Louis Dejoie - Haiti Observer Blog

Like the Americans idolize Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg, the Haitian agricultural community idolized equally Louis Dejoie, an exemplary genius agricultural minded entrepreneur.

Growing up, Dejoie's name was a house on his own. Everyone knew, heard or had an idea of who he was. To put it bluntly, he was a genuine agricultural entrepreneur godfather. Nowadays, seemingly youngsters in Haiti barely have a genius role model to look up to or to inspire by. As they progress in life, they become severely damaged by the Raboday "Syndrome" and they start searching for Setters for aspirations and role models.

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It is more than a bit contrary, and also quite ironic, that, for a country with so many of its great leaders and people of note from the past such as Louis Dejoie and present sharing a common career as agronomists, Haiti's governments have been wholly neglectful of the dire need for improvements to the agricultural industry, improvements which could have done well towards sustaining and nourishing the well-being of the Haitian people who now struggle to find so much.

Senator Louis Dejoie had said, during the 1957 election campaigns, that the consequence of the country's past neglect of its farmers was the 'food drain' now being experienced, where able farmers, desperately needed to play their role in the agricultural cycle to sustain Haiti, were seeking work in other countries, growing the crops so hard to find in their own homes. Through their departure, a second cycle prevails, that of Haiti's dependency on foreign aid and export, the former taxing on national pride, the latter on resources.

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François Duvalier, Haiti's 40th President, raised in a prosperous family and well-educated, obtained his medical degree from the University of Haiti. He was a compassionate public-health official, who brought relief to Haitians suffering outbreaks of tropical illnesses. This earned him the name Papa Doc. He retained it forever, using it as a tool of manipulation.

After Duvalier returned from exile (due to a coup of a political ally), he ran on a populist platform for the presidency. Supported by the Haitian Army, he attacked mulatto elites, aligning himself with black nationals. He won the election against Déjoie, a mulatto real-estate tycoon.

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It was revealed that the two met in High school. However, the romantic relationship between Michele Bennett and Jean Claude Duvalier did not begin until ten years later. the wedding that was considered the biggest event of the time took place on May 27, 1980. The wedding was estimated to cost over US$3 million. The marriage also brought an underlining issue to the surface in the Haitian society. Many saw it as renewed symbol of alliance with the mulatto elite by the Duvalier regime. This was in direct contrast to the policy of Francois Duvalier who in 1957 was fighting against presidential candidate Louis Dejoie, a mulatto land-owner and industrialist from the north of Haiti. Francois Duvalier used used a Noiriste strategy to challenge the mulatto elite and appealed to the Afro-Haitian majority.
Following the wedding and the increased power gained by Michele Bennett as the new First Lady, new friction started to flair-up between her and her mother in law, Simone Duvalier.

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On April 14, 1907, Francois Duvalier was born in Port-Au-Prince in Haiti. His father was once a school teacher and later, he became a judge in a municipal court. He went to Haitian National University where he graduated with a degree in Medicine in 1934. He went to advance his studies in Michigan University from 1944 to 1945. In Haiti, he was a man who liked to embrace the Haitian culture and was a leader of Griot Movement in 1930s. After graduating at Michigan, he returned back to Haiti and was appointed as the Minister for Health and Labor under President Dumarsias Estime.

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