IJDH Co-Sponsors and Joins Event with Former Haitian First Lady Mildred Aristide
On October 24th, IJDH co-sponsored and joined an event hosted by the Center of Gender & Refugee Studies at the University of San Francisco Law that featured former First Lady of Haiti Mildred Aristide. Mme Aristide discussed the mission and activities of the University of the Dr. Aristide Foundation (UniFA), which serves to educate and empower the next generation of Haitian leaders, contextualizing those efforts in a broader conversation regarding Haitian sovereignty and democracy. Mme Aristide traced the long history of exploitation and abuse perpetrated against Haiti by international actors, including enslavement, the “independence debt” imposed by France, and the internationally-fomented coup against her husband, former President Aristide, drawing a through line to concerns regarding last month’s UN authorization of a foreign intervention in Haiti. Against these and other challenges in Haiti, Mme Aristide emphasized the importance of remaining hopeful and challenging traditional narratives, stating that “… it is [not] the case that the only conversation worth having about Haiti today is whether or not to send foreign troops. The focus on this, to the exclusion of everything else that can be done to combat insecurity now…is wrong. It limits our capacity to think broadly, creatively, and humanely about what to do in the face of admittedly very complex problems.”
IJDH Senior Staff Attorney Sasha Filippova, who participated in the discussion, emphasized the need for respecting Haitian self-determination and agency in responding to the present crisis, reflecting that “UniFA stands as th[e] answer to the implicit question of the international community in saying they need to come rescue Haiti: ‘what would Haitians do if they stopped interfering?’ UniFA is what Haitians [would] do.”
For that reason, IJDH and many others in Haiti and the Haitian diaspora have been calling on the international community to stop propping up the set of actors responsible for Haiti’s crisis and to respect Haitian sovereignty in charting a democratic transition forward.
The event was co-sponsored by the following organizations: The Haiti Justice Partnership, the Human Rights & International Law Organization, Haitian Bridge Alliance, UCLAS, the CDO, the Pro Bono Program, the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, and IJDH.