Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 17 novembre 2021

 Moise murder suspect to be sent to Colombia

Jamaica is again moving to enforce the court-ordered deportation of ex-Colombian army officer Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios, a key suspect in the July assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, to his homeland.

This development comes despite a request by Haiti, through diplomatic channels, to have Palacios turned over to authorities there, according to a document seen by The Sunday Gleaner.

Palacios remained in local police custody up to yesterday, almost one month after he was fined $8,000 or five days in prison by a Parish Court judge who also ordered his deportation for illegally entering the island.

Plans for what was expected to be a routine deportation were, however, scuttled after the high-profile target in one of the hemisphere’s most notorious modern murders became the subject of a Red Notice issued by the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol), sources told The Gleaner at the time.

But Jamaica’s Deputy Police Commissioner Fitz Bailey confirmed on Thursday that the “administrative process” surrounding Palacios’ deportation is now in train.

That process includes obtaining travel and other official documents for the ex-Colombian army officer, Bailey explained.

“That process is going on,” he said.

Days after the October 15 court order for Palacios’ deportation, Haiti’s Foreign Ministry dispatched a letter to Jamaica’s Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith requesting that the Colombian be handed over to Haitian authorities, according to documents seen by The Sunday Gleaner.

In the aftermath of Moise’s July 7 assassination, Haitian police arrested 20 persons, including 18 Colombians and two Haitian Americans. They were suspected of being among the 28 commandos who stormed the late president’s private residence in the hills overlooking the Port-au-Prince capital, killing him and wounding his wife, Martine. 

Three suspects were reportedly killed, while five, including Palacios, were on the run.

Palacios was arrested at a guest house in central Jamaica in October, the police have confirmed.

It is believed that he entered the country through one of the island’s more than 140 informal ports of entry.

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Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti Welcomes Brian Concannon as Returning Executive Director

Boston, MA (November 10, 2021)—On Monday, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) welcomed Brian Concannon Esq., IJDH’s founder, as its returning Executive Director. Concannon succeeds Franciscka Lucien, who previously informed the Board of her decision to step down from leadership of IJDH as of November 5. 

Concannon originally served IJDH as Executive Director for fifteen years before stepping down in November 2019. He is a lawyer and activist who has dedicated his career to advancing human rights in Haiti. He lived in Haiti from 1995 to 2004, where he co-managed the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), a public interest law firm and IJDH’s sister organization, and served as a UN Human Rights Officer. He left Haiti in 2004 after the US-sponsored coup d’etat overthrew Haiti’s democracy and demonstrated that no progress in Haiti was sustainable unless the US and other powerful countries were compelled to respect the country’s sovereignty and democracy. From 2019 to 2021, Brian served as the Executive Director of Project Blueprint, where he led the effort to promote a progressive, human rights-based US foreign policy by bringing the perspectives of people impacted by US actions abroad into policy discussions. 

“I appreciate all of Franciscka’s hard and skilful work as Executive Director. I look forward to rejoining the entire IJDH community—colleagues at the Institute and at BAI, collaborators throughout the world, and IJDH’s wonderful financial supporters—to continue this work fighting the root causes of instability and injustice in Haiti.”

About IJDH: The Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) is a US-based human rights non-profit organization. Established in 2004, it is a partnership of human rights advocates in Haiti and the US, dedicated to tackling the root causes of injustice that impact basic human rights in Haiti. In partnership with its Haiti-based sister organization, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), IJDH advocates, litigates, builds constituencies, and nurtures networks to create systemic pathways to justice for marginalized communities in Haiti. For more information about IJDH, please visit www.ijdh.org.

Contact:
Catherine Chang, Operations Coordinator
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti 
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Miami Herald: U.S. Warns Americans to Leave Haiti as Security Crisis Deepens, Hostages Remain Captive

The Miami Herald.com

Jacqueline Charles

Haitians say the current crisis is the worst to hit the country since the 1990s, when the international community and Clinton administration maintained economic sanctions after a Sept. 29, 1991, military coup toppled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The Biden administration is urging U.S. citizens in Haiti “to strongly consider returning to the United States” amid a gang-aggravated fuel shortage and a deteriorating security climate in which 17 Christian missionaries, including 16 Americans, have been held hostage for more than three weeks.

