Letter addressed to the nation from Réginald Boulos

Open letter to my Haitian brothers and sisters.

With deep bitterness I experienced the violent actions against the companies in which I am associated. These companies are the result of more than forty-two years of hard work, long nights of reflection and continuous investment; proof of my great faith in my country. First of all, I would like to express my great sympathies and solidarity towards the other commercial companies that were either robbed or burned down. These sympathies also go towards the open-air merchants whose counters were destroyed and to the personal car owners whose vehicles were damaged and all the public transport vehicle drivers who don’t have a means to earn their living now.

In all fairness, nothing can justify the destruction with such violence of the work of a man who has done only good to his community. I did not hurt anyone. I have always paid my taxes regularly. My profession as doctor and my initiatives as a responsible entrepreneur, with strong civic and humanistic convictions, have led me to build hospitals, health centers, schools for the most vulnerable people among us. Those destructive actions done by those unhappy crowds are the worst of the injustices done to a man who has spent his entire life creating jobs and who now employs more than 2000 Haitian brothers and sisters. How many more years of hard work will it take me to rebuild and to repair these damages. God only knows exactly. However, I trust that, by the intercession and super-power of the most High, I will overcome my challenges and stand up back in my feet with dignity; though it is painful and sorrowful.

These acts of destruction of unheard-violence have obviously shaken me. Have the intellectual minds behind such acts and the implementers thought for a moment of their disastrous and painful consequences in the lives of these young workers, these devoted professionals, those mothers and fathers who were looking to earn their living or their daily bread in dignity through hard and the sweat of their brow? They are now several hundreds to find themselves unemployed because of these circumstances and they will only add onto the number of those who are doubting more and more of the future of the country, who worry about their tomorrow and that of their children and who are contemplating exile to more welcoming and prosperous lands despite the fact that they are viscerally attached to their homeland. It is 673 Delimart direct employees who are now unemployed and hundreds of others, depending on the activity of our local suppliers, who find themselves out there without income in an already precarious economic and social context. It is about a whole social ecosystem made up of small merchants of diverse items, fixed and mobile vendors of hot meals, craftsmen and ingenious edible goods makers from the capital and the province- all of these were gathered around the Delimart. Several entire households were supported by the sustainable and punctual business relationships that were established between the economic agents of such a network. It was with sadness and tears in my eyes that I witnessed in one day the collapse, done by the malicious action of contracted criminals, of this whole chain of the mutually dependent commercial relationships which are vital for the national economy.

Dear compatriots, it is time to ask ourselves calmly and seriously what kind of Haiti we want. Things must change in the sense of good in our country. We will need to take into account the legitimate demand of well-being coming from the poor and marginalized categories of our people. Due to the stagnation of the economy, political instability and social crises of all kinds, the so-called middle classes are increasingly exposed to this precariousness which seems to spare only some small pockets of wealth. When the social ladder does not work any longer, and many segments of the society are living in the perpetual anguish of an improbable social mobility, we can get to experience lots of frustrations along with unrest and mob periodical street violence to which our country is so accustomed.

During the looting or the acts of robbery in the supermarkets on Saturday, July 7, there were among the professional scammers on mission, the people with very humble conditions, people who were hungry and actually looking for food the same day, or the next. The judiciary has got to spare these tormented people from unsustainable miseries and crack down with the utmost rigor against professional criminals, intellectual minds and misguided political operators and small groups, and against the actors and economic interest groups that have sponsored and financed these targeted stripping operations. The misery of the humble cannot or should not be used as a pretext for companies of political revenge or cover for mafia acts of economic vendetta. The pathological thirst for the power for some is a roadblock or a brake on consolidation of democracy in Haiti. Likewise, the greedy appetite of others for more ill-gotten wealth poses a threat to good governance, healthy private entrepreneurial investment and political and social stability.

I am Réginald Boulos, a full Haitian citizen and descendent of Lebanese immigrants who arrived in Haiti in the middle of the 19th century. I will remain myself, whole and integral, in my identity, my social commitments and my convictions. While, legitimately, we criticize Donald Trump’s racist attitude towards immigrants, here I am, funny, victim, in my own country, of racist actions directed against Haitians from the Middle East and who are known to be by the great majority of them as hard and honest workers. They create sustainable jobs for many people and pay their tax fees as responsible citizens. I have not yet decided what to do with this surge of hate with painful consequences for me as well as for hundreds affected. I prefer to wait for the return to more serenity. One of the options available for me is to seek for my children a more lenient land, a country more hospitable to immigrants. I would obviously like to prevent my children from having to re-live this hellish experience. Love and attachment to the motherland make such a dramatic choice difficult to consider.

I especially intend to remain myself in my bias for the promotion of private entrepreneurship in Haiti, the creation of large-scale jobs. I want to continue to support Middle-class entrepreneurs in building viable and prosperous businesses. Social solidarity is essential to me and should impose itself to the most privileged among us as an essential human choice. I will never leave my progressive struggle for a Haiti of wealth creation, of social justice and prosperity. A modern Haiti where the rule of law reigns et where everyone works jointly and severally for the protection of life and property in a healthy and peaceful community.

Dr. Réginald Boulos,
Haitian Citizen