HAITI

BETRAYED

Documentary Film by Elaine Brière

The Haitian revolution established the first free country of free men in the Americas, but it drew the bitter hostility of a ​colonial world that has persisted through Haiti’s tortured history. This evocative film pointing to Canada’s role in the ​2004 coup d’état portrays yet another chapter of sordid betrayal. This film should be a call to action.


-Noam Chomsky


Trailer

SYNOPSIS

AS CANADIANS, WE OFTEN TAKE PRIDE IN OUR INTERNATIONAL REPUTATION AS PEACEKEEPERS AND DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY.


But there is a dark side to our foreign policy — a policy that has thwarted the Haitian people’s struggles for freedom and self-​determination over the last two decades.


In 1986, Haitians joined their voices together in a cry for a new kind of society. Emerging from years of brutal dictatorship, they ​dreamed of a democracy that would serve the poor, listen to their voices and bring an end to impunity. And between 1991 and 2004, ​Haitians managed, against all odds, to elect a succession of governments committed to realizing this dream. The pro-democracy ​movement’s efforts, however, were ultimately derailed by powerful local elites and their allies in the international community.


Haiti Betrayed reveals how Canada, once seen by Haitians as a constructive partner, conspired with the United States and France ​in 2003 to topple the democratically-elected government. Seven years in the making, Elaine Brière’s film meticulously reconstructs ​Canada’s role in the events that culminated in the United Nations-sanctioned coup d’état on February 29, 2004 and the bloody ​aftermath that followed. Haiti Betrayed is a searing indictment of Canadian leaders’ complicity in the international oppression of ​this long-suffering nation.


With the country in the throes of a new popular uprising against corruption and authoritarianism, Brière’s film shows that the roots ​of current crisis can be found in the coup d’état backed by Canada since 2004.

“We never had that democracy.

It's like putting a seed on the ground.

We never see it grow because ​someone keeps on coming

and steps on it.“

-Garry Auguste, Former member of Haitian National Police

HOW IT STARTED

IN 2009, I ACCOMPANIED MY PARTNER, DAVID PUTT, WHO WAS IN HAITI TO WORK ON CLEAN WATER PROJECTS IN SOME OF THE ​RAWEST SLUMS IN PORT-AU-PRINCE.


A few weeks after arriving I was taking photographs in Cham Mas, a major square in the centre of Port au Prince. A poor but neatly ​dressed older man approached me with his arms out, shouting in broken English. “Blan, blan, (foreigner) you don’t know what is ​happening here.” He thought I was a journalist. He wasn’t being aggressive – I walked towards him, afraid that the UN soldiers ​patrolling the square would harass or arrest him. Taking off his hat, he spoke again: “they are killing us! We are poor people. Life is ​very hard. Tell them, them what they are doing to us. Tell them to stop! Tell them to stop!” He began to cry. I held his hand until he ​composed himself. He put on his hat and slowly walked away.


This encounter moved me to the core and was the beginning of a deeper awareness of the plight of the Haitian people. I later ​learned that many people had been killed in Cite Soleil, where the man was from. On a personal level this film is a response to the ​impassioned plea of the man I met in Cham Mas.


-Director, Elaine Brière


Elaine Brière is an award-winning filmmaker and ​photojournalist. Her photographs have appeared in the ​Globe & Mail, the New York Review, Canadian Geographic, ​Amnesty International, and Neue Zurcher Zeitung ​(Switzerland). She has exhibited in Holland, Sweden, ​Australia, Japan, the USA and 2006 World Urban Forum. ​East Timor, Testimony was published in 2004 by Between ​the Lines.


Bitter Paradise: The Sell-out of East Timor won Best ​Political Documentary at the l997 HOT DOCS! film festival. ​Her work is collected by the Visual Heritage Division of the ​National Archives of Canada and she is a recipient of the ​Order of East Timor. Her current film, Haiti Betrayed ​released in September, 2020.

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This powerful film, with its heart-stopping ​footage, captures the brutality of what the ​“advanced” world has done to the people of ​Haiti since their heroic revolution against ​slavery. Canada’s shameful role – braying ​about human rights even as it provides ​political cover for the US overthrow of ​Haitian democracy – exposes the lie behind ​Canada’s good-guy image in the world.


-Linda McQuaig, Author, The Sport & P​rey of Capitalists


Canada always looks so cute, clean and a ​non-profit country. Nobody talks about ​Canada in the international news. This film is ​so interesting because we can see another ​Canada.


-Jaume Barrull, Diari Segre, Barcelona


Haitian Lives Matter. This fact has eluded ​the Canadian media, and the general ​Canadian population, which prefers to think ​of itself as good guys when it comes to ​foreign policy if they even give foreign policy ​a second thought. Elaine Brières deeply ​researched and highly engaging ​documentary “Haiti Betrayed” lays bare a ​hidden history that -now of all times- we all ​need to pay attention to.


-Mark Achbar, The Corporation

A Haitian man, standing across the street ​from the Canadian embassy in Port-au-​Prince, screams remonstrations against the ​edifice in Haitian Creole: “We don’t have ​anything against Canada! Why are you ​against us?” To answer the question of the ​impassioned gentleman from Haiti Betrayed, ​why are we against Haiti? Well, the same ​reason we appear to find ourselves ​constantly destabilizing and taking advantage ​of less powerful nations: because we can, ​and because the myth of our peacekeeping

nature lets us get away with it.


-Andray Domise, MacLeans Magazine

Haiti Betrayed may be the most important ​documentary ever made on Canadian ​foreign policy. It is a powerful indictment o​f Canada’s role in overthrowing Jea​n-Bertrand Aristide’s elected government i​n 2004 and the devastating consequence​s that decision had on Haitians. All Canadian​s should watch this film about a country bor​n in struggle to make Black lives matter​.​


-Bianca Mugyenyi, Director, Canadia​n Foreign Policy Institut​e

“Haiti Betrayed” is an indispensable tool for ​those who wish to understand the ​challenges facing not only the Haitian ​people, but struggling masses the world ​over.


-Kim Ives, HAITI LIBERTE

The modus operandi of Canada remains ​colonial at home and abroad. This film is so ​important because it pulls the curtain away ​to show what is going on in a place far from ​the minds of Canadians – which is where ​the government would like it to stay.


-Henri Robideau,

Photographer & Social Commentator