The message in a Friday security alert from the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince came as Haiti’s commercial banks and other businesses announced reduced hours starting this week, grocery store owners warned of coming food shortages and the United Nations encouraged employees to stock up on emergency supplies of water, food and other essential items.

Americans in the country are being encouraged to depart while commercial flights are still available, noting that while the security situation has been unpredictable for months, the environment has deteriorated rapidly in recent days.

“It sounds like an abdication of any kind of responsibility,” Robert Maguire, a longtime Haiti expert who once prepared U.S. diplomats being sent to Port-au-Prince, said of the responses of the U.S. and the U.N. to the unfolding crisis, which is expected to get worse this week if authorities don’t manage to supply fuel. “I think this administration would prefer for Haiti to go away. But it’s not going to go away. It seems that there is no real unanimity of what to do in this administration.”

Rice University names school Provost Reginald DesRoches as next president

HOUSTON — Rice University’s board of trustees has selected Reginald DesRoches, who is now serving as school provost, to be the university’s next president.

DesRoches, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is the first immigrant, first Black man and first engineer to lead the private research university. An internationally recognized structural engineer and earthquake resilience expert, DesRoches will succeed President David Leebron, who previously announced his plan to step down next summer after the academic year ends.

“I am deeply honored to be named the next president of Rice University,” DesRoches said in a written statement. “The past 4½ years at Rice have been among the most rewarding in my professional career and I look forward to building on the tradition of excellence established by President Leebron and those who served before him.”

At Rice, 7% of students are Black or African American.

DesRoches arrived at Rice in 2017 as dean of engineering at the George R. Brown School of Engineering. During DesRoches’ time as dean, the department underwent significant growth in research programs, including new efforts in the areas of neuroengineering and synthetic biology. He also led the establishment of the school’s first-of-its-kind collaborative research center in India with the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.

Before joining Rice, DesRoches was chair of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech. His work there stemmed from his studies at the University of California, Berkeley. As an undergraduate student, DesRoches witnessed the damage wrought by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. That experience led him to focus on earthquake resiliency as he pursued his master’s and doctoral degrees at Berkeley.

Fuel crisis

American Airlines cuts flights to Haiti

Port-au-Prince, November 12, 2021. The current situation in Haiti is not without consequences for the functioning of national and international institutions.

American Airlines announced the reduction of its flights to Haiti. This decision will be effective from Monday, November 15, 2021, according to the company’s spokesperson, Laura Masvidal, during an interview with the Miami Herald.

Starting on that date, there will be only one flight per day to Haiti, from Miami to Port-au-Prince, Masvidal told the newspaper.

Who are the U.S. drug informants caught up in the Haiti assassination?

At least two DEA informants are under arrest or are implicated in the assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise. What is known about their alleged participation in the plot and does the DEA bear any responsibility?

Univision

On May 1, 2000, a wealthy Haitian businessman Rodolphe Jaar was stopped by United States Customs agents while he was driving in South Florida.

Agents searched his rental car and seized a large amount of U.S. currency. But the agents did not arrest or charge Jaar with any crime, despite the fact that he was under investigation for alleged money laundering, according to court documents.

Jaar, the owner of an import and export business in Haiti, would go on to be one of Haiti’s most prolific drug traffickers, helping smuggle at least seven tons of Colombian cocaine into the country, destined mostly for the United States between 1998 and 2012, according to court records. He went by the alias ‘Whiskey’ according to his 2013 indictment.

To save his skin, he became a U.S. government informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration or DEA, though he eventually landed in jail in 2013, pleading guilty to stealing 50 kilos of the cocaine he was supposed to be helping agents seize, worth around $1 million.

After his release from jail in 2016, Jaar returned to Haiti where his name has surfaced as one of the suspects in the plot to assassinate Haitian president, Jovenel Moise, gunned down in his bedroom on July 7.

A month earlier, Jaar allegedly attended a bizarre meeting in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, where a plan was discussed, with supposed U.S. government backing, to detain 34 Haitian businessmen and government officials involved in drug trafficking and money laundering, using Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration agents.

U.S. officials deny any such plan existed and Haitian police say the nine participants were actually involved in the plot to kill the president. Most are in detention, except for Jaar who is a fugitive and two other Haitians, a justice ministry official who was fired this year for corruption and a former senator.

