1977, September 22 – October 18: (Twenty Years of Duvalierism: Simone the Vigilant Witness on Nights of Watchfulness, 104 Political Prisoners Freed but None …

1977, September 22 – October 18: (Twenty Years of Duvalierism: Simone the Vigilant Witness on Nights of Watchfulness, 104 Political Prisoners Freed but None Remain, the Disappeared Declared Dead, Three Young Journalists Cross the Border, and Gasner Raymond’s Murder Still Fresh): Against the somber backdrop of Young’s visit, the regime marked on September 22, 1977, the observance of twenty years of Duvalierism. The press had been reminded by the palace in a none-too-subtle fashion that a campaign of motivation for the urban and rural populace through the publication and broadcast of slogans exalting the political, cultural, economic, and social conquests of Duvalierism from 1957 to 1977 would be undertaken — this constituting an opportunity for all to renew their attachment not only to the Chief of State but to the First Lady of the Republic, her excellency Simone Ovide Duvalier, Vigilant Witness on duty on nights of watchfulness and meditation of the illustrious departed, counselor to the Chief of State. Heeding begrudgingly the admonitions from its able ambassador in Washington, Georges Salomon — a direct descendant of the great president — the government stated it had freed 104 political prisoners to celebrate its twenty years in power. Then, letting the other shoe drop, it announced that it held no more political prisoners; those whose family members had disappeared were now free to apply to judicial organs to regularize the status of the deceased — predictably, the move only intensified the light shone on Haiti’s human rights record. Hoping to capitalize on what they viewed as a window of opportunity created by the Young visit and the loosened press fetters, three young journalists — Marc Garcia of Radio Métropole, Guy Meyer of Radio Haïti, and Bob Nérée, son of the courageous Baptist pastor who had written Jimmy Carter the previous year, of weekly Hebdo Jeune Presse — made their way across the border to the Dominican Republic, where on October 18 they outlined the state of Haitian press freedom to the annual Inter-American conference on freedom of the press. The picture they painted was somber — fresh in many minds was the murder some months earlier of Le Petit Samedi Soir’s Gasner Raymond after an article detailing the exploitation of workers by the state-owned flour mill.