PATRICE FLORVILUS

37, attorney

We first met with Patrice in his busy law office in downtown Port-au-Prince on Rue Lamartiniere. Across the street looms the large statue of Jean-Jacques Dessalines—one of the pivotal and controversial heroes of the Haitian Revolution—on a rearing stallion. Patrice’s time was tightly scheduled. Still, in our brief conversation, Patrice covered a considerable amount of ground. A passionate believer in defending human rights, Patrice told us of his work representing the poor, the violent political climate in Haiti since the time of his birth, and the prospects his country faces since the earthquake.

We were fortunate enough to speak with Patrice again in 2015 after he and his family, for safety reasons, had fled Port-au-Prince for Montreal. In Canada, Patrice was happy he was able to raise his growing family in safety but also despondent to be so far removed from his calling as a lawyer and defender of the oppressed. Patrice has found work in a factory in Montreal in order to help support his wife and children. For the second interview, lacking a Kreyol or French translator, we spoke in Spanish, a language Patrice speaks fluently.

I have a peasant background. I was born in a village called La Réserve on March 17, 1978. The village is close to the town of Jean-Rabel.¹ My mother used to buy and sell things. She was also a farmer with my father. I was the third child in a family of seven. We would go with our parents to work the farm, where we’d plant corn and rice.

When I was born, there was a school in our village, but it only offered a few grades. I spent two years in primary school in La Réserve, and then I went to Jean-Rabel to finish primary school. During the summer, I returned to the village, and that’s when the massacre occurred. It was July 23, 1987. You can read about it. People were killed all over the area. On that day, the bourgeoisie, the elite, and the peasants that worked for them killed many peasants and children of peasants.

My uncle lived on one side of the village, and my grandmother and father lived on the other side. As the massacre began, children whose parents were part of the peasant movement tried to find a place to hide. I was leaving my uncle’s house to go to my father’s house when I saw the mob coming. I ran, but they caught me. They said I was the son of my uncle, who was the local chief of the peasant movement. They tied me up because they thought that I was my cousin—Frederic Joseph. That’s when they lined us up. There were eleven of us children. They cut the heads off of ten of us. I was the only one they didn’t cut. My father’s friend was among the people that were cutting off heads. Yes, my father’s friend was a criminal. A group of peasants were hired to kill another group of peasants, and he was one of them. But he didn’t kill me. I was spared. I was a child. We were all children.

After that, my family went into hiding. We stayed in a big cave in the mountains for about seven days, because we feared that the murderers might come back to the village. My uncle and my cousin dressed like women and ran away to Port-au-Prince. After the seven days, my family and I snuck down the mountain. Even then, there was still blood in the river. Nicol Poitevien, one of the men who claimed responsibility, said that they killed 1,042 communists during the Jean-Rabel massacre.²

To this day no one is in prison as a result of what happened. I’ve grown up with these memories. Why did they want to kill the children of the peasants? Why wasn’t there any system of justice to protect the people?

WAS IT WORTH IT TO COME HERE EVERY YEAR AND CRY?

We didn’t leave Jean-Rabel only because of the massacre. We left because there weren’t good schools in the area. My mother was illiterate. She didn’t know how to read or write. But even after the massacre, even though she was illiterate, she still wanted her children to make it to school. So we moved to the Artibonite Valley, to Gonaïves.³

When I was fourteen, I remember going to a death celebration party.⁴ When I got to the graveyard, I came across some priests who had come to the graveyard to remember the children who were murdered during the dictatorship. I started to speak, saying that we were here to remember our friends and family, but we haven’t had any justice yet. Was it worth it to come here every year to cry? Or should we stand up and fight for justice? People started to yell, “Justice! Justice!” That’s when we began marching in the streets and calling for a strike.

After that, I realized that there were other young people in Gonaïves that cared about the same issues. We were young but engaged, and we got together to try and solve problems in the neighborhoods. If there was no electricity, we looked for ways to pressure the government to get it back. We would go out to the countryside and work in the grassroots movements. I’d show the peasants how to read and write. We decided that the peasants needed to know how to read and write in order to better understand their reality and then to act to transform that reality. We held classes for children who didn’t get the chance to finish school.

We also decided to build a community radio station to spread our movement. We called it Radio Salt, because salt is a key ingredient in cooking. In order to prepare the good food of transformation and liberation, there needs to be salt.

For a couple of years during high school, I worked with a pastor doing social work. He’d noticed me studying in the streets. I had to be outside to study, because we didn’t have electricity in the house and had to go out in search of a lighted place to read at night. At eighteen, I finished high school. I was wondering, Should I go to the law school in Gonaïves or go to Port-au-Prince? While I was trying to decide, this pastor invited me to work in a hospital in Port-au-Prince.

