We cannot continue to ask this government to give security to people who are dreaming of freedom, democracy, and progress, although, right now, there are people who have this same dream and who are in fact part of the current government. But this government that they are in is a skimmed-off government. It is a state that practically does not have any means to do this. It is a state where there are still a lot of people who never shared any dream of freedom, democracy, and progress for the Haitian people.
Today, more than ever, for all the people who say that they want to fight and are still fighting in the country for this dream for which our brother Jacques Roche has given his life, it is our duty to organize ourselves more than ever to assure our own security. How can we ask a state that has never defended the national interest, a skimmed-off state, a state that is totally put on probation— by the way, I am being kind to them when I say this—a state that is totally under foreign control, to ensure our security? As our colleague Nancy Roc said, the $550-million MINUSTAH (U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti) did not manage to ensure our security nor save the life of our colleague Jacques Roche.
Today, we need to draw a lesson from all this. The lesson that must be drawn is that this fight that Roche was fighting, we will have to organize ourselves to win it because it is our battle.
I have never known a time when we were secure in Haiti. I have never known that the dream of security, freedom, and progress was safe in Haiti. Today, the situation has gotten worse, a lot worse. But I would ask all of you here today to draw a lesson from what happened to Jacques and to think things over.
We need to stop asking the international community to give us security. The international community is not here for us. It is here to defend its own interests. We need to stop asking the government to give us security because even the members of this government that are of good will, by the way, are not able to assure their own security. Therefore, it is our duty to organize our fight just as it is our duty to win this fight, which was also Jacques Roche’s fight.