The Alliance gonaïvienne d’Outre Mer (AGO-M), handed over to the municipal authorities on Sunday, June 26, 2022, in the presence of members of the family of the former president of the Court of Appeal of Gonaïves, the late Hugues Saint Pierre, the keys to the public square that bears his name.
Located at Carrefour Turenne, between National Road number 1 and Biennac, the Place Hugues Saint-Piere is the work of the Gonaïves diaspora abroad grouped within the AGO-M
within the AGO-M which financed 100% of the rehabilitation work done by the firm Xplò Group at a cost of 26,000 US dollars.
The rehabilitation of the Place Bouteille and the soccer field located behind the Gonaives police station is the new project for which AGO-M has already launched a call for tenders.
Headed by former Signal FM journalist and now U.S. Army Captain Charles Hubert Zamor, a native of Gonaïves, the Alliance Gonaïvienne d’Outre Mer (AGO-M) also includes a local committee that undertakes activities to enhance the positive image of the City of Independence.
This new public square in the name of Hugues Saint-Pierre is being created at a time when the memory of this jurist, also an evangelist and professor at the School of Law and Economic Sciences of Gonaïves, is being forgotten. Known for his unfailing integrity, Mèt Ti Twàn (for his students) who also taught at the Lycée Fabres Nicolas Geffrard, the oldest in Artibonite, was killed in a car accident in Port-au-Prince.
As president of the Gonaives Court of Appeals, the judge was expected to render a final decision in the investigation of the alleged massacre of several supporters of the political opposition in La Scierie, a neighborhood of Saint-Marc, shortly before the resignation and departure into exile of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004.
There were reports that Hugues Saint-Pierre, 75 years old, had a fall while boarding a public transportation vehicle that started in a hurry. The magistrate was summoned to Port-au-Prince, at the initiative of the judicial authorities, to discuss the definitive end of the investigation of the “Massacre of the Sawmill”. The competent authorities at the time did not even bother to establish the judicial truth regarding the circumstances of the magistrate’s death on April 24, 2007.
It should be noted that a lawsuit was filed by relatives of the victims against officials of the former regime, including former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and Amanus Mayette, who was a deputy in the contested 47th legislature. Public hearings held in May 2006, under the Bonniface-Latortue interim government, resulted in the release of Jocelerme Privert, former Minister of the Interior and Territorial Collectivities.
The National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) reported that approximately 50 people were killed during a demonstration organized by the opposition in Saint-Marc, two weeks before the fall of former Lavalas president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Hugues Saint-Pierre, during his lifetime, marked several generations of Gonaives by his credibility, his value, his humility, his morality and his simple way of life. In spite of his multiple functions, the judge did not have a car, often circulated on a bicycle and took transportation for inter-city trips.
With this public square rehabilitated in the name of the exemplary former magistrate Hugues Saint-Pierre, the Alliance gonaïvienne d’Outre Mer (AGO-M) declares that it wants to perpetuate the memory of this eminent jurist, a way of praising the integrity, morality, and credibility that must characterize judges in the Haitian judicial system, which, 15 years later, is in a state of spectacular decay in 2022
