Haiti en Marche - Haiti en Marche

Which Way For Haiti?

Mgr Thomas Wenski

Last April, the Most Rev. Max Mezidor, the Archbishop of Port-au-Prince, in denouncing a rash of gang violence and kidnappings said, “For some time now, we have been witnessing the descent into hell of Haitian society”.

The surge of violence that has plagued the country for most of the last two years has now also consumed Haiti’s “de facto” President. (“de facto” because many Haitians, including the bishops, held that his term ended in February 2021.). His murder has provoked a social and a constitutional crisis for the Americas’ second independent Republic.

With the assassination of President Jovenel Moise by hired foreign mercenaries, Haiti could easily become the Somalia of the Caribbean. That a number of these mercenaries have themselves been killed by police further raises suspicions. You would think that professional commandos would know not only how to get to the president but also how to successfully elude capture and escape. A Haitian proverb says, “voye wòch kache men” which translates, “the rock thrower hides his hand”. If chaos is to be avoided and Haitians have a chance at a future of hope, those hidden hands need to be exposed and brought to justice.

This is necessary so that this crime does not impede the process of resolving Haiti’s ongoing social and political problems. The bishops of Haiti in the aftermath of Moise’s assassination have called on all sectors of society to put aside personal pride and to return to the table to dialog for the sake of the common good. A consensus on a credible electoral process needs to be forged and, to that end, a transitional government that is seen as legitimate by a majority of Haitians must be established.

But will America or the UN intervening by sending in troops save Haiti from becoming a irredeemably failed state? The first American occupation of Haiti after the 1915 mob killing of President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam made some infrastructure improvements (through forced labor) but it arguably left Haiti worse off. Successive interventions including an extended peace keeping mission of the UN have likewise failed to improve the lot of the Haitian people and have contributed little in strengthening the State’s weak institutions. As Jovenel Moise himself admitted in an interview some years ago, the State has no effective presence in more than 30% of the country. Even so, the long-suffering Haitian people have endured the predations of the State as well as its impotence - Haiti has yet to administer its first dose of anti-COVID vaccines. Even Haitians who opposed the Moise’s attempt to remain in power deplored his assassination but were also angered by the fact that the perpetrators were ¨blan¨, i.e., foreigners. So, no! Intervention that offends Haitian sovereignty has never worked and it will not work now. Haiti is a graveyard of foreigners’ good but ill-fated intentions.

From late 2018 and through 2019, the political opposition as well as civil society challenged the government’s drift towards dictatorship in a mostly democratic ways - through sit-ins, strikes, and mass demonstrations (sometimes led by religious). The support of the US government for Moise’s continued rule by decree allowed him to rebuff their calls for a transition to fair and transparent elections, At the same time, armed gangs in Port-au-Prince’s poorer neighborhoods were permitted to run rampant terrorizing the populace with seeming impunity.

Who is behind the Moise assassination? One should ask “cui bono?” Jovenel Moise had boxed himself into a corner as his presidency careened towards dictatorship. He was coming to the end of his options. Perpetrators of his murder as Haitian intellectual, Lionel Trouillot, suggests must be sought “in the network of mafia alliances, in private conflicts, or in the fear of some of his allies of losing everything with him.”

In the immediate aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that killed some 300,000 people, the Haitian people conducted themselves with remarkable serenity despite the depth of their grief. Days before NGO’s and others arrived on the ground, the Haitians themselves were organizing their tent encampments, providing security, helping each other, rescuing the injured, etc. There was no rioting, no widespread looting. The Haitian people are resourceful enough and resilient enough to find Haitian solutions to Haitian problems, if allowed to do so and if those “hidden hands” are not allowed to continue to throw rocks to thwart the common good and break the fragile bonds of fraternity. That Haiti becomes the Somalia of the Caribbean is a possibility but not an inevitability.

Mgr. Thomas Wenski, Archbishop of Miami

Biden says US ready to help Haiti after assassination of President Jovenel Moïse

By Emily Jacobs

President Biden is condemning the assassination of Haiti’s presidentWednesday, vowing that the US stands “ready to assist” in the wake of the murder.

In a statement, the US commander-in-chief said the nation was “shocked and saddened to hear of the horrific assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and the attack on First Lady Martine Moïse of Haiti.

“We condemn this heinous act, and I am sending my sincere wishes for First Lady Moïse’s recovery,” the statement continued, “The United States offers condolences to the people of Haiti, and we stand ready to assist as we continue to work for a safe and secure Haiti.”

Speaking to reporters Wednesday morning as he boarded Air Force One, the commander-in-chief added, “We need a lot more information but it is very worrisome about the state of Haiti.”

