President Moise hails Preval as ‘worthy son of Haiti’

The Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) said Friday that  President Jovenel Moise has described former President Rene Preval as a “worthy son of Haiti”. He made the comment as he led the country in paying tribute to his predecessor who died on Friday at the age of 74.

CMC said that reports indicate that Preval, who also served as Prime Minister in 1991 under the presidency of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, before going into exile in September of the same year during a military coup, died following a Cerebral Vascular Accident (CVA). A CVA is the sudden death of some brain cells due to lack of oxygen when the blood flow to the brain is impaired by blockage or rupture of an artery to the brain. A CVA is also referred to as a stroke. Symptoms of a stroke depend on the area of the brain affected.

Preval served as president from 1996 to 2001, and 2006 to 2011 and remains the only Haitian Head of Government to have completed two terms since the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986.

“I learned with sadness the death of former President René Préval. I lay before the remains of this worthy son of Haiti,” CMC quoted Moïse as saying.

The media house also said that there will be six days of official mourning for the former President. During the period of mourning, the national flag will be flown at half-staff on all public buildings, and on Friday and Saturday, radio and television stations will broadcast music of circumstance interspersed with testimonies of President Preval’s life and the work.

Secretary General of the Presidency, Yves Germain Joseph, had indicated that the funeral will take place on Saturday, March 11. The former President’s body, CMC said, will lie in state at the Museum of the Haitian National Pantheon (MUPANAH) on Friday.