29343: Ives (news): Transcript of WBAI's Haiti: The Struggle Continues (10/14/2006): Interview with Berthony Dupont (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: K M Ives <kives@toast.net>

TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEWS ON HAITI: THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES
Broadcast on WBAI, 99.5 FM every Saturday from 3 - 4 p.m.
Hosts: Margareth Dominique, Kim Ives and Roger Leduc
Engineer: Marquez Osson
Contributor: Karine Jean-Pierre

(Back programs can be heard online by visiting our archives at 
www.wbai.org/archives. Scroll down to select Haiti: The Struggle Continues on 
Saturday afternoon.)

PROGRAM OF OCTOBER 14, 2006

1) From New York, an interview with Berthony Dupont, author of the new book 
"Jean-Jacques Dessalines: Itinéraire d'un révolutionnaire" (Jean-Jacques 
Dessalines: Itinerary of a Revolutionary)

*Interview with Berthony Dupont on "Jean-Jacques Dessalines: Itinerary of a 
Revolutionary"*

Kim Ives: Right now, on the phone, we have with us Berthony Dupont, the author 
of the book "Jean-Jacques Dessalines: Itinéraire d'un révolutionnaire" which 
has just been published by L'Harmattan. Berthony, are you there?

Berthony Dupont: Yes, I am there.

Kim Ives: Very good. Welcome to the show, Berthony. We are celebrating the 
200th anniversary of Jean-Jacques Dessalines - or, not celebrating, but 
recognizing...

Berthony Dupont: Commemorating.

Kim Ives: ... commemorating the 200th anniversary of Jean-Jacques Dessalines' 
death, which will be 200 years ago three days from now...

Berthony Dupont: Not his death. Better to say his assassination rather than 
death...

Kim Ives: Thank you. That is correct. Maybe you could tell us a little bit 
about your book. The assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines on October 17, 
1806 was a watershed in Haitian history. Tell us a little bit about the book 
that you have just finished and the program that you are planning tomorrow 
night in Brooklyn.

Berthony Dupont: It is not easy right now to talk about the book because the 
book does not cover only Dessalines' death but also his life. It is a biography 
of the guy who founded the country called Haiti, the first black republic in 
the world.
Tomorrow, we are going to have a book event and a commemoration for the 200 
years since they killed him on Oct. 17, 1806. We are going to commemorate that 
date and, in a way, bring back the dream of Dessalines for our children... And 
the new generation can learn what they didn't teach us in school about the 
founder of Haiti.

Tomorrow, at 4 p.m., at the St. Jerome auditorium, that is on Nostrand Avenue 
at the corner of Newkirk [in Brooklyn], we are going to have a big 
demonstration about Dessalines and also a book signing for this new book.

Kim Ives: Okay. Can you tell us some of the people who will be participating in 
the event tomorrow night?

Berthony Dupont: We are going to have two poets: Tony Leroy and Denizé Lauture. 
And we are also going to have Roger Leduc to address the public and explain to 
them about Dessalines. I will also be there to present the book. And we might 
have Marguerite Laurent from Connecticut, and also a few other people will 
address the public about Dessalines. And Fanfan Latour will be the master of 
ceremonies.

Kim Ives: And, Berthony, Jean-Jacques Dessalines has been demonized by 
historians throughout most of history up until now. And this book, as we 
understand it, is something of a corrective to that. Can you briefly explain 
some of the things you try to correct on the historical record about 
Jean-Jacques Dessalines?

Berthony Dupont: It is difficult to say it now because everything they say 
about him has to be corrected. Every single word, the way they present him, 
needs to be corrected. It's not only.... They accuse him of killing the whites, 
and they accuse him also of plotting with [the commander of French forces 
General Charles] Leclerc to arrest his friend [the governor general of St. 
Domingue] Toussaint [Louverture], he plotted with Leclerc to arrest 
[Toussaint's nephew and rebel leader General Charles] Belair. They accuse him 
of a lot of things. Not only that, a lot of things. They even say he is not the 
founder of the revolution, he is not part of the revolution.