The Moïses were gunned down in their home, located in the impoverished Caribbean nation’s capital of Port-au-Prince, at about 1 a.m. local time Wednesday.

The president, who did not survive, was 53.

Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who revealed news of the attack, said that the first lady was shot during the ambush.

Error! Filename not specified.Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and first lady Martine Moïse were attacked in their Port-au-Prince home. Martine Moïse survived the attack.EPA

Moïse, he said, “was wounded by a bullet and the necessary measures are being taken.”

Joseph also said that he was now in charge of the country.

Calling it a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act,” Joseph revealed of the attack that, “an unidentified group of individuals, some of whom were speaking in Spanish, attacked the private residence of the President of the Republic and mortally wounded him.”

The primary languages in the Caribbean nation of more than 11 million people are French and Haitian Creole.

The gunmen claimed to be agents with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the Miami Herald reported.

But sources told the paper that the assailants, one of whom spoke English with an American accent, were not with the American agency.

The brazen attack happened a day after Moïse named a new prime minister, Ariel Henry, to prepare the nation for elections in the next two months for president, a new parliament and local government officials.

The killing comes amid deepening political and economic instability and a spike in gang violence in the poorest country in the Americas. It also comes as the country had grown increasingly unstable and disgruntled under the late president’s rule.

Moïse, who entered office in 2017, had been ruling by decree since January 2020 after legislative elections due in 2018 were delayed in the wake of disputes, including over when his own term ends, according to Agence France-Presse.

Opposition leaders have accused Moïse of seeking to increase his power, including approving a decree that limited the powers of a court that audits government contracts and another that created an intelligence agency controlled by the president.

The opposition has also demanded that he step down, arguing that his term legally ended in February.

Moïse and supporters maintained that his term began when he took office in early 2017, following a chaotic election that forced the appointment of a provisional leader to serve during a year-long gap.

He faced steep pushback from large segments of the population that deemed his mandate illegitimate — and he churned through seven prime ministers in four years.

Joseph was supposed to be replaced this week after only three months in the post.

These troubles come as Haiti still tries to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew that swept through in 2016.

In addition to the political crisis, kidnappings for ransom have spiked in recent months, further reflecting the growing influence of armed gangs in the country.

Error! Filename not specified.“I am sending my sincere wishes for First Lady Moïse’s recovery,” President Joe Biden said about Martine Moïse, who was shot during the ambush.Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Its economic, political and social woes have also deepened, with gang violence increasing heavily in Port-au-Prince, inflation spiraling and food and fuel becoming scarcer at times in a country where 60 percent of the population makes less than $2 a day.

President Luis Abinader of the Dominican Republic condemned the assassination and ordered the “immediate closure” of its border with Haiti.

“This crime undermines the democratic order of Haiti and the region. Our condolences to his family and the Haitian people,” Abinader said in a statement.

Additional reporting by Yaron Steinbuch and Post wires

Colombian Suspects, Some Former Military, Were Recruited, Police Say

y Associated Press

July 09, 2021 06:39 PM

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI - The Colombians implicated in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise had been recruited by four companies and traveled to the Caribbean nation in two groups via the Dominican Republic, the head of Colombia's police said Friday.

Haitian National Police Chief Léon Charles said 17 suspects have been detained in the killing of Moise.

At a news conference in Colombia's capital, Bogota, General Jorge Luis Vargas Valencia said four companies had been involved in the "recruitment, the gathering of these people" implicated in the assassination, although he did not identify the companies because their names were still being verified.

Two of the suspects traveled to Haiti via Panama and the Dominican Republic, Vargas said, while the second group of 11 arrived in Haiti on Sunday from the Dominican Republic.

Vargas pledged Colombia's full cooperation after Haiti said about six of the suspects, including two of the three killed, were retired members of Colombia's army. U.S.-trained Colombian soldiers are heavily recruited by private security firms in global conflict zones because of their experience in fighting leftist rebels and powerful drug cartels.

Recruited to provide 'protection'

The wife of one former Colombian soldier in custody said he had been recruited by a security firm to travel to the Dominican Republic last month.

The woman, who identified herself only as Yuli, told Colombia's W Radio that her husband, Francisco Uribe, had been hired for $2,700 a month by a company named CTU to travel to the Dominican Republic, where he was told he would provide protection to some powerful families. She last spoke to him, she said, at 10 p.m. Wednesday, almost a day after Moise's killing, and he was on guard duty at a house where he and others were staying.

"The next day he wrote me a message that sounded like a farewell," the woman said. "They were running. They had been attacked. ... That was the last contact I had."

The woman said she knew little about her husband's activities and was unaware he had even traveled to Haiti.