“There is absolutely no truth to the allegations that the Department of State, FBI, DEA or any other U.S. Government entity was involved in this plot,” a State Department spokesperson told Univision late Friday.

It remains unclear what Jaar’s role was in the meeting, what was actually discussed and whether it had anything to do with assassination of Moise. It is also unknown if Jaar was still working as a DEA informant after he returned to Haiti. The DEA declined to comment about his status in response to several requests from Univision.

“If he was informing the U.S. government of the plot to kill the Haitian president we have a solemn obligation even with criminals to inform the target of that plot. The President of Haiti would have been notified. We could not have let something like that pass,” said Mike Vigil, former chief of DEA for the Caribbean.

The DEA has previously acknowledged that one of the other participants now in detention was working as a “confidential source.” The DEA did not name the person but said that following the assassination the informant reached out to his contacts at the DEA and later surrendered to local authorities, along with one other.

The DEA has also strongly denied any involvement in the assassination during which some assassins yelled "DEA" during the attack on the president's residence. “These individuals were not acting on behalf of DEA,” it said.

Experts from the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) are now working with Haitian authorities to try and solve the murder which has baffled Haitians and outside observers for almost a month, threatening to further destabilize the impoverished Caribbean nation of 11 million.

The meeting attended by Jaar could hold vital clues and has important links with other elements in the plot. It’s timing coincided with the arrival in Haiti of a group of former Colombian soldiers who are also in detention suspected of participating in the killing.

Two of the participants in the meeting, both Haitian-Americans, James Solages and Joseph Vincent, have alleged confessed to working with the Colombians, supposedly as translators. It is widely believed that one of them, Vincent, is the unidentified DEA informant. Few details have emerged about Vincent's life in the United States. The Miami Herald reported that Vincent, 55, became a DEA informant after being arrested more than 20 years ago for filing false information on a U.S. passport application.

A lot more is known about Jaar, the 49-year-old black sheep of an otherwise reputable family at the top of the country’s business elite. Palestinian emigres from Bethlehem, the Jaar family own the Coca-Cola bottling license in Haiti as well as a brewery in Canada and investments in electricity. But they are largely estranged from Rodolphe who has a reputation as a big spender who mysteriously disappeared from Haiti for long periods.

His participation in the June 8 meeting was described in a letter delivered to prosecutors by a lawyer for one of the detained men, Reynaldo Corvington, the owner of a security company who hosted the gathering.

According to the letter by Corvington’s attorney, Samuel Madistin, the 6pm meeting was requested by Joseph Felix Badio, a former Justice Ministry official who was fired in May from an anti-corruption unit for “serious breaches” of ethical rules.

Madistin told Univision in a phone interview that Badio worked as a consultant for Corvington’s firm, Corvington Courier & Security Service, which has held several U.S. government contracts in the 1990s, including providing guards for the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince.

Badio and Corvington have known eachother for 20 years when Badio worked for an anti-drug unit in the Justice Ministry and Corvington’s firm had a security contract for a government warehouse were seized drugs were held.

Badio had called Corvington earlier in the day to say that “an FBI officer and a DEA official wished to meet with him and asked him if he could receive them at his home,” according to Madistin’s letter.

Badio showed up with a former senator John Joel Joseph as well as a Colombian man who spoke only Spanish. Jaar arrived a few minutes later, but the 49-year-old businessman never spoke during the meeting. “I don’t know why he was there,” said Madistin.

The meeting wound up after about one hour. Corvington was unimpressed by Badio’s presentation of the supposed anti-money laundering and drug trafficking operation, according to Madistin.

“It was all fake. It wasn’t FBI or DEA at all at the meeting. It was the ones implicated in the plot, and the Colombian, who were there,” said Madistin.

Madistin said he expected his client would soon be released as “he had nothing to do with the assassination. Nothing at all.”

What happened over the next four weeks is a mystery. On the night of July 7 armed men entered the president’s residence, with almost no resistance from Moise’s 40-men security team.

According his wife, First Lady Martine Moise, none of the assassins spoke Creole or French, she has said. The men spoke only Spanish and communicated with someone on the phone as they searched the room. They appeared to find what they wanted on a shelf where her husband kept his files, she told The New York Times.

“They were looking for something in the room, and they found it,” she said. She said she did not know what it was.

There remain more questions than answers, both for Haitian authorities and the United States.

