For three years, Haitian activist Patrick Lemoine was held in Fort-Dimanche, a deadly Haitian prison. Only six of the 104 prisoners held there survived until their liberation.

Last night, Lemoine told the story of his time in captivity and described his hopes for a better Haiti. His presentation was sponsored by the Haitian-American Student Association, the Student African-American Society and U. Encounter. The lecture covered Lemoine’s life struggles but centered on his wrongful incarceration.

Lemoine was born in Haiti in 1945 and arrested by the Haitian government in 1971. As a well-educated Haitian citizen, he knew better than to blindly follow the rule of the nation’s dictatorial government.

Lemoine was about to celebrate his first wedding anniversary when he discovered that a friend had been arrested. He inquired about the fate of his friend and found that he himself was wanted by the government. According to Lemoine, such unexplained arrests were made with little or no provocation.

‘Young and old, rich and poor, men and women, literate and illiterate were put in prison,’ he said. ‘We lived in fear for our lives. No one knew what would happen from day to day. I could ask, ‘Why me?’ And then again, ‘Why not me?”

In his first prison, Lemoine lived in a 6-by-6-foot cell and was deprived of all contact with the outside world. During a rare encounter with another prisoner, he discovered that President Nixon had just been re-elected. Lemoine knew from this that he would be in prison for at least another four years, because Nixon was unsympathetic to the Haitians’ cause.

In 1974, Lemoine was transferred to Fort-Dimanche, commonly known as the ‘Dungeon of Death.’

‘Those who entered were not expected to come out alive,’ Lemoine said.

To illustrate the atrocious conditions in which he existed, Lemoine asked the audience to ‘imagine a cell, 9 feet wide by 10 feet long, and 12 feet high. There was a mat on the floor for a bed and a 5-gallon bucket to be used as a john, which was overflowing with urine and feces. There were usually 15 to 17, even up to 30 cellmates living here at a time.’

No medical care was given to the prisoners, and those with diseases were not separated from the rest of the group. Urine became part of their everyday lives. It was used to wash bodies, clothing and sometimes satisfied the final wish of a dying cellmate for a last drink of water. Lemoine managed to survive these conditions because of his son, who was 29 days old when Lemoine was taken into captivity.

‘I didn’t want to give the government the satisfaction,’ he said. ‘I wanted to be there to raise my son.’

However, since his exile to the United States in 1977, Lemoine has had little contact with the son he left behind.

The United States occupied Haiti for 19 years starting in 1915 and, Lemoine said, has only supported an oppressive government system since that time. Haiti has long been victimized by dictatorial rule, with new leaders circulating in as old ones were overthrown. In the 1960s, most of the better-educated Haitians were sent to African nations under the guise of helping those nations rebuild. Haitian officials were trying to rid their country of the educated, Lemoine said, so that the masses would be easier to control.

‘The elected officials have never been up to their jobs,’ he said.

Lemoine continues to speak out about the horrors of Fort-Dimanche in order to pay homage to his cellmates. His book, ‘Fort-Dimanche, Dungeon of Death,’ was originally published in French in 1996 and was recently translated into English. He also hopes to someday construct a memorial to those lost under the reign of terror in his country.

‘For the last 10 years, I’ve been dreaming of going back to Haiti,’ he said.

Lemoine still has hope for the prospects of Haiti.

‘This generation presents the future of the country,’ he said. ‘The challenge is yours to bring about change. Do not accept that things are better, because they are not.’

Published on November 11, 2003 at 12:00 pm