Uribe is under investigation for his alleged role in extrajudicial killings by Colombia's army more than a decade ago. Colombian court records show that he and another soldier were accused in 2008 of killing a civilian whom they later tried to present as a criminal slain in combat.

Besides the Colombians, among those detained by police were two Haitian Americans. Some of the suspects were seized in a raid on the Taiwan Embassy, where they are believed to have sought refuge.

Plan allegedly was to arrest, not kill

Investigative Judge Clément Noël told the French-language newspaper Le Nouvelliste that the Haitian Americans arrested, James Solages and Joseph Vincent, had said the attackers originally had planned only to arrest Moise, not kill him. Noël said Solages and Vincent had been acting as translators for the attackers, the newspaper reported Friday.

The attack, which took place at Moise's home before dawn Wednesday, also seriously wounded his wife, who was flown to the U.S. city of Miami, Florida, for treatment.

The U.S. State Department said it was aware of reports that Haitian Americans were in custody but would not comment.

Solages, 35, described himself as a "certified diplomatic agent," an advocate for children and a budding politician on a now-removed website for a charity he started in 2019 in South Florida to assist residents of his hometown of Jacmel, on Haiti's southern coast.

Solages also said he had worked as a bodyguard at the Canadian Embassy in Haiti, and on his Facebook page, which was also taken down after news of his arrest, he showcased photos of armored military vehicles and of himself standing in front of an American flag.

Canada's foreign relations department released a statement that did not refer to Solages by name but said that one of the men detained for his alleged role in the killing had been "briefly employed as a reserve bodyguard" at its embassy by a private contractor.

Calls to the charity and Solages' associates went unanswered. However, a relative in South Florida said Solages did not have any military training, and that he didn't believe Solages was involved in the killing.

"I feel like my son killed my brother because I love my president and I love James Solages," Schubert Dorisme, whose wife is Solages' aunt, told WPLG in Miami.

The Taiwan Embassy in Port-au-Prince said police had arrested 11 individuals trying to break into the compound early Thursday.

FIFTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (JULY 11TH, 2021)
Amos 7, 12-15; Psalm 85; Eph. 1, 3-14; Mk. 6, 7-13 By +Guy Sansaricq.

THE APOSTLES ARE SENT IN MISSION!
So far we have seen Jesus drawing his apostles to Him but today we see him sending them

out. It’s just like the movements of the heart that first sucks the blood in from the lungs and then sends it out to the rest of the body. That is also the normal rhythm of the Apostolate: a) through prayer increasing one’s intimacy with the Lord and then
b) through ministry: bringing Christ to the world.

Ministry is not an easy task. Many will reject the Prophet either because they do not understand his message or because they angrily reject the call to change and repent. The Prophet will respect their freedom and move on to a more welcoming site.

Jesus sets conditions for the success of the Mission: a) the Prophet should not be alone, he must have a companion. They will go two by two. b) They will be completely poor, relying only on God’s Providence: no money, no food, no second tunic, only a walking cane!

So, they went, joyfully announcing Jesus as the Messiah, expelling demons and curing many anointing them with oil. From this let us learn that the MISSION is not an easy task but a mighty struggle against evil. Poverty, love and faith are the weapons that defeat Satan, the enemy behind all our troubles. Let’s learn this lesson!

U.S rebuffs Haiti troops request after president's assassination

WASHINGTON/PORT-AU-PRINCE, July 9 (Reuters) - The United States on Friday rebuffed Haiti's request for troops to help secure key infrastructure after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise by suspected foreign mercenaries, even as it pledged to help with the investigation.

The killing of Moise by a squad of gunmen in the early hours of Wednesday morning at his home in Port-au-Prince pitched Haiti deeper into a political crisis which may worsen growing hunger, gang violence and a COVID-19 outbreak.

Haitian Elections Minister Mathias Pierre said a request for U.S. security assistance was raised in a conversation between interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday. Haiti also made a request for forces to the United Nations Security Council, Pierre said.

But a senior U.S. administration official said there were "no plans to provide U.S. military assistance at this time."

A letter from Joseph's office to the U.S. embassy in Haiti, dated Wednesday and reviewed by Reuters, requested the dispatch of troops to support the national police in reestablishing security and protecting key infrastructure across the country following Moise's assassination.

A similar letter, also dated Wednesday and seen by Reuters, was sent to the U.N. office in Haiti.

"We were in a situation where we believed that infrastructure of the country – the port, airport and energy infrastructure – might be a target," Pierre told Reuters.

Another aim of the request for security reinforcements would be to make it possible to go ahead with scheduled presidential and legislative elections on Sept. 26, Pierre said.