“Who has the US, and the DEA specifically, been working with in Haiti? To what end?” asked Jake Johnson, a Haiti expert at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.

“Have those relationships compromised the agency’s ability to do its job and actually undermined security and stability in Haiti?” he asked. “More directly, given previous investigations and arrests, what evidence of high-level government and private sector corruption or criminality does the US possess? And could that be, in any way, related to the assassination of the president?" he added.

Jaar “was a very high-profile (U.S. government) informant,” said Vigil.

It’s likely that Jaar’s role as a DEA informant ended in 2016 after he left jail, as by then he had been exposed in court, and the media, as having, as one judge put it “a checkered history”, of double dealing with traffickers and the DEA.

“He has too much garbage, too much baggage by then,” said Albert Levin, a Miami attorney who represented a Haitian police commander, Claude Thelemaque, who helped provide security for Jaar’s drug shipments.

A fluent English speaker with a degree in business administration, Jaar, was considered by DEA to be a valuable “snitch” as he helped authorities disrupt the longstanding cocaine connection between Colombia, Venezuela and Haiti. Jaar would pay off local cops to protect the cocaine loads flown in on planes that landed at night on dirt strips protected by local police who guided the pilots by radio, according to court records.

Thelemaque was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in jail in 2016 for his role in a 425-kilo shipment of cocaine coordinated by Jaar, who stole 50 kilos from the shipment behind the DEA’s back.

“In this case you have a situation where a man was presumably cooperating and at the same time double dealing; in essence working both sides of the fence,” said Levin.

Jaar was facing life in prison but because he was a DEA informant he received a prison sentence of less than four years. Jaar’s lawyer, Richard Dansoh, did not answer several requests for comment.

At his sentencing in 2014, Jaar asked the judge for forgiveness. “Your Honor, I have accepted full responsibility from the beginning, and I have cooperated with the government,” he said.

“I admit I made a big mistake, in my cooperation. I can assure you that I will never make this mistake again,” he added.

Thelemaque is still is jail and is not due to be released until May 22, 2023, according to federal prison records.

Jaar’s lawyer at the time, Richard Dansoh, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Two years later, at Thelemaque’s trial, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Judge Williams expressed her own disquiet. “Jaar got a huge break here, and it has to be acknowledged,” she told the court.

“Mr. Jaar was the leader of the band and Mr. Jaar was the one who had all the pieces on the chess board,” the judge told the court at Thelemaque's sentening.

His double dealing “so fatally impaired” his credibility that prosecutors decided not to have him testify against Thelemaque at trial, Williams noted, according to the 2016 trial transcript.

Jaar also helped convict a Haitian policeman and his codefendant Olgaire Francois, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for his role in the same kilo shipment.

“I was shocked to learn that Mr Jaar was given rewards notwithstanding the fact that it had been discovered that he had been a double agent and had actually stolen part of the cocaine that he was working with the DEA to have seized,” Francois’ lawyer, Curt Obront, told Univision.

“You can only make so many deals with the devil,” said David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor in Miami who handled several Haitian drug cases.

“After a while you have stop making those deals and use another way to go after the big fish,” he added.

Correction: A previous version of this story erroneosly quoted Claude Thelemaque's lawyer, Albert Levin, as saying that his client was recruited by Rodolphe Jaar. It was the prosecutors who said Thelemaque was recuited by Jaar. Levin says his client was innocent and never participated in the drug shipment.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 3 novembre 2021

 A Call for a National Dialogue with everything on the Table

By

 Rezo Nodwes

 -

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.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 28 octobre 2021

As Haiti reels from crises, U.S. policy decisions are called into question

Los Angeles Time

Joe Mozingo

Dessalines Day is a point of pride in Haiti, a time to commemorate the revolutionary hero who defeated Napoleon’s troops, abolished slavery and in 1804 established the first free Black republic.

But this year the Oct. 17 holiday played out like political theater of all the woes afflicting the nation.

The acting prime minister was headed to speak at the monument marking the spot where Jean-Jacques Dessalines was assassinated just outside the capital, Port-au-Prince, but his convoy was turned back by gunfire.

In the absence of a government delegation, a police-officer-turned-gang-leader seized control of the ceremonies. Flanked by masked men with assault rifles, Jimmy Cherizier, who goes by the name "Barbecue," strode to the monument in the white suit and collar of palace officialdom and roused the crowd.

