Presidents of Haiti: glory and misery / Chef D’Etat en Haiti: gloire et miseres

By Tequila Minsky, Heritagekonpa Magazien

The highly regarded seminary and secondary school Mazenod in Camp Perrin, Haiti is hosting an exhibition: Presidents of Haiti --from 1804-1986. The result of 3 years of research by Michele Oriol, the exhibitio is a series of posters of photographs and other graphic images along with information on each of the 38 presidents, their family, personal profile, family tree, the men surrounding them and each one’s accomplishments.

336 images are included in the series of posters. “We Haitians know our presidents but don’t have knowledge of the 200 years we spent as a people,” Oriol observes. When Estime was president of Haiti (1946-1950) he made a law: foreigners don’t have the right to teach Haitian history. “We had a political ideology to expel foreigners.” This led to an intellectual isolation.

Oriol adds, “There is no chair of Haitian history in the University. We want the public to see the Presidents as people, what they tried to do, what they accomplished.”

20 years ago Michele Oriol and Patrick Vilaire founded a foundation for visual documentation and research, its name in French: Fondation pour la Recherche Iconographique et Documentaire. They collect visual images and produce materials for teaching, exhibitions, and books. Four books have been published thus far. Along with images Michele collects anecdotal information, “We have to find people with pictures. They speak about the photos, it’s their uncle or family member.”

In 2001 the Foundation produced a workbook for school age children, History and Civic Education, which covers the time of the Indians through 1804 independence. The second workbook, incorporating research from this poster exhibition, will be published within a year.

“We want the public to see the Presidents as people, what they tried to do, what they accomplished.”

Why did they stop with 1986? “We’ve lived through these year’s of history and it is hard to be objective,” Oriol explains.

Patrick Vilare, who was also a researcher who helped organize the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC last year and was named a Smithsonian Research Fellow, describes the Foundation’s goals, “We collect documents and help families understand how important these documents are and we encourage the protection of these documents. We attract a lot of people to see our exhibitions.”

President Geffrant created the National Archives in Port-au-Prince during his tenure from 1860-68. Oriol did much research there last year. This year there were many threats against the Archives that are located in one of the Port-au-Prince embattled neighborhoods, Bel Air. The building has been under fire and a Molotov cocktail was thrown at it but thankfully thus far nothing has been damaged. Research for the current exhibition extended to family collections and also foreign country archives including those in the States.

The Foundation is traveling the show everywhere in the country and using the occasion of the small town patron saint festivals as an opportunity to exhibit. The ‘fetes’ attract a lot of people.

Camp Perrin is the third venue for this traveling exhibition (following Port-au-Prince and

Corail) and it coincides with Fete St. Anne which is being celebrated this week. Camp Perrin has 65,000 people in 28 localities and is one hour north of Les Cayes, venue for the next exhibition during their fete, Day of the Assumption. In October when school opens, the exhibit will travel to the larger cities.

An accompanying CD of the exhibition is for sale and Oriol and Vilare plan the posters to be published as a coffee table book. They want the exhibition to also travel to large Haitian communities in the United States and Canada.

Camp Perrin is the backdrop for a film in production by a new filmmaker.

Bernandin Constant piles a bunch of actors into his vehicle and off they go in Camp Perrin, one hour north of Les Cayes, to shoot some scenes for his film, Mefie Toi! The group's name is Yara Films. What is the film about?

It's a Haitian story, it's a tragedy as described by the filmmaker. When
pushed to the story line one of the lead actors, Jasmin Reginald, describes it. Its a love triangle using magic from the local hougan to try to get the girl back. There is alot of magic in the film.

Constant, age 39, originally from Camp Perrin, moved at age 13 to Port-au-Prince.

He has worked as a journalist for Radio Liberte, an independent video cameraman, a translator for Doctors Without Borders, a coordinator in ecotoursim, a technician in the making of the film, Erzulie. His film, Ballet d'Adieu will screen at the Imperial Theatre in Port-au-Prince on
August 19.

Some of his actors have recently finished or are finishing secondary school. They are a youthful but enthusiastic and dedicated company. Constant bemoans the lack of educational opportunities for filmmakers in Port-au-Prince.