And in other news from Haiti, Patrick Elie, longtime pro-democracy activist and Haiti’s former secretary of state for public security under Aristide, has died at the age of 66. In 2011, he spoke to Democracy Now! from Port-au-Prince on the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake.
Patrick Elie: “So, it’s going to take time, but I do believe that the earthquake is also a signal for us to build Haitian democracy on sound foundations, which means the neighborhood committees, the grassroot organization, instead of trying to build a democracy from the top down. That’s how we built our houses in Port-au-Prince, and you saw what happened.”
Patrick Elie died of internal bleeding at a hospital in Port-au-Prince on Friday. He was 66.