“Today the time has come where they have the ports and the tax offices,” he shouted. “They are all millionaires. We are sleeping with pigs. This is how the system is.”

Like dozens of gang bosses in Haiti, Cherizier is a product of the country's fractious politics, and as has been the case for more than a century, those politics are deeply entwined with U.S. policy.

Since U.S. Marines first occupied Haiti in 1915, Washington has put its thumb on the balance of power, supporting the brutal Duvalier dictatorships dating to the 1950s and more recently propping up center-right presidents with little popular support.

The latest round of violent upheaval in Haiti is inextricably linked to Jovenel Moise, who won the presidency in 2016 in flawed elections and then proceeded to strip away institutions, rule by decree and — even after constitutional experts said his term had expired — remain in power until he was assassinated in July.

Along the way, he enjoyed the support of both the Trump and Biden administrations.

Gangs that were connected to Moise have continued to operate with impunity, often using government vehicles; robbery, rape and kidnapping for ransom have reached epidemic levels.

Who was the murdered sculptor, Anderson Bélony?

Jean Anderson Bellony, born March 13, 1970, grew up in the village of Noailles in Croix-des-Bouquets.

At the age of fifteen, Michel Brutus introduced him to sculpture. He has notably participated in several group exhibitions at the Georges Liautaud Community Museum and at the French Institute of Haiti.

In August 2014, one of his sculptures was presented at MUPANAH on the occasion of the "Rencontres" exhibition. Bellony inherited a voodoo sanctuary which was restored by the AfricAméricA Foundation, as part of the Prince Claus Foundation's Cultural Emergency Response Program (CER) in 2009.

Bellony is more assembly practical than cut iron. He collects the utensils of everyday life, bowls, basins, chamber pots, cutlery, which he associates with elements of cut iron or of natural origin such as bones, wood. What characterizes his work is the use of abandoned enamelled objects which he resuscitates with great humor.

Barbara Prézeau Stephenson
AICA SC

Extract from the exhibition catalog "Nway Kanpe! "

Haiti gang leader threatens to kill American missionary hostages

Officials have said 400 Mawozo gang is demanding $1m per hostage in ransom to release 17 members of missionary group.

 [Odelyn Joseph/AP]

The leader of the Haitian gang suspected of kidnapping 17 members of a missionary group from the United States has threatened to kill the hostages if his demands are not met.

Wilson Joseph, leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, issued the ultimatum in a video posted on social media on Thursday.

“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 said in the video.

Earlier this week, Haitian officials said the gang is demanding $1m in ransom per person to free the hostages.

Speaking in front of the coffins of gang members apparently killed by the police, Joseph threatened Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the chief of National Police Leon Charles in the video,

“You guys make me cry. I cry water. But I’m going to make you guys cry blood,” he said.

Al Jazeera correspondent Manuel Rapalo said protests in the capital Port-au-Prince against the deteriorating security situation in Haiti continued for the fifth day on Thursday.

Haitian workers went on a general strike on October 18 to protest worsening insecurity and gang violence after the abduction of the Christian missionaries.

“The concern now, especially after this video was published, is that tensions are going to continue to escalate; there’s fear that violence could worsen on the streets,” Rapalo said.

The hostages were abducted after leaving an orphanage outside Port-au-Prince on October 16. Sixteen of the abductees are Americans and one is Canadian. Five of them are children, including an eight-month-old infant.

Christian Aid Ministries, the Ohio-based missionary group whose members were kidnapped, called for a day of fasting and prayers for the hostages on Thursday, urging people to pray for the abductees as well as the kidnappers.

“Pray for the kidnappers, that they would experience the love of Jesus and turn to him, and we see that as their ultimate need,” said Weston Showalter, a spokesperson for the group.

“We also ask for prayer for government leaders and authorities as they relate to the case and work toward the release of the hostages.”

Reporting from Millersburg, Ohio, Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, said the kidnappings have been “stressful” for people associated with the missionary group.

“The people we’ve talked to have all expressed deep concern for those missionaries, particularly after the threat that was given by the leader of that kidnapping group,” Hendren said.

One of the poorest countries in the world, Haiti has been suffering from periodic natural disasters, gang violence and a longstanding political crisis made worse by the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July.

