L'Ombre de la Citadelle : La Crise de Confiance d'Haïti et le Long Chemin vers la Réconciliation
The Citadelle's Shadow: Haiti's Crisis of Trust and the Long Road to Reconciliation By Patrick Prézeau Stephenson * (Le Français suit) CAP-HAÏTIEN, Haiti — The Citadelle Laferrière has always been more than stone. Perched above the clouds of northern Haiti, it is the physical manifestation of a people's refusal to kneel — built by Henri Christophe after 1804 as a fortress against the return of enslavers, a monument to the audacity of formerly enslaved people who defeated the most powerful army on earth. For Haitians, especially those of the northern departments, it is sacred ground, the place where pride crystallizes into something you can touch. So when more than sixty people died there recently in circumstances still being parsed and mourned, something deeper than grief rippled through the Haitian psyche. It was as if the one place that was supposed to be inviolable — the granite proof that Haitians could protect themselves — had failed to protect them. The...
