Haitian Singer Manno Charlemagne Resurfaces in Miami After Coup-Era Ordeal

In early 1992, Haitian protest singer Manno Charlemagne stepped onto a stage at Studio One 83 in Carol City, Miami, hours before his scheduled set, tuned an acoustic guitar and began to sing. For fans who had spent four months hearing that he had been arrested, beaten or killed, the unannounced warm-up was proof that he was alive. The concert was his first public performance of the year.

Charlemagne, then 43, had arrived at Miami International Airport on December 29 after the military coup of September 25, 1991, toppled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He had hoped to celebrate the rebirth of Haitian liberty, not his own start as an exile. Backstage, he described the journey in a mix of Creole and English, referring to a disputed $20,000 debt, film-world supporters and diplomatic maneuvering. "All of it true," he said of the story.

In Haiti he is called mistik, roughly meaning someone not easily killed, a label he shares with Aristide. Raised in the slums of Port-au-Prince, he left Catholic school in ninth grade because his family could not pay for more. He was known in the capital for protest songs by eighteen and released a debut album in 1978. Two years later he was expelled for criticizing the regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier and settled in New York, where he made three albums.

After Duvalier fell in 1986, Charlemagne returned a hero and organized a youth group and choir in his old neighborhood of Carrefour. In 1988, soldiers ransacked his one-room home and made death threats that drove him into hiding. Marcus Garcia, editor of Miami's Haiti en Marche weekly, said the singer does not rely on metaphor: "If he sees a murder, he calls the man a murderer." After Aristide's December 1990 election victory, Charlemagne briefly served as an unofficial minister in the cabinet until the coup nine months later.

Carrefour resisted the takeover with barricades and burning tires, and the military blamed Charlemagne. On October 11, soldiers took him from his home in front of his family and jailed him. His wife, Chantel, hid with their baby son and later went to Guadeloupe. Charlemagne said the torture was mostly psychological, including repeated warnings of an execution that was then called off. He was moved to the Penitencier National, and a human rights lawyer secured his release on October 18. Men in civilian clothes then accosted him at gunpoint, and many assumed he had been killed.

Pressure from abroad built quickly. Amnesty International, Americas Watch and Miami's Haitian Refugee Center lobbied officials, and Haitian-American media demanded freedom for the "Caged Bird of Haiti." He was freed again about a week after a second arrest. When a third arrest was planned, a sympathetic soldier warned him, and he took refuge at the Argentine embassy residence in Petionville. Soldiers broke in four days later but were turned back by security staff.

Film director Jonathan Demme, who had filmed Charlemagne for his 1987 documentary Haiti Dreams of Democracy, formed a group called Americans for Manno. It wrote to the military's provisional prime minister, Jean-Jacques Honorat, who replied that the singer was legally jailed for arson and inciting violence and could not leave without repaying $20,000 to the central bank. Charlemagne disputed this. Demme then faxed a petition with 82 signers, among them Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Robert De Niro and Spike Lee, with copies sent to President George Bush and other U.S. officials.

It had little visible effect. Armed soldiers and Tonton Macoutes stayed outside the residence through November and early December, and Charlemagne said Washington blocked his departure because of its part in the coup. Dr. Paul Farmer, who spoke with him by phone on December 15, said the usually fearless singer sounded frightened as gunfire rang out. Former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark was in Port-au-Prince leading an inquiry, and his delegation estimated the coup's death toll at 2,000 to 3,000, far above the military government's claim of 200. Informed of the singer's plight, Clark agreed to meet him on December 18.