Over the years, Haiti has become increasingly ungovernable and Moïse’s presidency was disputed. When Aristide arrived in Jamaica, then Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue cut diplomatic ties with Jamaica, which was first to Haiti’s aid when the massive earthquake hit in 2010. I am the last person to go in the plane,” she shared. “I told the security to tell Mr Patterson that I am on the top deck of the steps and I am going to step through the door. She was able to brief the prime minister’s security team. She had a phone with a very strong signal, because even though I was given a phone to call Prime Minister Patterson to let him know when I was on the plane and departing, the signal just wasn’t working well,” Hay-Webster explained. Her husband, Sidney Williams, was also there, and Randall Williams from Trans Africa, and Amy Goodman from Democracy Today. “It was really between me and Maxine Waters who were dealing with issues at the time. She thought back on how difficult it was to communicate her success in retrieving him. The former member of parliament remembered standing her ground and advising them that they did not want a diplomatic incident, invoking the name of United States General Colin Powell, who was secretary of states, and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.īozize was not pleased but relented in releasing Aristide. She continued, “Mr Aristide squeezed my hand and said ‘Go easy, my sister, go easy’.” I told them I do not believe that I am in a chicken market if I have a letter like this.” I read from the letter Mr Patterson wrote as chairman of CARICOM. May I read it, please?’ I proceeded to read without permission. “I got vexed with his ‘chicken market’ comment and I straightened my back and cleared my throat, and said ‘If I might remind you, I have a letter here. I was closest to Bozize because, remember, I was head of the CARICOM delegation,” Hay-Webster recounted. I looked at Maxine Waters, and looked at the president (Aristide) who was sitting to my right. “I sat up in my seat and look up at them and said to myself, ‘hold on, is who dem a chat to’. She straightened her back, took off her spectacles and stared down then Central African Republic President Francois Bozize. On arrival in the country, she recalled staring down pot-bellied generals and glared at a president who described her explanation about her reasons for arriving there as bartering in a “chicken market”. Remembering the 72 hours between leaving and returning, she left Jamaica for Miami, where she met with United States representative Maxine Waters, whose husband’s private jet was the mode of transportation. Patterson, she said, did not know of her Haitian connection, but she told The Sunday Gleaner her mother was Haitian, and she has siblings who are Haitians. On that fateful day in 2004, with a day’s notice, Hay-Webster found herself the region’s emissary to the landlocked African country to fetch Aristide. Sign up for The Gleaner’s morning and evening newsletters.
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Patterson had invited Haiti to join the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in 1997 and in July 2002 it became a full member. Patterson earned the ire of several countries, including the United States, for offering the ousted Aristide and his family a respite at the government’s expense in Jamaica. The lives of suffering Haitians will only be harder,” she stated.įollowing his overthrow, Aristide was dumped in the Central African Republic – one of the poorest countries in the world and with uncanny similarities to Haiti, the poorest and most unstable in this hemisphere. “How many coups have Haiti had? About 40? I cannot see how Moïse’s assassination will do the country any good. In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner last week, she said the assassination of President Moïse is another sad reminder of a country that has been historically plagued with internal and external destabilisation. When news broke Wednesday that Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, it was another poignant moment for former parliamentarian Sharon Hay-Webster, who recounted her experience in 2004 when she was charged with the responsibility of bringing ousted Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide to Jamaica.