Haitian-Americans Pack City Hall

More than 100 Haitian-Americans crowded into City Hall last night to demonstrate before the City Council their support for the return of democracy to Haiti.

The citizens carried signs stating, "Haiti Deserves Democracy" and "We Are All God's Children," and bore photos of deposed Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. They spoke earnestly to the councillors about the importance of standing behind international justice and democracy, and joined together in a chorus of "Hallelujah," a popular Haitian rallying song.

Haitian-American Gerdes Fleurant, a Cambridge resident and professor at Salem State College, told the councillors that "the Haitian people are fed up. They want peace. They want democracy."

"Port-Au-Prince is literally littered with bloody bodies," Fleurant said.

According to Patrick Sylvain, a Haitian-American who teaches at Kennedy Elementary School, 3000 Haitians, many of them civilians, have been killed since the military seized control of Haiti's government last week.

"We are praying for peace. We are praying for justice," Sylvain said. "There has to be a positive connection between the United States and Haiti."

Order of Strongest Support

After listening to the speeches and song, the councillors unanimously passed an order stating that "the City Council [offers] its strongest support to the Haitian people both in Haiti and here in the United States in their ongoing struggle for democracy in their homeland."

"Haiti can go completely backwards if we don't attempt to say, once democracy exists let us as a country support democracy," said Vice Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72, the author of the order, to applause and hoots from the crowd.

The Haitian-Americans "are asking for international outrage," Reeves said.

A Place in City Hall

Councillor Edward N. Cyr also spoke out strongly for the initiative supporting the Haitian people. "There are those who say that an issue such as this one doesn't have a place in Cambridge City Hall," he said. "To those who say these issues belong elsewhere, I say nonsense, these issues belong everywhere."

"We are not a democratic society if we fail you now," Cyr told the crowd.

The Cambridge City Council has a long history of involvement in Haitian affairs.

The city's Haitian population of about 10,000 owns its own taxicab company and dominates a number of local parishes. Last year, the City Council voted to make Port-Au-Prince one of its sister cities. And last March, a month after Aristide was elected, the city sent a goodwill delegation to tour the small Caribbean country.