HAITI LAUNCHES REGISTRY DEDICATED TO QUAKE'S DEAD
(Miami Herald) - By Jacqueline Charles
A year after the earthquake, Haiti tries to identify all the dead and missing -- a key step toward helping the nation to heal.
PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Dolores Dominique Neptune can't bear to visit the family compound where one year ago, at 4:53 in the afternoon, her son, a sister-in-law and two brothers-in-law were crushed in their homes by the massive earthquake.
But the former banker, mother and earthquake survivor has been on a personal crusade to identify the dead in a country where memories are the only repository for 300,000 lost souls.
A year after the earthquake, an unknown number of victims remain buried in rubble. Neptune, at least, was able to find her son's body a day after the disaster and give him a proper burial.
Jean-Olivier Neptune was 24. The day of the quake was his first day at his new job.
``How many mothers didn't get that chance?'' she said. ``I feel as if I have 300,000 family members who died and didn't do their funerals correctly. Until it's done, we cannot cry correctly, we cannot mourn correctly.''
On Wednesday, as the world and Haitians remember the hemisphere's most horrific 35 seconds, this nation will finally attempt to identify its dead. An official registry of the dead and missing will be launched in each of the communities affected by the 7.0-magnitude quake on Jan. 12, 2010, in the hope names will finally be assigned to the missing.
``They have been anonymous,'' the Rev. Reginald Jean-Mary, who leads one of the largest flocks of Haitian Catholics in Miami, said. He called it ``a significant moment'' in his homeland.
``Families are grieving in silence. This will give a sense of identification and respect to the dead, a sense of healing.''
On Tuesday, at the private University of Notre Dame, Catholics, Protestants, Vodouists and nonbelievers gathered in an interreligious service. While some prayed and cried, others celebrated life -- the rebirth of a famous commercial district, the Iron Market, destroyed in the quake.
But it was at a hilltop mountainside, north of the capital, where Haiti sought to begin the healing process while confronting the horror of that day. The area, usually referred to as Titanyen, is actually named St. Christophe, after the patron saint of travelers. Hundreds of tiny wooden crosses in the area marked the spot where 200,000 Haitians were laid in mass graves.
At the top of the mountain: a single oversized wooden cross, the path to it draped with a purple cloth.
``We all carry those 35 seconds women and men of Haiti, grown-ups and children fell everywhere, at work, at school, at church, in the street. We want to tell all of these people, `We remember you, we will never forget you,' '' President René Préval said somberly.
On that day, he said, the country had no other choice but to quickly bury the dead, delivering them in the back of government dump trucks to the arid hillside.
``The pain is heavy,'' Préval said. ``Here, we can give them all dignity. We can pray and sing for those who have left us.''
Earlier this year, first lady Elisabeth Delatour Préval gathered together a group who wanted to turn the site into a memorial. For months, they've been working on the construction of several monuments and a national registry of the dead.
``The dead are not dead. They are in the water that flows, in the wind that blows, they are in the crowd,'' she said. ``I want to speak for the anonymous mother. I want to give her a name. I will give her the name Dolores. She's crying for all those children who lost a mother, a father, a brother or sister, for all who are suffering.''
Neptune was unable to attend the memorial. But the effort to finally honor the dead is a welcome one, she said.
``We know how to honor our dead, but we also have this uncanny ability to forget our dead,'' she said. ``We need to have a record that these people existed, and they were killed by an earthquake. We need to remember that.''
Onita Jean-Baptiste, who lost her 7-year-old son, her only child, said she welcomes a place where Haitians can finally put a name to the anonymous faces.
``We all need to be a part of this,'' she said.
Eventually, Haiti hopes to erect several monuments in honor of the quake victims. One of the first stones will be laid on Wednesday at the site of the former tax office, one of the government ministries that crumbled in the quake.
For Neptune, it has been a long journey of roadblocks, bureaucratic wrangling and painful memories.
The government says an estimated 300,000 people died in the earthquake.
``I believe it might be more,'' said Neptune. ``We are still finding bodies. . . . At some point we stopped counting because it was so massive.''
The hope is that eventually all the dead will be listed alphabetically on a memorial.
``Everybody will be on the same foot, same page, but the monument isn't important,'' Neptune said. ``This catastrophe was the most democratic catastrophe in Haitian history. It affected everybody. It leveled everybody. It's important to keep remembering that in the face of death, we are all equal.''
Miami Herald staff writer Trenton Daniel contributed to this report.
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