The country has seen a surge in kidnappings during the past weeks. Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights (CARDH), a Haitian NGO, said on Wednesday that at least 119 people were kidnapped by criminal gangs in Haiti during the first half of October, following 117 cases in September.

“Citizens do not trust the Haitian national police and this poses a problem because we cannot have an efficient police force if the population does not collaborate,” Gedeon Jean, CARDH director, told AFP earlier this week.

The US government has promised to work with Haitian authorities to free the American hostages.

“We have in the administration been relentlessly focused on this, including sending a team to Haiti from the State Department; working very closely with the FBI, which is the lead in these kinds of matters; in constant communication with the Haitian National Police, the church that the missionaries belong to, as well as to the Haitian Government,”  Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.

“And we will do everything that we can to help resolve the situation.”

Opinion: We can no longer ignore Haiti’s descent into chaos

Editorial Board

October 18, 2021 at 4:17 p.m. EDT

The Washington Post

Haiti’s spiraling mayhem, florid lawlessness and humanitarian meltdown were predictable following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July. In a country already crippled by governmental dysfunction, the vacuum of political legitimacy and authority after that murder left a breeding ground for anarchy.

The mess was largely ignored by the Biden administration, which has been preoccupied with other crises, until the kidnapping Saturday of 17 missionaries — a Canadian and 16 Americans, including five children — near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. Now the maelstrom in the hemisphere’s poorest nation is no longer ignorable.

Kidnapping is so prevalent that predatory gangs which routinely seize individuals and groups for ransom are now said to control half of Port-au-Prince. One of the more notorious of them, 400 Mawozo, is responsible for the missionaries’ kidnapping; earlier this year it grabbed five priests and two nuns and demanded $1 million for their release. They were eventually freed.

Haiti’s outmatched police are bystanders to the spreading pandemonium, and the government, which includes no elected officials, is window dressing. The fate of the missionaries is anyone’s guess, but no one should assume that their seizure is an aberration, or that Haiti’s dissolution will not generate further agonies for its own citizens and those of other nations. Those agonies will include desperate migrants at the United States’ border, such as the thousands who camped under a bridge in South Texas last month, seeking a foothold in this country.

There are no easy answers to fixing Haiti, nor even to what “fixing” it might mean. Some advocates insist that the key to rescuing Haiti lies in its civil society, the country’s vibrant network of nongovernmental social, educational, health and other organizations that provide what passes for a social safety net and a counterbalance to chaos. The truth is that those multifarious groups, for all their important work, are as splintered as the rest of Haitian society and just as powerless to arrest the country’s disintegration.

Those who called for international intervention following Mr. Moïse’s killing, including this page, have been criticized for overlooking the checkered history of such attempts in the past, including the U.S. Marine Corps’s 19-year occupation of Haiti a century ago, and the United Nations-authorized insertion of U.S. troops by the Clinton administration in the mid-1990s. In this century, a U.N. stabilization force was deployed in Haiti for 13 years, until 2017.

Those interventions were problematic. In the most recent instance, U.N. soldiers sent to Haiti from Nepal were the conduit for what became one of the world’s most severe cholera epidemics, and other U.N. troops fathered hundreds or more babies born to penniless local women and girls, amid credible allegations of rape and sexual exploitation.

Yet for all its unintended consequences, outside intervention could also establish a modicum of stability and order that would represent a major humanitarian improvement on the status quo, and with it, the prospect of lives saved and livelihoods enabled. In the cost-benefit analysis that would attend any fresh intervention, policymakers must be alert to the risks, but also to the enormous peril of continuing to do nothing.

AID TO HAITI SENT BY SEA TO BYPASS RISING GANG VIOLENCE

The Guardian

WFP carried out 18 voyages this month from Port-au-Prince to Miragoane, bypassing violent neighborhoods

The World Food Programme (WFP) is now using seafaring barges to ship supplies to earthquake victims in southern Haiti, after escalating gang violence made overland journeys unsafe for aid convoys.

Since the 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck the country’s southern peninsula in August, thousands of survivors have been sporadically cut off from Port-au-Prince, the capital, by roadblocks set up by warring gangs, leading relief workers to employ novel workarounds, including shifting aid to barges and helicopter airlifts.

