A Call for a National Dialogue with everything on the Table
By
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In 1990’s, the international community imposed a solution; today, we are right back to where we were back then with an existentialist consequence. Einstein stated: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein, (attributed) US (German-born) physicist (1879 – 1955)
After a long observation of the current Haitian crisis, a sincere, an honest, and a synchronized Dialogue may be an option to resolve it without any bloodshed.
I call for a National Dialogue not only between the Opposition and the Government but among all various groups of the Haitian Society.
All the following entities need to send a representative member: The Opposition, the Government, the civil society, the peasant movement, the University, the Media, the Human Right, the labor Movement, the Patron, the Justice Department, the Student movement, the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church, the Voodoo and a member of the Diaspora.
15 entities sitting together live on how this crisis can be resolved with everything on the Table.
You do have Haitian Nationals who have a vested interest in seeing stability and economic prosperity in the land of Toussaint Louverture without any hidden agenda who can help you resolved this crisis. We believe everyone without exception shall have a voice and on how this crisis can be resolved.
With a National Dialogue among the Haitian people regardless of where they live is a good way to help resolved this eternal crisis.
Peace
Joe
Joseph Alfred
Massachusetts
Haiti gang leader threatens to kill kidnapped US missionaries
Wilson Joseph, linked to the 400 Mawozo gang, posts video vowing to ‘put a bullet in the heads’ of 17 captives if demands not met
The leader of the Haitian gang that police say is holding 17 members of a kidnapped missionary grouphas threatened to kill them if his demands are not met.
In a video posted on social media on Thursday, Wilson Joseph, the supposed leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, said: “I swear by thunder that if I don’t get what I’m asking for, I will put a bullet in the heads of these Americans.”
Joseph also threatened the prime minister, Ariel Henry, and the chief of Haiti’s national police, Léon Charles, as he spoke in front of coffins that apparently held several members of his gang who were recently killed.
“You guys make me cry. I cry water. But I’m going to make you guys cry blood,” he said.
Earlier this week, authorities said that the gang was demanding $1m per person, although it was not immediately clear that included the five children in the group, among them an eight-month-old baby. Sixteen Americans and one Canadian were abducted, along with their Haitian driver.
Earlier on Thursday, the Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries, said that the families of those who’d been kidnapped are from Amish, Mennonite and other conservative Anabaptist communities in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Ontario, Canada.
Weston Showalter, a spokesman for the religious group, read a letter from the hostages’ families, in which they said, “God has given our loved ones the unique opportunity to live out our Lord’s command to love your enemies.”
The group invited people to join them in prayer for the kidnappers as well as those kidnapped and expressed gratitude for help from “people that are knowledgeable and experienced in dealing with” such situations.
“Pray for these families,” Showalter said. “They are in a difficult spot.”
The same day that the missionaries were kidnapped, a gang also abducted a Haiti university professor, according to a statement that Haiti’s ombudsman-like Office of Citizen Protection issued on Tuesday. It also noted that a Haitian pastor abducted earlier this month has not been released despite a ransom being paid.
“The criminals ... operate with complete impunity, attacking all members of society,” the organization said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of demonstrators blocked roads and burned tires in Haiti’s capital to decry a severe fuel shortage and a spike in insecurity and to demand that the prime minister step down.
The scattered protest took place across the Delmas neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.
In addition to kidnappings, the gangs also are blamed for blocking gas distribution terminals and hijacking supply trucks, which officials say has led to a shortage of fuel.
Many gas stations now remain closed for days at a time, and the lack of fuel is so dire that the chief executive of Digicel Haiti announced on Tuesday that 150 of its 1,500 branches countrywide were out of diesel.
“Nothing works!” complained Davidson Meiuce, who joined Thursday’s protest. “We are suffering a lot.”
Some protesters held up signs including one that read, “Down with the high cost of living.”
Demonstrators clashed with police in some areas, with officers firing teargas that mixed with the heavy black smoke rising from burning tires that served as barricades.
Alexandre Simon, a 34-year-old English and French teacher, said he and others were protesting because Haitians were facing such dire situations.
“There are a lot of people who cannot eat,” he said. “There is no work … There are a lot of things we don’t have.”
Gang suspected in kidnapping of missionaries is among the country’s most dangerous.
