


Duval says he wants to foster social improvements in Haiti through sport.
"The most important thing is the friendship, the solidarity.
They come here and grow up and learn the skills, but they learn
how to live with each other in groups. They learn how to respect
each other, they learn how to work with each other. They learn
how to fight with each other, and that's a good learning experience, too,"he
laughs.
His motivation is simply to encourage sport, which he sees as a key catalyst
for social change and cohesion. "I've always been involved with the social
and political movement, but I didn't want to be just advocating human rights
and social change. I wanted to put to the
test some of my own beliefs. In real terms," he says.
Duval was imprisoned by the Baby Doc Duvalier regime in 1975,
in the harshest conditions imaginable, in the Fort d'Inoche jail in
Port-au-Prince. The jail was used by Duvalierist forces to eliminate dissidents
through starvation or summary executions with clubs.
He was released after Amnesty International included him on its "urgent
action" list.