Benjamin Dupuy, the secretary general of the National Popular Party (PPN), was warmly received at two well-attended events in Canada last weekend.

 
PPN DELIVERS MESSAGE OF STRUGGLE AND HOPE

On July 24, the Committee of Haitians in Ottawa for Haiti's Reconstruction (CHORHA) held a meeting of over 100. The following evening, several hundred people responded to the call of Konbit Vérité in Montreal.

At both events, the organizers projected a half-hour video depicting the spirited marches of thousands of PPN militants in Port-au-Prince on Mar. 27 and Sep. 30, 2003. Following the projections, Dupuy offered an historical analysis of the different stages that led to the Feb. 29 "coup-napping" and exile of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

At the Montreal event, Dupuy rapidly traced the roots of Haiti's most recent coup back to the 1806 assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the general who led Haiti to independence.

"Dessalines said that all those who had fought deserved to have a plot of land," he explained. But a formerly propertied class the freedmen or affranchis were opposed to this first-ever land reform. "They betrayed the pact of May 18, 1803 which gave us our national flag because they wanted to get their hands on the only wealth the devastated colony had left: land," Dupuy continued. "So they plotted to assassinate Dessalines and there emerged our grandon [big landowning] class, which up until today exploits the peasantry."

Meanwhile, a comprador bourgeoisie emerged in the cities. These two ruling classes have feuded for power throughout most of Haitian history but united in a counter-revolutionary block when the people elected Aristide 1990 and 2000.

Dupuy noted that Aristide was a disciple of Toussaint Louverture, who led the struggle to abolish slavery in the French colony of St. Domingue. And just like Toussaint, "Aristide believes in diplomacy, in bargaining," Dupuy explained. "We in PPN told him on many occasions over the course of the last three years that these people were organizing themselves across the border [in the Dominican Republic], and that former soldiers only know how to handle one tool. I said that we had to prepare the people. We couldn't sit on our hands waiting for the assassins to
attack.

But even if Titid didn't want to betray the people, his diplomacy and the lessons he learned in Washington induced him into error, because the people believed in him and that confused them about the true nature of imperialism... So we know the rest of the story. Aristide was kidnapped just the way that Toussaint was. But finally we are at the moment, just like after the kidnapping of Toussaint, where the true struggle starts. That was the moment that the people started their struggle for independence. So there is no question of despair. The struggle has just begun!"

The speech was interrupted several times by sustained applause and was followed by a many questions from the audience, which allowed Dupuy to further develop his analysis.

On July 26, Dupuy held a press conference in Montreal that was attended by both the Haitian and Canadian press and television.

Participants and organizers of both events were enthused by the message from and response to mini-tour of Ben Dupuy and the promise of PPN's continued resistance to the Feb. 29th coup
d'état.