in a country that has chosen democracy as political system.
"Section 34 of the Constitution clearly states: Except in cases of flagrante delicto, the enclosure of educational institutions is inviolable. No police force can enter them except with the supervisors of those establishments.
By this letter, we want to express our anger for the brutal actions of you and your supporters at the Faculty of Ethnology on February 17. On this occasion, you had trampled upon the prestige of the single public university in the country, without any respect for the lives of those who were there as you are accustomed to do since the beginning of your mandate with other sectors and country's democratic institutions.
This act of vandalism, Mr President, orchestrated by you and your cronies at the Faculty of Ethnology and the Office of Ethnology, looks like exactly to a barbaric act on another entity of the State University of Haiti in December 2003 on the orders of the enemy of democracy ruling the country at the time.
To better understand the extent of your bandit act, Mr. President, let us tell you how it went.
In the afternoon of Friday, February 17, Martelly, the president, had an activity in the town of Petion-ville. He went down to Port-au-Prince at the head of a band of Mardi Gras and his supporters. While descending, he sends his bodyguard officers tell students that he comes to visit. Students say they refuse to meet with the president under these conditions.
Arriving at the faculty, the president found the students standing outside the entrance of the faculty decided not to let him in. The crowd of supporters Martelly attacked then, stoning the students. Students stoned back. The national palace guards opened fire on the building of the Faculty of Ethnology. Students ran away. It is in this moment of panic as the henchmen of the President took the opportunity to assault the students. Conclusion: Police arrested three students, many are brutalized, others are injured, the reading room of the faculty is devastated, the doors were forced, broken car windows, the façade of the faculty is riddled with bullets, the Ethnology Office nearby is ransacked, presidential bandits overthrew the fence of the Faculty of Ethnology.
This latest scandal, which adds to list of abuses against the State University urges us to ask if you have lost your mind, Mr. President. Why debase the only public institution of higher education in the country? Did you know that your office of President requires you to respect yourself, to respect other people and institutions of the country? When you launched this attack against the Faculty of Ethnology, there stood a symposium within the faculty, O President! You rudely stopped this activity. Do you ever happen to reflect on the contribution of the public university in the progress of any civilized country? Is this is the kind of scandal and abuse behind your proposed "take-off of the country" or your free education program?
“We sent this letter to President Martelly because we don’t want to do as many people observing the political situation saying that it’s “no surprise things are so bad because Martelly is in power.“History taught us that when Nazi phenomenon had begun in Germany, there are Jews who found opportunity to leave, but didn’t; others could engage in a genuine struggle against the phenomenon and participate in all other forms of resistance possible, they didn’t either.
“Many of them preferred to say, what they see is not imaginable. Even when the system started taking high speed indeed, many people prefer to say things can’t last and won’t go too far; many people said (as many says today for president Martelly) that Adolph Hitler is a man who lost his head and can’t do more than what he is doing. However we all know how things ended.
Mr. President, we worry a lot every time you turn yourself to Sweet Micky to run the country. You have degraded the presidential office by acting like an animal, without restraint. In addition, we are saddened to see that since your arrival at the head of state, you behave like a gladiator in an arena, you fight against everybody.
In less than a year, you have caused all sorts of crises and conflicts with the press, the prime minister, parliament, the State University. You cause even diplomatic incidents with foreign countries like the Bahamas and Curacao. You act as if you were still on a carnival float.
Mr. President, the constitution says your mission is to protect the institutions, but when we see what you are doing now, we wonder if had not violated the law more than your predecessors in this short period in power. And what to say of your cult of personality? The scandal at the Faculty of Ethnology looks exactly like the atrocities committed by the "macoutes" of Duvalier, the torturers of FRAPH during the period of the coup of 1991.
"If your real project is not to establish dictatorship, Mr. President, to divert the country from the path of democracy, it is not too late to come back on track. But if you had chosen to debase institutions, dragging everything in the mud, we will not let you do.”
University staff signing the letter:
James Beltis……………………………..
Nathacha Pericles……………………….
Franck Seguy……………………………
Brunache Pierre Ronsard……………….
Walner Osna…………………………….
Wilson Jean-Baptiste…………………...
Wilsot Louis……………………………
Nathacha Désulmé……………………..
Jean-Bernart Jean Louis……………….
Nathania Pericles………………………
Harry Moise…………………………….
