American Missionaries Released
Ex-Hostages Doing Well, Have Left Haiti, Mission Agency Says
All the former hostages from a U_S_-based missionary group kidnapped in Haiti have been flown out of the country after a two-month ordeal and are “doing reasonably well.”.
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Dec. 17, 2021, at 7:16 p.m.
By PETER SMITH and CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN, Associated Press
All the former hostages from a U.S.-based missionary group kidnapped in Haiti have been flown out of the country after a two-month ordeal, the leader of their Ohio-based missions organization said Friday, as he also extended an offer of forgiveness to their captors.
David Troyer, general director of Christian Aid Ministries, said in a video statement that a U.S.-flagged plane left the Caribbean nation Thursday afternoon carrying the last 12 kidnapped missionaries, hours after they were freed earlier in the day.
“Everyone including the 10-month-old baby, the 3-year-old boy and the 6-year-old boy seem to be doing reasonably well,” Troyer said.
The last releases came two months to the day after the group of 16 Americans and one Canadian — including five children — were kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang, which initially demanded millions of dollars in ransom. The other five had been freed earlier.
Troyer did not comment on the circumstances of the release, such as whether ransom was paid or a rescue effort was involved, but expressed thanks to “the U.S. government and all others who assisted in the safe return of our hostages.”
“Thank you for understanding our desire to pursue nonviolent approaches," he added, without elaboration.
Based in Berlin, Ohio, Christian Aid Ministries, or CAM, is supported and staffed by conservative Anabaptists, a range of Mennonite, Amish and related groups whose hallmarks include nonresistance to evil, plain dress and separation from mainstream society.
In keeping with Anabaptist teaching, which puts a premium on forgiveness, Troyer offered conciliatory words to the captors.
“A word to the kidnappers: We do not know all of the challenges you face. We do believe that violence and oppression of others can never be justified. You caused our hostages and their families a lot of suffering,” he said. “However, Jesus taught us by word and by his own example that the power of forgiving love is stronger than the hate of violent force. Therefore, we extend forgiveness to you.”
Troyer said the hostages had “prayed for their captors and told them about God’s love and their need to repent.”
The missionaries were abducted Oct. 16 shortly after visiting an orphanage in Ganthier, in the Croix-des-Bouquets area, where they verified it had received aid from CAM and played with the children, Troyer said.
“As they became aware of what was happening at the time of capture, the group began singing the chorus, ‘The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them,’” Troyer said, quoting from the biblical book of Psalms. “This song became a favorite of theirs, and they sang it many times throughout their days of captivity.”
The hostages remained together as a group throughout, he said, in prayer, in song and encouraging each other.
Troyer said CAM workers were aware of dangers in Haiti, where gang activity and kidnappings have been on the rise.
But the organization often works in such perilous places precisely because “that is usually where the biggest needs are,” he added.
CAM hopes to continue working in Haiti, Troyer said, while acknowledging that it will need to bolster security protocols and “better instruct our people about the dangers involved.”
Authorities have said 400 Mawozo was demanding $1 million per person in ransom, although it wasn’t clear if that included the children. The gang’s leader had threatened to kill the hostages unless his demands were met.
Also Friday, a meeting including representatives of 14 countries, various international organizations and Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry produced broad commitments to address security and the political and economic situation in the impoverished Caribbean nation, according to a top U.S. diplomat.
Brian A. Nichols, assistant secretary at the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, said on a conference call that the U.S. government plans to send experts to train the Haitian National Police SWAT team.
In another pledge, Japan promised $3 million in aid including for the construction of police housing and facilities.
Nichols said there was discussion of some nations potentially deploying police to Haiti for activities such as training or mentoring local officers, though that would require more discussion first. He said there was broad agreement that the security situation in the country is a policing challenge, not a military one.
Nichols did not provide details on how the hostages were freed, citing respect for their privacy. Asked about rumors that a ransom was paid, he declined to comment other than to say “the United States government does not pay ransom for hostages.”
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Haiti: NYT's history of US influence
From: Michael Tarr <Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.>
Date: Sun, Dec 19, 2021 at 10:09 AM
Subject: Haiti: NYT's history of US influence
To:
The New York Times, December 19, 2021
A Bloody History Of U.S. Influence Hangs Over Haiti.
