The mystery of Haiti’s missing cultural artifacts, which predate nation’s 1804 founding

They are the prized bounty of Haiti’s hard-fought struggle for freedom, taken in battle from European powers and then placed on top of the country’s most revered monument, Citadelle Henry, to guard against French occupation.

National treasures, the 18th century cannons are priceless and come in various weights and dimensions. The largest of them, cast in iron, flank the mountaintop fortress outside of the northern city of Cap-Haïtien in the rural town of Milot. Smaller ones, cast in bronze with intricate markings hinting at their origins, have been safely tucked away behind locked doors in a museum open only to dignitaries, diplomats and other important personalities.

Now, like the Irish Crown Jewels, which went missing from a Dublin castle in 1907 never resurface again, two of the smaller cannons have vanished without a trace from inside the locked museum’s gallery.

The theft was first noticed over two weeks ago by a security guard at the monument. But it was only recently made public after people started discussing it on social networks. Until Thursday there had been no official notification to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, which considers the cannons part of its World Heritage site designation for the Citadelle and several other historical landmarks located inside the National History Park in Milot.

That notification by Haitian authorities is necessary, sources say, for UNESCO to issue an alert for the missing cultural artifacts so that INTERPOL can be notified in hopes of tracking down the cannons, which one preservationist worries could “be half way around the world by now.”

Patrick Durandis, the current director of the Institute for Safeguarding National Heritage, blamed the delayed UNESCO notification on the current state of affairs in Haiti, wracked by gang violence. The theft, he said, required him to visit Cap-Haïtien, which he had been unable to get to from Port-au-Prince.

“I have the photos of the cannons and am gathering the files to mount the forms and make the request,” he said Thursday.

Durandis said whether the cannons are still in Haiti depends on the whether they were stolen for their precious metal or as a collector’s item.

“They speak about a gang leader who went up to the Citadelle at night in the rain to commit this crime. In principle everyone in Milot knows, a lot of the residents in the commune know exactly what happened,” said Durandis. “But Haiti is a very peculiar country. Even when you encourage people to talk and come forward, there is something in their minds that stops them from doing so.”

Neat Achille, the director of the institute for Haiti’s northern region, responsible for protecting the Citadelle, says the theft is an inside job.

“At the very least it’s one of the employees who is complicit or the author of the theft,” Achille said. “Where the cannons were located, they couldn’t just walk off, first of all. Secondly, they were located in an area of the Citadelle that’s closed to the public. The last visit conducted there was three years ago. No one has entered except for the Citadelle’s employees who go to clean and security.”

Achille said there are a dozen people currently employed by the Citadelle and all have been jailed as part of an investigation.

“It’s a dishonest employee who carried this out,” he said.

Achille says the theft came to light after a day security guard, Ernest Valmyr, reported an empty table where the cannons had been displayed. Valmyr, Achille said, had gone up to the museum to close two open windows when it rained.

“We took everyone so that if someone knows something, they will have to talk,” Achille said.

Attack on Haiti’s history

So far no one is claiming responsibility, and the mysterious disappearance and how it is being handled are igniting more questions than answers.

“When I was growing up in the shadow of the Citadelle, this monument and its companion, the Sans-Souci Palace, were a constant reminder to us youngsters to dream big,” said Frandley Julien, a South Florida immigration attorney who is originally from Milot, where the monuments are part of the area’s tourist attractions. “It’s sad to see that our generation, after failing to fulfill our forefathers’ grandiose vision, does not even have the decency to preserve their legacy.”

Dominique Dupuy, Haiti’s ambassador to UNESCO, worries that if the cannons are not recovered, their disappearance can pose “a threat to the Citadelle’s integrity [and] the national park’s classification as a World Heritage site.”

The cannons, she notes, are part of Haitian history, symbols of Haiti’s fight for freedom..

“The symbolism of this theft is huge,” she said. “It’s like the antithesis of the foundation of the Haitian nation. What does it say, if we can get to a point where we allow the bounty of our revolution to be sold off in pieces? It’s the beginning of the end of everything that we stand for as a nation on a symbolic level.”

Cannon collection

The Citadelle’s collection of cannons is considered among the largest in the world. They were acquired from the English, Spanish and French after slaves on the island, then known as Saint-Domingue, rebelled and launched the Haitian Revolution in 1791.

The 12-year uprising finally culminate in the Battle of Vertières on Nov. 18, 1803, near Cap-Haïtien when the army led by slave-turned-revolutionary hero Jean-Jacques Dessalines defeated Napoleon’s army.

On Jan. 1, 1804, Dessalines declared the birth of a new nation, Haiti, the world’s first free Black republic. To defend that freedom, Henri Christophe, a general in the war, took over after Dessalines’ assassination and commissioned the construction of large 19th century fortress, the Citadelle Henry or La Citadelle.

Daniel Elie, the former head of ISPAN, sees the cannons’ disappearance as the latest assault on Haiti’s cultural history. Four years ago, the historic Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Church was partly gutted by fire. Built in 1809, the church is located in the National History Park in Milot park, along with the ruins of the Palace of Sans-Souci and the fortified site of Ramiers.

In April, amid the deadly gang violence in Port-au-Prince, armed groups looted and ransacked the National Library in their bid to topple the government. The attack against the library’s collection of rare books and manuscripts documenting 200 years of Haitian history came after a series of other assaults against other institutions, including Haiti’s oldest teacher training school, École Normale Supérieure, and the National School of Arts.

“The teaching of history has degraded a lot in Haiti,” Elie said. “People do not believe in history. We are always talking about 1804, the first Black republic, the Battle of Vertières; how we beat Napoleon’s army. When you are recounting this history, parallel to the fact that the person can’t go to school, can’t eat, there’s a certain confusion with the reality that he is living.... It’s hard for a professor to recount this history with a population that is living in dire poverty and the only hope he has is to leave the country.“

The theft of the cannons has him fuming, he said, even if he was not surprised by it.

People have long been “waiting to do this kind of heist at the Citadelle,” said Elie, recalling how cannonballs regularly went missing.

Elie, an architect, twice served as head of the institution, and safeguarding both the cannons and the cannonballs was a priority. He oversaw the construction of the museum, which was financed by the National Pantheon Museum.

There are other problems with the cultural site, he said.

“There is no real security,” he said. “What they call security up there is badly organized. They have no supervisor and there is no control.”