generalspeaking

Another Haitian Tragedy

"My compatriots, remain calm because the situation is under control."

"This blow has wounded this country, this nation, but it will not go unpunished."

Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, Port-au-Prince, Haiti 

"It's a really explosive situation [foreign intervention with a U.N.-type military presence is a possibility to try to deal with the menace of well-armed, violent gangs roaming Haiti]."

"Whether Claude Joseph manages to stay in power is a huge question. It will be very difficult to do so if he doesn't create a government of national unity."

Robert Fatton, Haitian politics expert, University of Virginia

Presidential guards patrol the entrance to Moïse's Port-au-Prince residence Wednesday after the early-morning attack. (Joseph Odelyn/The Associated Press)

Haiti has been a nightmare of a failed country since forever. Under Papa 'Doc' Duvalier it was a hugely corrupt drug-and-crime mecca. Its impoverished people lived hand-to-mouth while the Duvaliers and their cronies lived lives of opulent excess and Haiti was a big draw for American 'tourists' looking for excitement in a country where the population believed in the black magic of Voodoo, the refuge of a downtrodden people with the living memory of slavery.

 

The other half of the island of Hispaniola represents another world altogether; one is hell and damnation, the other orderly, well-conceived and prosperous. And where the Dominican Republic recognizes the facility of closing its border when required during such periods of dire instability and violent danger to hope to inure itself against the spillover of violence. "This crime is an attack against the democratic order of Haiti and the region", said Luis Abinader, Dominican Republic President.

People walk past a mural depicting Moïse after he was shot dead by unidentified attackers on Wednesday. (Robenson Sanon/Reuters)

 

A SUV convoy of unidentified assassins broke into the guarded private residence of the president in an upscale area of Port-au-Prince in a coordinated attack to kill Haiti's 53-year-old president Jovenel Moise who has held office since 2017. Allegations of foreign involvement in the well-orchestrated and professionally-carried-out attack, with ostensibly Colombian and U.S. plotters have been alleged. Local reports spoke of the attackers as commandos and mercenaries.

Social media featured English speakers declaring through a loudspeaker: "This is a DEA operation. Everybody stand down. DEA operation. everybody back up, stand down". Agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, in other words, and how likely would that be? And of course there was official U.S. denial that the DEA was in any way or measure involved.

A two-week state of emergency was declared as the interim prime minister Claude Joseph ordered a hunt launched for the killers. Soon enough an announcement was made on Twitter, the social media site that has become all governments' first mode of communication, that a number of the suspected assailants had been captured by the National Police not far from the president's home in the hills above Port-au-Prince.

Four shot dead, two taken into custody. Martine Moise, the wife of the murdered president was shot in the attack and is in critical condition with efforts underway to fly her to Miami for treatment. Like all of Haiti's presidents, Mr. Moise was not wildly popular and accused like all others of blatant corruption. Calls for his resignation amidst mass protests describe Haiti's traditional state of dysfunction. In response, he tightened his grip on power, even as the economy continued to falter.

No worries, assured his replacement, the police and the army have the situation under control. That would be the very same security forces known to be understaffed and under-equipped, unlike the powerful gangs roaming Haiti and challenging one another for territorial advantage. Efforts to take territory back from heavily armed gangs result in the deaths of police officers.

In the capital all businesses were closed as was the Port-au-Prince international airport. Haitians face fears of a situation of growing food scarcity amid fears of a total breakdown. And this situation describes the usual emergency situations facing Haiti year over year. Some as a result of natural causes in disasters brought on by the natural environment, most the result of disruptions caused by political and economic failures. A nation forever destined to languish on the cusp of collapse.

Police walk among protesters during a protest against the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse near the police station of Petion Ville in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, July 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Joseph Odelyn)

Labels: Assassination, Dysfunction, Emergency, Haiti

posted by Pieface @ Friday, July 09, 2021