“A recent upsurge in gang violence, including kidnappings, is impacting relief operations,” said Fernando Hiraldo, the acting UN humanitarian coordinator in Haiti on Thursday. “Violence, looting, road blockades and the persistent presence of armed gangs all pose obstacles to humanitarian access, a situation which is further complicated by very serious fuel shortages and the reduced supply of goods.”

The WFP – the world’s largest humanitarian organization – has carried out 18 voyages this month from Port-au-Prince to Miragoane, a coastal commune 62 miles away, bypassing violent neighborhoods on the outskirts of the capital.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 20 octobre 2021

 
American Missionaries Kidnapped in Haiti, Officials Say

Published Oct. 16, 2021Updated Oct. 17, 2021

A neighborhood in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. By some estimates, gangs now control roughly half of the city. Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

As many as 17 Christian missionaries from the United States and their family members, including children, were kidnapped on Saturday by a gang in Port-au-Prince as they were leaving an orphanage, according to Haitian security officials.

Details of the kidnapping remained unclear, but local officials said the missionaries were abducted from a bus headed to the airport to drop off some members of the group before continuing to another destination in Haiti.

Haiti has been in a state of political upheaval for years, and kidnappings of the rich and poor alike are alarmingly common. But even in a country accustomed to widespread lawlessness, the abduction of such a large group of Americans shocked officials for its brazenness.

Violence is surging across the capital, Port-au-Prince. By some estimates, gangs now control roughly half of the city. On Monday, gangs shot at a school bus in Port-au-Prince, injuring at least five people, including students, while another public bus was hijacked by a gang as well.

Security has broken down as the country’s politics have disintegrated. Demonstrators furious at widespread corruption demanded the ouster of President Jovenel Moïse two years ago, effectively paralyzing the country. The standoff prevented the sick from getting treatment in hospitals, children from attending school, workers from going to the rare jobs available and even stopped electricity from flowing in parts of the country.

Since then, gangs have become only more assertive. They operate at will, kidnapping children on their way to school and pastors in the middle of delivering their services.

The nation’s political turmoil intensified further after Mr. Moïse was assassinatedin his home in July, a killing that remains unsolved. The few remaining officials in the country soon began fighting for control of the government, and the factionalism has continued for months, with officials accusing one another of taking part in the conspiracy to kill the president.

The kidnapping of the American missionaries happened only a day after the United Nations Security Council extended its mission in Haiti by nine months in a unanimous vote on Friday. Many Haitians have been calling for the United States to send troops to stabilize the situation, but the Biden administration has been reluctant to commit boots on the ground.

A State Department spokesman had no comment on the abductions in Haiti on Saturday night.

Parts of the Haitian capital, including where the kidnappings occurred, are so dangerous that many residents have fled, leaving once-bustling streets nearly abandoned. Many of the streets have been surrendered to the gangs, with few pedestrians venturing out even during the day. 

Gangs have kidnapped even poor street vendors, and when they find little to nothing in their wallets, gang members sometimes demand that they sell off items in their homes, like radios and refrigerators. Earlier this year, a classroom of students got together to raise money to pay the ransom of a fellow student.

Haiti - UN : The mandate of BINUH renewed but reduced by China
16/10/2021 10:49:45

Friday, October 15, 2021 at midnight the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) expired and was to be renewed by the UN Security Council.The United States, which generally manages the Haitian file at the United Nations, has proposed a one-year renewal, but the adoption of a resolution to this effect did not go as planned, due to complications Thursday in the negotiations with China.From a diplomatic source, during these closed-door negotiations, the Chinese were very critical affirming that the UN had done nothing in Haiti, deplores "investments at a loss" during all these years with the money of the great powers, especially from China. Beijing called for a renewal of the UN mandate for only 6 months, leaving the possibility of China using its veto on the one-year renewal proposed by the US. Other aspect that may justify the position of China but not mentioned publicly, is the recognition of Taiwan by HaitiFinally on Friday around 6:00 p.m., a compomis was found, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2600 (2021), presented by Mexico and the United States extending the mandate of BINUH until July 15 2022 (9 months) and asked the Secretary General to assess his tenure after 6 monthsIn this text, the Council encouraged close collaboration and coordination between the Office, the United Nations country team in Haiti, regional organizations and international financial institutions with a view to assisting the Government in assuming the responsibility of achieving long-term stability of the country, sustainable development and economic self-sufficiency.United States Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield to the United Nations "Now is not the time for the Security Council to walk away from Haiti,” but rather to ensure that Haiti gets the assistance and support it needs alongside Haitian-led efforts to address its long-standing challenges."Mexican Ambassador to the UN Juan Ramón de la Fuente Ramírez said that "The mandate renewal will give certainty to the Office and enable Member States to assess the Secretary-General’s conclusions with a view to making, in due course, the necessary changes to make the Office’s mandate more effective."For his part, Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun to the UN declared "it behoves the international community to give Haiti more tailored support. Haiti’s leaders must halt their power struggles, shoulder their responsibilities, take the country out of chaos and put it on the path of orderly development. The renewal of the Office’s mandate is an opportunity to discuss how to help Haiti more effectively [...]" adding "thanks to the joint efforts of China, the Russian Federation and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, substantial improvements to the draft were achieved. Working from the Secretary-General’s review, the Council will be able to update the Office’s mandate in light of changing circumstances to better help the Haitian people" recalling "Haiti cannot achieve stability without self-reliance."HL/ HaitiLibre

