ACTING HIGH COMMISSIONER AND HAITI AMBASSADOR HIGHLIGHT COUNTRY’S KEY HISTORICAL ROLE IN FIGHT AGAINST SLAVERY

2 July 2003



The acting United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Haitian authorities have agreed to work together to highlight the two-hundredth anniversary of the slave rebellion that led to the independence of Haiti in 1804 and which played a key role in the development of the concept of human rights for all peoples.

In a meeting on 27 June, Bertrand Ramcharan and Haitian Ambassador in Geneva Etzer Charles said the slave revolt should be marked at the national, regional and international levels in activities planned by Haiti and the United Nations for the International Year for the Commemoration of the Fight against Slavery and its Abolition in 2004. The rebellion, they noted, started an international movement that ultimately led to the abolition of slavery in the Americas in the course of the nineteenth century.

The acting High Commissioner and the Ambassador discussed the idea of a monument to symbolize the fight against slavery in Haiti. They also explored the scheduling, during the meeting of the Working Group on People of African Descent next September, of a discussion on the contribution of the Haitian revolution to the development of human rights and the freedom of black people.




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