American policy decisions are vital to understanding Haiti’s political instability, and why it remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
By Chris CameronIn September 1994, the United States was on the verge of invading Haiti.Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country’s first democratically elected president, had been deposed in a military coup three years earlier. Haiti had descended into chaos. Gangs and paramilitaries terrorized the population — taking hostages, assassinating dissidents and burning crops. International embargoes had strangled the economy, and tens of thousands of people were trying to emigrate to America.But just days before the first U.S. troops would land in Haiti, Joseph R. Biden Jr., then a senator on the Foreign Affairs Committee, spoke against a military intervention. He argued that the United States had more pressing crises — including ethnic cleansing in Bosnia — and that Haiti was not especially important to American interests.“I think it’s probably not wise,” Mr. Biden said of the planned invasion in an interview with television host Charlie Rose.He added: “If Haiti — a God-awful thing to say — if Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interest. ”Despite Mr. Biden’s apprehension, the invasion went forward and the Haitian military junta surrendered within hours. Mr. Aristide was soon restored to power, and the Clinton administration began deporting thousands of Haitians.Nearly a decade later, Haiti’s constitutional order would collapse again,
prompting another U.S. military intervention, more migrants and more deportations. As rebels threatened to invade the capital in 2004, Mr. Aristide resigned under pressure from U.S. officials. A provisional government was formed with American backing.The violence and unrest continued.That cycle of crisis and U.S. intervention in Haiti — punctuated by periods of relative calm but little improvement in the lives of most people — has persisted to this day. Since July, a presidential assassination, an earthquake and a tropical storm have deepened the turmoil.Mr. Biden, now president, is overseeing yet another intervention in Haiti’s political affairs, one that his critics say is following an old Washington playbook: backing Haitian leaders accused of authoritarian rule, either because they advance American interests or because U.S. officials fear the instability of a transition of power.Making sense of American policy in Haiti over the decades — driven at times by economic interests, Cold War strategy and migration concerns — is vital to understanding Haiti’s political instability, and why it remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, even after an infusion of more than $5 billion in U.S. aid in the last decade alone.A bloody history of American influence looms large, and a century of U.S. efforts to stabilize and develop the country have ultimately ended in failure.The American Occupation (1915-34)The politics of slavery and racial prejudice were key factors in early American hostility to Haiti. After the Haitian Revolution, Thomas Jefferson and many in Congress feared that the newly founded Black republic would spread slave revolts in the United States.For decades, the United States refused to formally recognize Haiti’s independence from France, and at times tried to annex Haitian territory and conduct diplomacy through threats.It was against this backdrop that Haiti became increasingly unstable. The country went through seven presidents between 1911 and 1915, all either assassinated or removed from power. Haiti was heavily in debt, and Citibank — then the National City Bank of New York — and other American banks confiscated much of Haiti’s gold reserves during that period with the help of U.S. Marines.Roger L. Farnham, who managed National City Bank’s assets in Haiti, then lobbied President Woodrow Wilson for a military intervention to stabilize the country and force the Haitian government to pay its debts, convincing the president that France or Germany might invade if America did not.The military occupation that followed remains one of the darkest chapters of American policy in the Caribbean. The United States installed a puppet regime that rewrote Haiti’s constitution and gave America control over the country’s finances. Forced labor was used for construction and other work to repay debts. Thousands were killed by U.S. Marines.The occupation ended in 1934 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy. As the last Marines departed Haiti, riots broke out in Port-au-Prince, the capital. Bridges were destroyed, telephone lines were cut and the new president declared martial law and suspended the constitution. The United States did not completely relinquish control of Haiti’s finances until 1947.The Duvalier DynastyThe ruthless dictator François Duvalier took power in 1957, as Fidel Castro led a revolution in Cuba and as U.S. interests in the region were becoming increasingly focused on limiting the influence of the Soviet Union.Duvalier, like many other dictators in the Caribbean and Latin America, recognized that he could secure American support if he presented his government as anti-communist. U.S. officials privately described Duvalier as “the worst dictator in the hemisphere,” while deeming him preferable to the perceived risk of a communist Haiti.When the United States suspended aid programs because of atrocities committed soon after Duvalier took office, the Haitian leader hired public relations firms, including one run by Roosevelt’s youngest son, to repair the relationship.Duvalier — and later his son Jean-Claude — ultimately enjoyed significant American support in the form of aid (much of it embezzled by the family), training for Haitian paramilitary forceswho would go on to commit atrocities and even a Marine deployment in 1959 despite the protests of American diplomats in Haiti.By 1961, the United States was sending Duvalier $13 million in aid a year — equivalent to half of Haiti’s national budget.Even after the United States had tired of Duvalier’s brutality and unstable leadership, President John F. Kennedy demurred on a plot to remove him and mandate free elections. When Duvalier died nearly a decade later, the United States supported the succession of his son. By 1986, the United States had spent an estimated $900 