The U.N. political mission in Haiti received the letter and it was being examined, said Jose Luis Diaz, spokesman for the U.N. Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.

“The dispatch of troops under any circumstances would be a matter for the (15-member) Security Council to decide,” he said.

RIDDLED WITH BULLETS

The United States and Colombia said they would send law enforcement and intelligence officials to assist Haiti after a number of their nationals were arrested for Moise's murder.

Police in Haiti said the assassination was carried out by a commando unit of 26 Colombian and two Haitian-American mercenaries. The two Haitian-Americans were identified as James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, 55, both from Florida.

Seventeen of the men were captured - including Solages and Vincent - after a gun battle with Haitian authorities in Petionville, the hillside suburb of the capital Port-au-Prince where Moise resided.

Three others were killed and eight remain at large, according to Haitian police. Authorities are hunting for the masterminds of the operation, they said.

A judge investigating the case told Reuters that Moise was found lying on his back on the floor of his bedroom. The front door of the residence had been forced open, while other rooms were ransacked.

"His body was riddled with bullets," Petionville tribunal judge Carl Henry Destin said. "There was a lot of blood around the corpse and on the staircase."

Haitian officials have not given a motive for Moise's killing or explained how the assassins got past his security detail. He had faced mass protests against his rule since taking office in 2017 - first over corruption allegations and his management of the economy, then over his increasing grip on power.

Moise himself had talked of dark forces at play behind the unrest: fellow politicians and corrupt oligarchs who felt his attempts to clean up government contracts and to reform Haitian politics were against their interests.

COMMANDO UNIT

The United States on Thursday pledged to send senior officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security to Haiti as soon as possible to assess the situation and see how best they can assist, the White House said.

A State Department spokesperson said: "We are aware of the arrest of two U.S. citizens in Haiti and are monitoring the situation closely."

The head of Colombia's national intelligence directorate and the intelligence director for the national police will travel to Haiti with Interpol to help with investigations, Colombian President Ivan Duque said on Friday.

Investigators in Colombia discovered that 17 of the suspects had retired from Colombia's army between 2018 and 2020, armed forces commander General Luis Fernando Navarro told journalists on Friday.

Jorge Luis Vargas, director of Colombia's national police, said initial investigations had shown that 11 Colombian suspects had traveled to Haiti via the resort city of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

Two others traveled by air to Panama, before flying to Dominican capital Santo Domingo and then Port-au-Prince, Vargas said.

CONFUSION OVER POLITICAL CONTROL

The Haitian government declared a 15-day state of emergency on Wednesday to help authorities apprehend the killers but has since urged businesses to reopen.

Stores, gasoline stations and commercial banks reopened on Friday. The streets were quiet, although some supermarkets bustled with people stocking up amid the uncertainty.

Moise's killing has sparked confusion about who is the legitimate leader of the country of 11 million people, the poorest in the Americas, miring it deeper into a political crisis.

Even before Moise's death, the country only had 11 elected officials - himself and 10 senators - given it had postponed legislative elections in 2019 amid violent unrest.

Swaths of the opposition and civil society no longer recognized him as president due to a disagreement over the length of his mandate.

Joseph has taken over the reins of power so far. Pierre, the elections minister, said he would keep that role until presidential and legislative elections are held on Sept. 26.

But Joseph's authority is in dispute by multiple political factions. In the latest move, the remaining third of the Senate on Friday nominated its head, Joseph Lambert, to be interim president.

The senators also urged Joseph to hand over his office as prime minister to Ariel Henry, a physician seen as more of a consensus candidate. Moise had tapped him earlier this week to form a unity government but he had yet been sworn in.

"The Senate secretariat will write to national and international entities as well as to the general director of the Police and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs so that the embassies accredited in Haiti are informed," Lambert told Reuters.

Henry this week told Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste he did not consider Joseph the legitimate prime minister.

"The assassination... has provoked a political and institutional vacuum at the highest level of state," said Haitian opposition politician Andre Michel. "There is no constitutional provision for this exceptional situation."

Reporting by Steve Holland in Washington and Andre Paultre in Port-au-Prince; Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh in Havana, Stefanie Eschenbacher in Mexico City, Julia Symmes Cobb and Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota, Brad Brooks in Tamarac, Daphne Psaledakis, Ali Idrees and Mark Hosenball in Washington and Estailove St-Val in Port-au-Prince; Writing by Sarah Marsh and Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Rosalba O'Brien and William Mallard

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.WASHINGTON/PORT-AU-PRINCE, July 9 (Reuters) - The United States on Friday rebuffed Haiti's request for troops to help secure key infrastructure after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise by suspected foreign mercenaries, even as it pledged to help with the investigation.