I remember driving into Port au Prince from the north and it was night, and from a distance it was, wow, all these lights, with the lights of the rich people. But as we drove into the city, I could see how people had to sleep on the ground in their huts and saw that it was like other places in Haiti.

So without any background in administration, I was given a job as a hospital administrator. I didn’t last very long at the hospital, because I understood that wasn’t where I was supposed to be. They were just making money off the people who they were supposed to be providing care to. Too many people were dying. There weren’t enough qualified staff working there.

I decided to go into teaching, and received a post at a primary school in Cité Soleil.⁵ They paid 12.5 gouds an hour.⁶ I taught at a recently opened public high school too, though I wasn’t getting paid there. And finally, I became the director of youth in a Seventh-day Adventist Church, which also wasn’t a paying job.

I had many housing problems in Cité Soleil. I moved to four different houses in one year. In all these houses, when they realized that I didn’t have money to pay, they kicked me out. But then I had a friend in Cité Soleil who allowed me to stay at his mother’s place in the housing projects. While I was living in that place, I continued to go to the university and study, and I eventually became a lawyer. My mother died the same year I graduated. Just a few months before, I received my law diploma.

TODAY, THAT GIRL IS MY WIFE

Now this is the part of my history that is very important, because in that house in Cité Soleil, there was an old lady who didn’t even have a cooking pot. She used a small can to boil the food for us to eat. She had grandchildren who lived with her as well. When I didn’t have money to go to school, they would give me some money, some small amount of money. A little girl, someone else’s child, used to live in the house too. The girl used to wash clothes and iron for me. I began to understand that she loved me, but she was too little. I decided that I didn’t want to lose the trust that the family had put in me, so I left the house. I went to Delmas, to a group of friends from Jean-Rabel who had a house.⁷

Today, that girl is my wife, Guilaine Augustin. We married in 2006. She was nineteen, and I was twenty-seven. When we got married, she became pregnant and couldn’t go to school. After she had the baby, I encouraged her to go back to school. She studied communication and administration and graduated university with a degree in administration.

GIVING THEM A FAIR PLACE TO TEACH

I studied and taught. Even as a lawyer, I still wanted to teach. So I studied in the Human Sciences and Social Services programs at the State University of Haiti and began working in a center for research in social economic development. During this time I took a position as the director of the Department of Environment for the Ministry of Environment in the Artibonite Valley. As part of my job I attempted to organize local committees on the environment and health like I had done in Gonaïves earlier. But there was corruption I couldn’t change. And so I left that post after only six months.

After this bad experience in government, I began working for a private organization that promotes the right to education. I thought that there was a place for me in that area, fighting for the right to education—not only in Haiti but also throughout the world. Eighteen countries were a part of the network. Because of the work I was doing in that network, I went to Bamako, in Mali, for three months, to study education. When I came back from Africa, I was so inspired I started thinking of founding a school for human rights in Haiti.

And that’s when January 12 happened, and everything changed, including the direction my life would take. I became an advocate for the displaced. I began working with Mario Joseph and the B.A.I.⁸ I asked if I could work with the people in the tent cities because most of the lawyers didn’t want to work in the tent cities. I was helping the displaced in partnership with other organizations. I started a committee against expulsions. You see, when the initial shock of the earthquake was over, many entities—the government, private landowners, et cetera—began trying to push poor people out of the tent cities created in the aftermath. For instance, on the square at the Airport Road, the mayor of Delmas came with police and took people’s tents and then threw them away.⁹

After my wife finished school, the two of us decided to follow my dream and create our own human rights organization. We founded the Defense of the Oppressed¹⁰ with the mission of providing lawyers to defend the poor and illiterate in the tent cities suffering displacement as a result of January 12. We looked all over Haiti to find other lawyers to embrace this cause. The fact is that we didn’t find many. There’s Mario Joseph, of course, and the B.A.I. But where are all the other lawyers?

Here’s the situation: Lawyers are on the side of those with money. If you don’t have money, you don’t find justice. The people who have money can buy the judges. They can buy the public attorneys. They can buy the police. We work with a team of activists and lawyers who believe that they should be on the side of those that are suffering, not the people with money.

So we made do without enough lawyers. Our program began training people living in the tent cities directly. We taught them about the rights of the land, the right to adequate housing. We call these people “popular jurists.” Popular jurists walk directly into these tent cities. When the lawyers are not there, they will start working. These jurists gather all the evidence and pass it on to attorneys who use the information to file cases. In this way we work together to prevent the authorities from kicking people out before giving them a fair place to live.

