by STEFAN
CHRISTOFF
SLUM
HEROINE: So Ann
In February 2004, rebel
forces in Haiti
launched a successful armed campaign to
overthrow populist President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Anti-Aristide militias, comprised mainly of soldiers from the
disbanded Haitian army, seized power and a wave of violence engulfed
the country. As the coup unfolded, hundreds of activists and members of
the pro-Aristide Lavalas political party
were jailed without charge, according to Amnesty International.
On May 9, 2004, just
months after the coup, a contingent of U.S. Marines entered the home of
Annette Auguste after midnight, arresting
one of Haiti
’s most well-known folk singers, community
leaders and prominent Lavalas supporters. Auguste, also known as So Ann (“Sister Anne” in
Creole) was apprehended on suspicion of “possessing information that
could pose a threat” to the U.S.
troops operating in Haiti under the umbrella
of the UN intern force.
“U.S. Marines destroyed
my home, killed my dogs and abducted me in the middle of the night,”
says So Ann over the phone from Haiti
’s capital, Port-au-Prince
. “I was locked in prison for more than two years for
my political beliefs and the conditions were terrible—a dozen women
stuffed into a prison cell for two people.”
So Ann, a 62-year-old
grandmother, was released from jail in August 2006 after a major
international campaign for her release, backed by Amnesty
International. Next week, So Ann, considered a Haitian folk-hero, will
be speaking and performing at a series of events in
Montreal on one of
her first international trips after prison.
Living the message
“I was just recently
released from two years of prison without trial and I am going to Canada to tell the people about our
struggles for freedom in Haiti ,” she says. “ Montreal is going to hear about what the U.S.
Marines did to me, the situation of Haiti
’s political prisoners and the coup against Aristide that the
government of Canada
supported.”
(Canada
deployed 550 troops to the Caribbean
island.)
“These are the simple
reasons why I am coming all the way to snowy Montreal , even with my knees
aching from my time in prison,” she says. “I will also be in Montreal to
play my music which tells of the Haitian peoples’ long fight for
justice.”
So Ann’s latest record,
So Ann, Political Prisoner: What else can they do to
me? was released in 2005 by the
Manhattan-based Crowing Rooster Arts. With 11 tracks, the album
showcases the voices of her 19-singer women’s choir along with
percussion, guitars and keyboards. Most impressive about the release is
that it was officially released while So Ann was behind bars.
“So Ann lives the
message she sings,” says Kim Ives, a New York-based documentary
filmmaker and long-time friend of So Ann. “Last September, after So Ann
was released from prison, I went with her on her first return to Cité Soleil
(an impoverished district of Port-au-Prince); once word spread that So
Ann was in the hood, thousands upon thousands filled the streets around
her celebrating her release from jail.”
So Ann’s political
history in Haiti
stretches back beyond the 2004 coup to the
brutal Duvalier era of the 1970’s. During
the first years of the second Duvalier
dictatorship, under Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier,
So Ann fled to the U.S.
, settling in Brooklyn, where she developed a heavy reputation within New York ’s
Haitian Diaspora as a democracy activist and folk singer. She wrote
Creole protest anthems against the Duvalier
regime and the subsequent military juntas.
“My music tells of Haiti
’s struggle today and the story of our history,” So Ann says. “From our
independence victory over France in 1804 to the
bloody years of Duvalier and the coups
against Aristide, our story is full of suffering but also a strong will
to struggle.”
Prisons still full
Upon returning to Haiti
in 1994, So Ann became a leading organizer within Aristide’s Lavalas party, forging a relationship of mutual
respect with the president while becoming a heavyweight progressive
political organizer in the country. Upon being released from prison, So
Ann’s political clout among Haiti ’s poor has grown.
Today, her music, which reflects on the struggles of Haiti’s
downtrodden, who live in the most impoverished country in the Western
hemisphere, has made her more popular than ever, even as she remains
committed to affecting change in her own country.
“[ Haiti ’s current president and one-time
Aristide ally René] Préval
is not using the power he was granted in the last elections to release
all the political prisoners in Haiti ’s jails,” she
says. “Until all political prisoners are free, Haiti is not free.”
So Ann
performs with
the Kalmunity Vibe Collective
on
Monday, Jan. 29
at Bar
Toc Toc (6091 Parc),
7 p.m.,
suggested donation $5–$25.
She will speak again on Tuesday, Jan. 30, at Project Genesis
(4735
Cote-Ste-CatheRine),
6:30 p.m., free. For more info, call (514)
618-2253
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