In Haiti, several thousand Kenyan and Beninese police officers are expected in the coming weeks to try to put an end to the all-powerful armed gangs who are terrorizing the population. This multinational operation would be financed by the United States to the tune of $300 million. Why does Benin agree to go there? Did the open letter from the great Togolese historian Godwin Tété to Beninese President Patrice Talon play a role? The Franco-Beninese anthropologist Brice Ahounou is a teacher-researcher. He is also the newspaper’s Paris correspondent. Haiti-Observer from New York. He responds to Christophe Boisbouvier.
RFI: After months of procrastination, the deployment of a multinational force in Haiti is taking shape. What do you think of the majority presence of African soldiers and police officers, particularly Kenyans and Beninese?
Brice Ahounou: This question always leaves us a little perplexed. That the international community comes to help the Haitians is a good thing. However, we don’t know what’s behind all this. Because I listen, I hear various Haitian actors who say to themselves: perhaps there is something hidden behind this. We don’t really know, that’s what we’re told. Why not think about strengthening, for example, the armed men who are in Haiti and who can face the gangs? So there you have it, it’s this thing that’s a little curious, we don’t understand very well. In fact, the scenario is external, that’s what the Haitians say. The big director of this affair is Washington, somewhere, and its allies. So, we are faced with something that plunges us into a lot of uncertainty.
What’s new is the upcoming deployment of some 2,000 Beninese police officers alongside the Kenyan military and police. In fact, do the historical and cultural links between Benin and Haiti not justify this exceptional effort on the part of Cotonou?
I would say yes. Besides, I don’t know if you know a Togolese politician who lived in Paris for a long time and who returned to his country last week. A 97-year-old man, Tété Godwin. He wrote a letter to Patrice Talon a few weeks ago, asking the Beninese president to intervene in Haiti and help the Haitian brothers, which I still find quite an exceptional approach.
This letter from Tété Godwin?
Yes, this gentleman I am talking about was born in Dahomey to Togolese parents. We have the impression that the Beninese president responds favorably to this letter and that he also finds that Haiti is close to Benin. Tété Godwin thinks that Haiti should get back up and that the brothers of Africa could help Haiti.
At the time when Haiti asked to join the African Union, a dozen years ago, the former Haitian Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe, said: “Our request is based on our cultural proximity and on History . We are the world’s first black republic, we are the first and last successful slave revolt. »
Yes, Lamothe says it, since Haiti remains an advanced point of Africa in the Caribbean Sea. And after the earthquake of 2010, Lamothe and its president Martelly, indeed, took steps to join the African Union. Haiti was taken first as an observer, then as an associate member, and then suddenly, a few years later, it is 2016, the African Union rejected Haiti.
Would you like, Brice Ahounou, for the African Union to once again welcome Haiti into its bodies?
Absolutely. Because you know, the African Union, for example, its headquarters is in Ethiopia. And there is a Haitian, who we perhaps no longer know today, whose name was Benito Sylvain. He was a Haitian journalist from the 19thth century. He was the advisor to Emperor Menelik II. He was present when the Battle of Adoua took place, when the Ethiopians beat the Italians in 1896. And in fact, the Haitians have always been on the side of some African leaders. Benito Sylvain was the first. So Haiti, for me, has its place in the African Union and it would really be desirable for the African Union to put Haiti back on its agenda.
Next year, 2025, will mark the 200the anniversary of the indemnity of some 150 million gold francs that the young Haitian Republic was obliged to pay to France in 1825. What do you expect from this anniversary date?
Let there be a lot of noise around this date. That is to say, we become aware of it, because when we talk about it to the people we meet, they are surprised by it. But secondly, it would be good for a country like France, which is still able to restore, to give back to Haiti a certain number of things, to examine the question from the angle of real reparation. .
Former French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who chairs the Foundation for the Memory of Slavery, has just declared: “This bicentenary, let us hope that it will be the occasion for a great gesture of fraternity on the part of France towards the Haitian people. »
Yes, that’s an interesting phrase and an interesting wish. But I would still like it to be concrete, because Jean-Marc Ayrault was the Prime Minister of President Hollande who, on his way to Haiti, passed through one of the French islands in the Caribbean, Guadeloupe or Martinique. , I don’t know which one anymore. He said then that he was going to Haiti to pay his debt and there was an outcry in the French administration against him. When he arrived in Port-au-Prince, he said that he wanted to talk about a moral debt and that was the big disappointment in Port-au-Prince. So, France must make a very symbolic and strong gesture in terms of funds, by replenishing the Haitian coffers in a fairly significant way.
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