Published Oct. 17, 2021
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in August. Gangs have plagued the city over the past two decades, but they have grown into a force that is now seemingly uncontrollable.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
The gang that the police say kidnapped 17 missionaries and their family members in Haiti on Saturday is among the country’s most dangerous and one of the first to engage in mass kidnappings.
The gang, known as 400 Mawozo, controls the area where the missionaries were abducted in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince, the capital. The group has sown terror there for several months, engaging in armed combat with rival gangs and kidnapping businessmen and police officers.
The gang has taken kidnapping in Haiti to a new level, snatching people en masse as they ride buses or walk the streets in groups whose numbers might once have kept them safe.
The gang was blamed for kidnapping five priests and two nuns earlier this year. It is also believed to have killed Anderson Belony, a famous sculptor, on Tuesday, according to local news reports. Mr. Belony had worked to improve his impoverished community.
Croix-des-Bouquets, one of the suburbs now under control by the gang, has become a near ghost town, with many residents fleeing the daily violence.
The once-bustling area now lacks the poor street vendors who used to line the sidewalks, some of whom were kidnapped by the gang for what little they had in their pockets or told to sell what few possessions they had at home, including radios or refrigerators, to pay off the ransom. By some estimates, gangs now control about half the capital.
Gangs have plagued Port-au-Prince over the past two decades, but were often used for political purposes — such as voter suppression — by powerful politicians. They have grown into a force that is now seemingly uncontrollable, thriving in the economic malaise and desperation that deepens every year, with independent gangs mushrooming across the capital.
While older, more established gangs trafficked in kidnapping or carrying out the will of their political patrons, newer gangs like 400 Mawozo are raping women and recruiting children, forcing the youth in their neighborhood to beat up those they captured, training a newer, more violent generation of members. Churches, once untouchable, are now a frequent target, with priests kidnapped even mid-sermon.
Locals are fed up with the violence, which prevents them from making a living and keeps their children from attending school. Some started a petition in recent days to protest the region’s rising gang violence, pointing to the 400 Mawozo gang and calling on the police to take action.
The transportation industry has also called a general strike on Monday and Tuesday in Port-au-Prince to protest the gangs and insecurity. The action may turn into a more general strike as word has spread across sectors for workers to stay home to call attention to the insecurity and the fuel shortages in the capital.
Three Recent Crises Gripping Haiti
The abduction of U.S. missionaries. Seventeen people associated with an American Christian aid group were kidnapped on Oct. 16 as they visited an orphanage in Haiti. The brazenness of the abductions, believed to have been carried out by a gang called 400 Mawozo, has shocked officials. The kidnappers have demanded $17 million to release the hostages.
The aftermath of a deadly earthquake. On Aug. 14, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 2,100 people and leaving thousands injured. A severe storm — Grace, then a tropical depression — drenched the nation with heavy rain days later, delaying the recovery. Many survivors said they expected no help from officials.
The assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. A group of assailants stormed Mr. Moïse’s residence on July 7, killing him and wounding his wife in what officials called a well-planned operation. The plot left a political void that has deepened the nation’s turmoil as the investigation continues. Elections that were planned for this year are likely to be delayed until 2022.
“The violence suffered by the families has reached a new level in the horror,” the text of the petition reads. “Heavily armed bandits are no longer satisfied with current abuses, racketeering, threats and kidnappings for ransom. At the present time, criminals break into village homes at night, attack families and rape women.”
In April, the 400 Mawozo gang abducted 10 people in Croix-des-Bouquets, including seven Catholic clergy members, five of them Haitian and two French. The entire group was eventually released in late April. The kidnappers had demanded a $1 million ransom, but it remains unclear if it had been paid.
Michel Briand, a French priest living in Haiti who was part of the group, said the gang had forced their cars to divert from their course before kidnapping them. “If we hadn’t obeyed them — that’s what they told us afterward — they would have shot us,” he said.
According to the latest report from the Center for Analysis and Research for Human Rights, based in Port-au-Prince, from January to September there were 628 people kidnapped, including 29 foreigners. Haitian gangs have stayed away from kidnapping American citizens in the past, fearing retribution from the United States government, making 400 Mawozo’s actions all the more brazen.