Harry Numa:
1961-2014
by Kim Ives
Harry Numa, 52, a long-time leader of
the National Popular Assembly (APN) and later the National
Popular Party (PPN), died in the early morning hours of Aug.
25 in a tragic car accident in the southwestern Haitian city
of Jérémie. His funeral was held and he was buried in
Port-au-Prince on Aug. 30.
Born in Port-au-Prince on Aug. 31,
1961, he spent his early years under the dictatorships of
François and Jean-Claude Duvalier. “On Rue Sans Fil where he
grew up, Harry revealed himself to be a true leader among
the youth both through the positions he took and by his
serious attitude,” wrote his wife, Lucienne Houanche Irby,
in a funeral tribute. “For those who knew him, Harry didn’t
joke often. He took everything seriously. Caught up in the
socio-political situation of the country, he saw himself as
a defender of the weakest and most marginalized.” In
1980, Harry traveled to New York, where he went to Rockland
Community College and worked various jobs. But in 1987,
after the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, he returned to
Haiti like many young people to take part in the burgeoning
democracy movement and the newly formed National Popular
Assembly (APN), a nationwide popular organization which
played a key role in contributing to the political rise of
Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the turbulent post-Duvalier
period. Harry also played an important role in the leading
leftist weekly of the day, Haïti Progrès.
During the coup d’état of 1991 to 1994,
Harry largely stayed in Haiti where he set up a clandestine
printing press to put out anti-coup flyers and a special
version of Haïti Progrès, which for several months in
1994 was unable to enter Haiti from New York, where it was
printed, due to an international embargo which stopped
airline flights.
Harry also helped organize a short-wave
radio network for communications within Haiti and with New
York and Miami, as well as keeping track of, hiding, and
caring for APN militants, many of whom were on the run from,
shot at, and beaten up by soldiers and paramilitaries of the
military regime.
Harry helped plan and execute one
memorable resistance operation in 1993 with his long-time
comrade, Georges Honorat, and other APN militants, which
involved the felling of trees with chainsaws along the
Bourdon road to Pétionville to impede the Haitian army’s
troop carriers.
Along with other APN militants, Harry
met with the celebrated North American intellectual Noam
Chomsky, who traveled to Haiti in 1993 during the coup, to
be filmed and interviewed by Crowing Rooster Arts. Harry
engaged in a long animated discussion with Chomsky about how
to resist the coup, portions which are captured in the
feature documentary Rezistans, directed by Katharine
Kean.
“Are the Haitian people ready to
carry out those actions [of resistance] given the cost they
will suffer,” Chomsky asks Harry in one scene.
“We, the Haitian people, have no
choice,” Harry replied. “We have to fight, we have to
mobilize, we have to organize ourselves to finish with this
situation [of the coup]. So that’s the kind of work we are
doing right now.”
In 1999, the APN formed itself as a
full-fledged political party, the PPN, of which Harry was
one of the principal leaders. The party did not field
candidates in the 2000 elections but organized several
historic marches of thousands of its militants against the
U.S. military assault on Iraq in March 2003 and against the
unfolding coup d’état against President Aristide from 2001
to 2004.
In 2004, faced with a number of
personal problems, Harry stepped down from leadership of the
PPN and Haïti Progrès, although he kept close contact
with his former comrades and often offered them his
penetrating analysis and ready advice.
He moved back to New York, where he met
is wife, Lucienne, moved to North Valley Stream, and made a
living driving taxi cabs and later as a building contractor.
But his passion was Haitian politics
and every Monday or Tuesday he would call Haïti Liberté’s
director Berthony Dupont to offer his analysis of the
“conjuncture,” as Haitians call the political situation.
“Harry’s insights were always
invaluable in analyzing complex situations,” Dupont said.
“He knew the players, he understood political theory and
dynamics, and he had a deep faith in the power of the
Haitian people when organized.”
Harry was shaken by the fatal shooting
on Mar. 23, 2013 of his long-time comrade, Georges Honorat,
with whom he had strongly argued not to take a job working
for Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe’s office. Only a week
before his killing by two still unknown gunmen on a
motorcycle, Honorat had told Harry that his advice had been
right. “My place is not there,” Georges had said, according
to Harry.
Before the Cuban Ambassador to the UN
Pedro J. Nunez Mosquera came to address a community meeting
at Haïti Liberté on May 29, 2010, Harry
single-handedly threw himself into repairing and remodeling
the newspaper’s meeting room to accommodate the overflow
crowd that turned out. He also helped organize the meeting
with the Cuban ambassador and always came with his wife to
support Haïti Liberté at its fundraising events.
The fatal accident was a freak tragedy.
Harry was visiting Jérémie for its annual Saint Louis
Festival. Leaving the nightclub Pipirit at about 4 a.m.,
Harry backed up his white jeep to make way for a passing
vehicle. Unfamiliar with the road in the dark, he backed his
car over a bank so it fell into a rain-swollen river.
Although he may have hit his head, it appears that he may
have managed to break the windshield and escape from the
submerged vehicle but drowned in the strong and deep
currents. His body was not recovered until about seven hours
later.
Many comrades from Haiti and
progressive parties in the U.S. who had a chance to work
with him will miss Harry Numa. We at Haïti Liberté
will particularly feel the void, missing his sharp insight
and deeply principled politics.
A memorial evening commemorating the
life of Harry Numa will be held at Haïti Liberté on
Sep. 20 at 6 p.m.. Former friends and comrades are expected
to attend from as far away as Canada and Florida. Haïti
Liberté extends its condolences to his wife, Lucienne,
his children, Kenneth and Sandra Irby, and his brothers,
cousins, and many other family members.
Harry, for your life of personal
sacrifice and unflagging dedication to the cause of the
Haitian people’s liberation from oppression and
exploitation, we salute you!
Harry Numa !presente! |