On November 19, while in Rio de Janeiro to deliver a presentation at the Humanity Summit, Dr. Marky Jean-Pierre visited the Valongo Wharf, a site that recalls the suffering of human beings brought from Africa. At the same time, French President Emmanuel Macron was also visiting the site. Given the dire situation in Haiti, where the population is enduring terror and young people’s education is in peril, Marky Jean-Pierre, a professor at the University of the Bahamas, took the opportunity to address President Macron, mindful of the shared history between France and Haiti.
The President responded. His reply to Dr. Marky Jean-Pierre, heard by witnesses during the brief exchange, was later reported to the press and has since sparked abundant commentary in various media outlets, particularly in France, Haiti, and the Haitian diaspora. While we acknowledge the media attention surrounding the President’s remarks, we note that the core question to which the President responded during this brief interaction with Professor Jean-Pierre has not been reported by that same international press.
First, it is essential to highlight that the individual who posed the question to the President is not only a university professor but also a researcher and development agent affiliated with the organization Rive – Fondasyon Onè pou Ayiti, of which he is the founder and president.
As its name suggests, this organization incorporates Haiti's colonial history into its fieldwork. It highlights several key challenges:
- Education is at an extremely low level, and the future of young people is uncertain.
- Young people in rural areas have limited or no access to education.
- Consequently, parents are often forced to send their children to cities to improve their chances of attending school or finding means of survival.
- Many of these young people fall prey to armed violence, with UNICEF noting that over half of the armed individuals in disadvantaged neighborhoods are children.
Rive works to support Haiti’s education system, striving to establish school campuses in rural areas. Its work began four years ago in a rural area of the Lascahobas district in the Central Department. The organization’s pilot school, which provides free education to 250 students, continues to grow as its fundraising efforts succeed.
It is on the basis of Rive’s work in Haiti, its understanding of the country’s dire circumstances, and the role of the international community in Haiti’s plight that Dr. Marky Jean-Pierre addressed President Macron. The core question concerned the future of Haitian children. Professor Jean-Pierre questioned the French President as one of the most prominent figures of the international community, seeking an answer about a chaotic situation where bullets and firearms are replacing textbooks.
Through this press release, voiced by Professor Marky Jean-Pierre, Rive – Fondasyon Onè pou Ayiti seeks to pose several questions to the international community, such as:
- Why does the international community watch almost silently as the Haitian people suffer?
- Why does it stand by, practically with arms crossed, as the Haitian nation is destroyed?
- Why is it so deaf to the cries of children struck by bullets, students killed, the weeping of hundreds of thousands of displaced people, and the misery of a mother standing in the rain, holding the hands of her two children and balancing on her head the few belongings she managed to save, as she searches for a place to spend the night?
- Why does the international community look on as the Haitian youth is destroyed? Do they, as many Haitians believe, truly desire the annihilation of the Haitian nation? If so, why? What could they possibly gain from it?
We have heard allegations that armed violence in Haiti is driven by international sectors seeking covert access to valuable natural resources for exploitation without local benefit.
What kind of economic exploitation could justify the large-scale loss of innocent lives, the extreme suffering of annihilated families, the despair of a youth abandoned, and the widespread distress of an entire nation?
How can future generations be told that economic development was built on the blood of countless murdered children, raped women, destroyed families, and the orchestrated suffering of an entire population?
When Professor Marky Jean-Pierre posed his question to President Emmanuel Macron, he was also addressing the leaders of the world. It was a call to their humanity. Beyond the distinct voice of Professor Jean-Pierre in his question to President Macron, it was the voice of Haitian children, violated women, and desperate families crying out for help. These questions are directed at France as a whole—a nation that shares historical ties, linguistic, and cultural bonds with Haiti. It is worth remembering that Haiti depleted its meager resources to compensate French slaveowners after gaining independence through bloodshed on January 1, 1804. It is to this same France that Professor Jean-Pierre appealed, lending his voice to a suffering nation asserting its natural right to exist and live with dignity.
Beyond France, the entire international community is being questioned, including China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. By engaging in efforts to support education for children in Haiti—particularly in rural areas—and by seeking scholarships for Haitian youth to counter brain drain, Rive – Fondasyon Onè pou Ayiti, through the voice of Professor Jean-Pierre, joins those demanding that the international community take responsibility for Haiti’s crisis. This includes addressing the destruction of the agricultural sector, extreme hunger, and the inhumane treatment of displaced people forced to abandon their homes.
These questions are also posed to Haitian leaders and elites, urging them to recognize the severity of the current humanitarian crisis in Haiti, to rise to the occasion, patriotically protect their citizens, and commit to building the Haitian nation.
Marky Jean-Pierre, EdD, PhD
CEO, Rive – Fondasyon Onè pou Ayiti
www.rive.one