Roger Leduc: Yes, so you have this, you just alluded to, you have this always 
putting him down for his, I would say, brutishness. The man was a bloody guy. 
He's a military genius, but at the same time, he's a man who killed thousands 
of people without any remorse. This is the kind of image they give to him. And 
also they give him... They even go so far as to give him the responsibility of 
Haiti's downfall, because he committed this horrible crime of killing the 
whites, so that's what Haiti has been paying for. But there is also this other 
thing about him not being that intelligent, that he was a brute. He just acted 
on emotions and feelings. There was no thinking behind what he was doing.

Berthony Dupont: Definitely. That is from C.L.R. James, the writer of "The 
Black Jacobins" who said that about him. But one of the problems about 
Dessalines, why do they say bad things about him? It's not because they hate 
him. No! It's because they don't want the Haitian people to know about this 
revolutionary. They don't want the people to really learn what Dessalines was. 
They don't want the people to fight, to see him as a model, as a symbol. And 
that's why, two years ago, while we were celebrating our 200 years of 
independence, some people were against that, and they even invited the French 
and the Yankees to come back to the country and occupy Haiti again. These are 
the same people who killed Dessalines in 1806, they are still there in 2006 in 
power.

Roger Leduc: So the fight that Dessalines was waging in 1803 to give us our 
liberation, the fight is still here with us today. And we see also that, not 
only is it the same fight, but it's the same enemies, it's the usual suspects, 
especially France and the United States.

Berthony Dupont: Definitely.

Roger Leduc: So the coup d'état that we just lived through against 
Jean-Bertrand Aristide comes in the same trajectory of putting down any 
revolutionary popular movement in Haiti. Anytime the masses want to come to the 
forefront of the political life of Haiti, France and the United States at this 
time will be there to make a "correction," and make sure that the Haitian 
people are left on the wayside.

Berthony Dupont: It's not the masses in Haiti. The masses in Haiti, they know 
about Dessalines. They love Dessalines. But when we talk about the bourgeoisie, 
the elite, the intellectual elite in Haiti [they have a problem with 
Dessalines]... But not the masses. They really appreciate what Dessalines did 
for them. They like Haiti. That's why in Haiti we have the popular masses 
resisting against what's going on now. And that's why right now what you see in 
Haiti is that they are commemorating his death, his assassination. But we have 
to be clear about that. It's not all Haitians who didn't like Dessalines.

Kim Ives: And we are speaking with Berthony Dupont, author of "Jean-Jacques 
Dessalines: Itinerary of a Revolutionary," a new book put out by L'Harmattan 
press which will be presented tomorrow, October 15 at 4 p.m. at the St. Jerome 
Church auditorium at 1886 Nostrand Avenue, between Newkirk and Foster, in 
Brooklyn. Berthony, we don't have much longer, but can you briefly give one 
example of a myth about Dessalines....

Berthony Dupont: Can you repeat the question, because I am doing a book-signing 
in Connecticut and there is a lot of noise here right now. I can't hear you 
very well.

Kim Ives: The question is: can you give us one example of a myth that people 
have been told that you undo in your book., one myth, one lie about Dessalines 
that you correct? Just one.

Berthony Dupont: One lie is from [editor of Le Matin and prominent 
intellectual] Claude Mo se, who is right now responsible for commemorating the 
bicentennial of Dessalines' death in Haiti. He said that Dessalines was not a 
revolutionary. Dessalines, even though he participated in the Haitian 
revolution, but he didn't do anything. And also what he said about the 
revolution, about the Africans, that's not true. This is a big lie.
And when Mo se says that, he's not talking for himself, he's talking for the 
class he represented, he's talking for the bourgeoisie, and he's saying what 
others have said in the Haitian bourgeoisie. They want to kill Dessalines. They 
killed him with their arms and they are trying to kill him also with their 
mouth.

Kim Ives: To kill the idea, to kill the spirit of Dessalines as well. Berthony, 
we want to thank you for joining us. We realize that you are in the middle of a 
book signing and you will be traveling around to different parts of the 
Northeast in the next few weeks to release the book...

Berthony Dupont: Thank you for having me.