million supporting the Duvalier dynasty as Haiti plunged deeper into poverty and corruption.Favored CandidatesAt crucial moments in Haiti’s democratic era, the United States has intervened to pick winners and losers — fearful of political instability and surges of Haitian migration.After Mr. Aristide was ousted in 1991, the U.S. military reinstalled him. He resigned in disgrace less than a decade later, but only after American diplomats urged him to do so. According to reports from that time, the George W. Bush administration had undermined Mr. Aristide’s government in the years before his resignationFrançois Pierre-Louis is a political science professor at Queens College in New York who served in Mr. Aristide’s cabinet and advised former Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard Alexis. Haitians are often suspicious of American involvement in their affairs, he said, but still take signals from U.S. officials seriously because of the country’s long history of influence over Haitian politics.For example, after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, American and other international diplomats pressured Haiti to hold elections that year despite the devastation. The vote was disastrously mismanaged, and international observers and many Haitians considered the results illegitimate.Responding to the allegations of voter fraud, American diplomats insisted that one candidate in the second round of the presidential election be replaced with a candidate who received fewer votes — at one point threatening to halt aid over the dispute. Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state, confronted then-President René Préval about putting Michel Martelly, America’s preferred candidate, on the ballot. Mr. Martelly won that election in a landslide.A direct line of succession can be traced from that election to Haiti’s current crisis.Mr. Martelly endorsed Jovenel Moïse as his successor. Mr. Moïse, who was elected in 2016, ruled by decree and turned to authoritarian tactics with the tacit approval of the Trump and Biden administrations.Mr. Moïse appointed Ariel Henry as acting prime minister earlier this year. Then on July 7, Mr. Moïse was assassinated.Mr. Henry has been accused of being linked to the assassination plot, and political infighting that had quieted after international diplomats endorsed his claim to power has reignited. Mr. Martelly, who had clashed with Mr. Moïse over business interests, is considering another run for the presidency.Robert Maguire, a Haiti scholar and retired professor of international affairs at George Washington University, said the instinct in Washington to back members of Haiti’s political elite who appeared allied with U.S. interests was an old one, with a history of failure.Another approach could have more success, according to Mr. Maguire and other scholars, Democratic lawmakers and a former U.S. envoy for Haiti policy. They say the United States should support a grass-roots commission of civic leaders, who are drafting plans for a new provisional government in Haiti.That process, however, could take years.Chris Cameron is based in the Washington bureau. @ChrisCameronNYT
Opinion: Drug trafficking and an assassination have deepened Haiti’s chaos
Moïse was elevated from obscurity to the presidency mainly by his predecessor, former president Michel Martelly — himself suspected of close ties to some of Haiti’s biggest trafficking kingpins. According to the Times account, Moïse was compiling a dossier of traffickers’ names that he planned to share with the U.S. government. Among the most prominent names was Mr. Martelly’s brother-in-law, who retained enormous influence over Moïse’s government. Moïse was shot to death in his bedroom by a team of Colombian mercenaries who, according to the Times and its sources, were searching for that list of names.
Mr. Martelly, barred by Haiti’s constitution from seeking a third consecutive presidential term, is now living in Miami; he is widely regarded as planning another bid for the presidency. One question that arises from the Times report is how, given the allegations of corruption and trafficking ties against him, he retains a visa enabling him to live in the United States and, for that matter, why he has not been arrested.
Haiti is a long-standing narco-state whose police and government institutions have often been in cahoots with traffickers. The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, it is a major trans-shipment point for cocaine, heroin and other contraband headed to the United States from South America.
It has been a focal point of intense efforts, and intense frustration, for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, whose investigative efforts have often been stymied by the top-to-bottom corruption in Haiti’s government and security apparatus. The DEA itself has come under suspicion that some of its personnel in Haiti might have been co-opted by traffickers.
Among the targets of past DEA investigations is Dimitri Hérard, who was detained in connection with Moïse’s murder. Mr. Hérard, formerly a key security official forMr. Martelly, was also a close associate of Mr. Martelly’s brother-in-law, Charles Saint-Rémy, widely suspected of being a trafficking kingpin. It was Mr. Hérard who was in charge of the presidential security detail that stood aside on the night of the assassination, allowing the hit men unfettered access to Moïse’s home.
Impunity is the rule in Haiti, not the exception; hardly anyone in the country has been convicted of trafficking offenses, and top officials, including the current justice minister, have been implicated in protecting traffickers from anti-corruption investigations.
Haiti is now in chaos, its government unelected, its streets controlled by criminal gangs and its economy in shambles. In other words, it is a paradise for drug traffickers. The Biden administration, by averting its gaze, enables the pandemonium that has enveloped the country. Americans might imagine that Haiti’s problems are not of their concern, but those troubles have a way of washing up on American shores, as refugees — and as contraband.
Editorials represent the views of The Washington Post as an institution, as determined through debate among members of the Editorial Board, based in the Opinions section and separate from the newsroom.
