Ben Dupuy: Rest in power!

Benjamin Dupuy, a longtime important voice for Haitian independence, died April 23 in Miami, Florida, at the age of 91. He was a major Marxist leader and theoretician who knew how to explain the tenacious struggles of the Haitian people against imperialism to an international audience.

Dupuy at podium at an APN congress in Haiti, 1999.  Credit: Pat Chin

As a journalist, photographer, cinematographer, diplomat, organizer and head of a political party – the National Popular Assembly (APN) – Dupuy was unshakable in his pursuit of a socialist revolution in Haiti.

He set the tone, structure and analysis for the film “Bitter Cane,” which was shot clandestinely in Haiti for seven years in the late 1970s and won worldwide acclaim for its depiction of the struggle against the Duvalier regime.

After the film was finished, Dupuy initiated a weekly newspaper, “Haïti Progrès,” which he edited until he became a traveling ambassador for President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 1990.

In the 1980s and 90s, Dupuy frequently spoke to major progressive, anti-war groups in the U.S.