Caribbean leader man sought in crisis
TWOTIME Haitian President Rene Preval, who died last week, aged 74, was president during Haiti’s devastating earthquake on January 12, 2010.
Mr Preval died at home in Laboule, a neighbourhood in Portau-Prince. He served as president from 1996 to 2001, and again from 2006 to 2011. He was the only president in Haitian history to have served two full presidential terms and not be jailed, exiled or killed.
An agronomist by training, Mr Preval devoted his years out of the presidency to turning bamboo into furniture to create jobs, and to boost national production of agricultural products. A savvy politician, he continued to be sought out by foreign diplomats in recent years as Haiti reeled from one political crisis to another.
A leftist and fervent opponent of the former Duvalier dictatorship, Mr Preval had long been in politics. He studied agronomy in Belgium and was former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s first prime minister after his 1990 election.
Ten months after the election, Mr Preval was forced into exile, first seeking refuge at the French Embassy and then the Mexican Embassy, both in PortauPrince, before eventually ending up in Washington, along with Mr Aristide and other members of the administration.
Mr Preval eventually broke ties with Mr Aristide. But as a strict adherent to the Haitian Constitution, he believed that a Haitian could not be exiled from his own country. As a result, he agreed to allow Mr Aristide’s passport to be renewed. The move cleared the way for Mr Aristide’s 2011 return to Haiti, after seven years in exile in South Africa.
Leslie Voltaire, who was minister of education during Mr Aristide’s first term, said the former priestturnedpresident was saddened by the news of Mr Preval’s death. Mr Voltaire knew Mr Preval for more than 50 years.
‘‘He was always in politics,’’ he said. ‘‘He dreamed of increasing national production and extending Cuban and Venezuelan cooperation.’’
That relationship between Haiti and the two Spanishspeaking nations flourished under Mr Preval. Cuba provided doctors to Haiti, and scholarships for Haitians to study in Cuba. Meanwhile, Haiti received muchneeded cash for social programmes from Venezuela’s discounted PetroCaribe oil programme.
Bernard FilsAime, a businessman and close friend of Mr Preval who often dined with him in Haiti and in Miami, said in the end, he remained true to himself.
‘‘His legacy is a leadership style that put people together into finding solutions. It was never about him,’’ Mr FilsAime said. ‘‘It was about getting in touch with all sectors, from the little guy to the most powerful, to find appropriate solutions for the country.
‘‘That is what he was about — quiet, consensusbuilder but misunderstood,’’ Mr FilsAime said. ‘‘Misunderstood, because people feared his kind of power.’’
In addition to his wife, Mr Preval he is survived by his two daughters and two sons, and two grandchildren. — Miami Herald