Our network is pressing the government to provide a decent program of housing for the people. We try to be there for them when the justice system is not fair, when the owner of the lands come to push them away, when they don’t have anywhere else to go.

I WANT TO TAKE YOU BACK IN TIME, BACK TO THE MASSACRE

So I want to take you back in time, back to the massacre at Jean-Rabel. They arrested some of the murderers in the first Aristide administration, but when the coup came, they all got released.¹¹

A few years back, I went to one of the massacre planners’ store. No one recognized me because I had left the area when I was a child. I wanted to see how he was living. I bought something just so I could see him face to face. He was living free and comfortable. I felt so frustrated. This was a government that came from the working class, but unfortunately Aristide didn’t bring justice to the victims of Jean-Rabel. When I visited, everything that happened on June 23, 1987—all the murders—came back into my head. The reality I found is they continue to dominate.

Back then it was all about the communists.¹² The elite said that the peasants wanted to kill people and take their property. Today the language is still about class. Even if the bourgeois no longer specifically use the word communist, peasants are still frequently accused of wanting to take everything for themselves.

Other people in Jean-Rabel, however, haven’t forgotten what happened there. I found that a number of people were still seeking education and a better life for peasants. So with D.O.P., we opened a free workshop and encouraged the students to sign up so they might help peasants who were victims of the massacre at Jean-Rabel. As you might imagine, memories of my own experience have been recovered as a result of this work. Our intent is to raise the level of awareness. People need to understand that they have a right to justice.

There are signs of hope. Frederic Joseph, the boy I was mistaken for in the massacre, is alive and well and currently a justice of the peace. He is a judge and I’m a lawyer! One day we hope to judge the criminals responsible for the massacre in our home place.

THERE WAS A CRIMINAL CASE

Not too long ago, a man that I was representing died in the hands of police officers. He was killed for defending his right to live on land, which was close to the police station in Delmas 33. I filed a case against the police. At that time I happened to be friends with the Delmas chief of police. He asked me to enter into negotiations with him. But this was a criminal case. I told him, we must continue the legal process. So I took the case before the judge, who was also my friend. In Port-au-Prince, everybody in the law knows everybody else in the law. The judge didn’t understand my reply. He wanted me to continue trying to negotiate a settlement with the police.

So I sued the judge. I took the case before a special commission which addresses judges’ discipline in the country. Then a friend of his called me and asked, “Why did you do that?” He said, “You know the judge and the judge knows you.” I said, “Because he knows me, he should not have requested negotiation. He should have known that I wouldn’t accept it.” I was starting to feel the pressure from the authorities to back off, to not fight so hard on behalf of my clients. I was gaining a reputation, becoming known as an attorney who wouldn’t back down.

Then a customer at my wife’s restaurant¹³ was murdered one step out of the entrance. The man looked like me, almost the same height. I used to go to my wife’s restaurant every night after I left the office and have some beers. The murder happened at the same time as I normally came in. I had to ask myself, was that a message to me or not? Soon after that, I decided to move to another neighborhood. And so we moved houses and sold the restaurant. That was hard. The restaurant was in Santo near a busy street. We had many customers. It was a big part of our family income. My wife wanted to find another place to start up a new business. Without a business it would be very difficult to live because I didn’t make a lot of money at my job. We moved to Delmas, but we didn’t have any money to rent a house. An American association supportive of our work, the American Jewish World Service, helped us find another home.¹⁴ A.J.W.S. wanted me and my family to be as safe as possible. They provided us with protection. My son could never go to school on his own, so we had someone with us all the time.

Then one day I was in the office and I saw a lot of cars, around ten of them, out front. That was shocking. They were from the MINUSTAH.¹⁵ My guard went to ask why they were there. They didn’t want to explain. When I called someone from MINUSTAH, he told me not to worry. He told me that they heard on the news that I was at risk so they wanted to support the police in protecting me. I thanked him for his support but said he must move the men.

My wife was the most afraid. She never wanted me to go with a bodyguard because she thought that would decrease my safety. She said, if somebody is always accompanied by a bodyguard in Haiti, it means he has a lot of money. And everybody knows that even accompanied by a guard, they can still easily kill you if they wish. This was not a way to live, to have someone with you at all times, when you go to court, go home, or wherever. To be honest, I felt like I was in jail. I’m not a president, like Obama! When I went to court, there was always somebody standing at the door, for security.

