The university professor Jean-Claude Bajeux, a great activist of the Haitian Human Rights and former opponent of the Duvalier regime, passed away at his residence, Friday afternoon in Port-au-Prince following serious health problems, at the age of 79 years, announced his family.

"It is a monument who passed away..." lamented Jocelyne Colas, Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (JILAP). The POHDH (the Platform of Haitian Organizations for the Defense of Human Rights) to which he contributed much, welcomed the news with great emotion.

Executive Director of the Ecumenical Center for Human Rights (CEDH) that he led with his wife until his death, the Professor Bajeux was, fiercely opposed to injustice, ignorance and the arbitrariness, present in all the struggles against dictatorship and for the democracy and the progress of Haiti.

Member of the Catholic clergy at the time where Duvalier regime [under Papa Doc] turned into a dictatorship [numerous members of the family Bajeux were executed by the Tontons Macoutes], he was part of the priests, Jesuits and Spiritan expelled or forced into exile in 1964. For over 20 years he lived abroad far from Haiti, period during which, he taught in Puerto Rico, while taking the defense of the "braceros", large Haitian community working in the fields of sugar cane in the Dominican Republic, before his return in 1986 [after the departure of Baby Doc].

Back home, he was one of the actors who launched the project of large gathering of the democratic forces [National Congress of Democratic Movements]. In 1994, with the restoration to power of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, he served as Minister of Culture and Communication until 1995.

He was one of the pillars worker of the citizen Forum for the reform of the justice issuing numerous proposals for a transformation of the Haitian judicial system. He also contributed to the Commission of Reflection on the amendment of the Constitution of 1987, at the end of second term of former President René Préval.

With the disappearance of Professor Bajeux, the Haitian democracy loses a "strong" voice, a man of authority, a voice that did not hesitate to throw frankly, the truth in the face "of the greatest" and most "powerful".

May the earth rest lightly on you and your soul rest in peace.

HL/ HaitiLibre