Message for the nation!

NOU PAP DÒMI

The Solution to the Crisis is Rupture

(English translation of statement originally in Creole)

NOUPAPDÒMI* sends greetings to the press and to all Haitians everywhere. In the most difficult moments, NOUPAPDÒMI always stands with the Haitian people to demand justice and our right to LIVE. On the eve of the end of the presidential term, which expires on February 7, 2021, NOUPAPDÒMI calls upon the population to wake up, so as not to allow political profiteers, civil society profiteers who collude with certain actors in the international community who are only concerned with the state of their own affairs, to lock the door to the rupture, the clean break, that we are seeking.

NOUPAPDÒMI has called for Jovenel Moïse’s resignation as leader of the country since the beginning of 2019, after the Cour des Comptes (Court of Audit) released its first report on the management of the PetroCaribe funds, which showed his involvement in the wasteful mishandling of money that was intended to help the population in terms of development.

Faced with a scandal of such scale, in addition to the President’s prior involvement in crooked dealings that emerged from UCREF’s investigation during his candidacy, we demanded, on the basis of ethics and public morals, that Jovenel Moïse resign and turn himself over to the justice authorities, as should be done in those circumstances.

Since the end of 2019, NOUPAPDÒMI has consistently warned of the growing danger it would pose to us if an individual with all these accusations against him, in addition to his poor governance, were to rule the country alone, by decree, with unlimited authority, as he has since January 2020, when the constitutional terms of the parliamentary representatives and some senators expired.

Today, on the eve of February 7, we have reached a new chapter in the crisis that has gripped the country since July 6, 7, and 8 2018. The same article that justified the end of the senators’ terms also justifies the end of the presidential term. The President should leave power, just like the senators. It’s the law! There’s not one law for the rest of the country and another law for the President. The same stick that beats the black dog beats the white dog, too.

We salute all the efforts of civil society actors and political actors to reach an agreement on the country’s government after the presidential term ends. It is we, the determined citizens, who will take charge of the country’s destiny, without letting crises make us mortgage the country’s future. They don’t let the fox guard the henhouse. We’ve already tried that, and we’ve seen what happens.

More than one year ago, NOUPAPDÒMI shared its Demands for the Transitional Government of Rupture, which it called the “4R Transition”: Rupture, Redress, Reorientation, and Rigor. We are glad to see the idea of RUPTURE in nearly all documents on the country’s governance after the end of the president’s term. That shows that there is a consensus for us to begin doing something new for the country. We are not condemned to live in corruption, impunity, social injustice, chaos, and underdevelopment. We’ve lost too much time already. Change must start now. 

People of Haiti, NOUPAPDÒMI invites you to assemble, women, men, all Haitians, wherever you are in the world, your eyes must be trained upon your country at this moment.Your eyes should be trained upon the future of the nation, which is in the hands of politicans who are ready to walk through blood to remain in power, while others are ready to have their turn, whether to take the lead or to block the path of people and initiatives that represent the true interests of the country.

NOUPAPDÒMI does not recognize the legitimacy of the rest of the senators in parliament, nor some civil society actors as well as some politicians who were involved in all the wasteful negotiations and initiatives that got us into this crisis, to organize any dialogue or play any role in the country’s governance after the presidential term ends. There will be a RUPTURE from all the people, all the groups that never worked for the well-being of the people, who are up to their elbows in everything that got us into this state of turmoil today.

NOUPAPDÒMI believes that the time has come for us to unify as a great national surge of honest, trustworthy people, to set the country right and protect the lives of its citizens. The time has come for a new group of people to decide to stand up, come together, and organize to offer the country another political possibility. NOUPAPDÒMI has decided to work tirelessly to contribute to this new political possibility, to build the country we want as we continue to fight and denounce all that which we never want to see again in our country.

THE TIME FOR RUPTURE HAS COME. We won’t keep recycling the same old practices, nor the same people who abandoned us to these crises. Old alliances done in secret, fraudulent elections, arbitrary decisions made without the people’s knowledge, one-person organizations that pretend to speak on behalf of civil society – at the moment of rupture, no one will be able to continue seizing political power to serve their own petty interests.

The Haitian people are not asleep !

Let us work together to get the country past this impasse!  

NOUPAPDÒMI!

*We are not sleeping.