To make matters worse, my wife was pregnant, and her pregnancy was very complicated during the last months. Her doctor was concerned about her level of stress. Then I received threats from the police. A police car started following me when I left the office or my house. It was like being hunted all the time. The last thing I wanted to do was leave my work, but for the sake of my family I arranged for us to take temporary refuge in Canada.

HOW COULD I STAND THERE AND JUST KEEP TALKING?

When we arrived in Montreal I planned to return to Haiti in three months, but we had a new baby eleven days after our arrival. Leaving my wife alone with the child would have been irresponsible. We had nobody around like family; no mother, no father, no brother, no sister. So I decided to stay in Canada longer. I also started to study international law at the Université de Montréal.

We had to find a house fast, because we were living in a friend’s house and we didn’t have enough space. In addition to my schooling, I knew I had to find any work whatsoever to support the family. I found a job thanks to a friend’s advice. I got the minimum wage, which is like $10 an hour. Taking that was so hard because I wasn’t going to be working as a lawyer. But I had no choice. Within two months, we had already accumulated a very large debt. Our first electricity bill that winter in Canada was enormous! The landlord didn’t put insulation in the house, and we didn’t know better because it was the first time we were in a country with such a harsh winter.

I currently work in a factory that builds machines. I have an extra workload every day, but I earn a lower wage than other workers. I believe I have the lowest wage in the factory. The others make $20 an hour or even $18. I make $14. I’m also the only black man there. I think it’s a matter of discrimination. I work at the management level now, but I still don’t get a fair wage. I often miss Haiti because this experience is so denigrating.

To take part in the labor market here, my wife studied to be a hairstylist. When we first arrived, she had to choose between college and technical school. She looked for a job for a long time, and then she finally found one in a large hairstyling company where she’s working now. She’s also working for the minimum wage because, at the moment, she’s a hairdresser’s assistant.

From here, my wife and I try to keep D.O.P. going, but it’s not the same. I speak with colleagues regularly about our caseload and we meet on the phone to discuss strategy. But, as time has moved on the contact has become more distant. It’s difficult to be part of the organization when I’m so far away and working a factory job.

In May 2014, I went back to Haiti. As part of that trip, I returned to Cité Soleil for the celebration of a D.O.P. project there. Cité Soleil is where I had lived and worked, and of course it’s where I got to know my wife. Going back there was one of the most emotional moments in my life. On the other hand, I felt very frustrated because things are so bad there now people only want food to eat. Food. The most basic human right. There I was talking about other human rights, when in reality there are many children who just need money to buy some food. People needed to eat. How could I stand there and just keep talking?

And then I had to go back to my family in Canada. It’s hard. It’s hard because many people in Haiti don’t understand. They say, “Why don’t you come back? Yes, there are threats, danger, but this is your work, this is Haiti.” You know, in leftist activist circles in Haiti, responsibility toward family hasn’t always been a top priority. Many great people, great fighters, haven’t been there for their kids. And this is so difficult for me. It feels like I have to choose between my wife and family and my work. But with two young children in a new country, I knew that my wife and I needed to be together. At first, with a newborn, she couldn’t work. Now she works. So in the morning I have to rush to drop the kids off at day care and pick them up at the end of my shift. I’m also studying to get an international law degree. I’ve had to start everything from scratch here.

I listen to the radio or TV and keep up with what’s going on in Haiti. I also hear about the many problems at the D.O.P. office—many problems that I cannot fix because I’m not there. Funders know that I’m not in the country. They don’t say that they won’t support us; they say, you’re in Canada and it is not the same. For example, some international organizations were in charge of paying rent for our office. Now they say they can’t pay, and the deadline is right around the corner. As for myself, I don’t have a single penny. The strange thing is that if I were in Haiti it would be easier to get the money together. Sometimes, here, I feel like I’m already dead.

Every year, so many intellectuals leave Haiti—but they could be so useful to our country. If I had no family, I’d be in Haiti at this moment. I am involved with other victims of Jean Rabel and groups allied with D.O.P. We are trying to get the prosecutor to again bring cases against the killers of Jean Rabel. When I finish my education, our plan is that I’ll go to Haiti for some months, stay there, and travel back here to be with my family. But we need a lot of money to achieve that. And I’ll have a foot in Haiti and another foot here. My wife doesn’t want to go back so quickly. She doesn’t trust any of the changes in politics. When I got to Montreal I wanted to establish a new D.O.P. office here so that I could keep working on human rights. But it’s not been possible, at least not yet. Being out of Haiti, I sometimes feel like someone who is just watching.