US Embassy – Under Secretary of State Uzra Zeya in visit

PRESS RELEASE

Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy,
and Human Rights Uzra Zeya Visits Haiti October 12–13On October 12-13, Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Uzra Zeya traveled to Haiti in her first official visit as Under Secretary of State to underscore the United States’ commitment to the people of Haiti and supporting Haitian-led solutions to challenges facing the country. Under Secretary Zeya was accompanied by Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary James Walsh from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.During the visit, Under Secretary Zeya met with Prime Minister Ariel Henry to discuss the safe and humane repatriation of Haitians, the importance of inclusive dialogue with civil society and political actors leading to free and fair elections, COVID-19 prevention, and accountability for President Moïse’s assassination. She also met with key stakeholders from the government, civil society, and non-governmental organizations including representatives from the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), the Organization of American States, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and UNICEF to discuss actions that will increase security, combat corruption, and strengthen democratic governance.Civil society representatives, the National Committee for the Fight Against Human Trafficking, and other interlocutors provided invaluable perspectives on how the United States could forge a path forward to Haitian-led consensus agreement leading to free and fair elections as soon as technically feasible, in respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and support Haitian efforts to combat trafficking in persons.Under Secretary Zeya met with Acting Director General for the Haitian National Police Leon Charles at the Haitian National Police Academy underscoring the United States commitment to assisting Haiti strengthen its capacity to provide security for all people in Haiti.  She also met with Minister of Interior and Acting Minister of Justice Liszt Quitel and highlighted the United States’ recent commitment of an additional $15 million to help reduce gang violence and improve corrections infrastructure.The United States is committed to supporting Haitian-led solutions to increasing security for all people in Haiti, ensuring accountability for human rights violations, restoring democratic institutions through free and fair elections, and supporting the Haitian government in receiving Haitian returnees. The United States is a steadfast partner to Haiti, and the Biden-Harris Administration remains committed to supporting the Haitian people during this challenging time.

Food insecurity

Nearly a million people are at risk of starving to death this winter in Haiti, according to a September 9 estimate of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

In the south of Haiti, at the epicentre of the August 14 earthquake, 980,000 people are expected to suffer from severe food insecurity between September and February 2022, including 320,000 during the current emergency phase. 

The FAO is trying to raise US$20 million as part of a rescue effort. This money will help rebuild damaged infrastructure including irrigation canals, fruit processing factories, dairies, fish outlets, distribution of seeds, agricultural equipment and livestock, before the start of the next agricultural season in October.

In the other departments of North, Centre and West Haiti, the situation is no different. International and national agencies had already issued food shortage alerts since last year. 

According to the June 2021 report of the World Food Program (WFP), the country has one of the highest levels of chronic food insecurity in the world with more than half of its total population chronically food insecure and 22% of children chronically malnourished. Underlying drivers of this situation include extreme poverty and frequent natural disasters. 

On the 2020 Climate Risk Index, Haiti is also third among the countries most affected by severe weather events.

On February 26, five memoranda of understanding were signed to strengthen resilience and improve the food and nutritional security of the Haitian population. These include projects that will be financed by FAO’s own funds in the amount of US$2.15 million within the framework of the activities of its Technical Cooperation Program.

FAO representative José Luis Fernández, declared at the time that “the problem of hunger and food insecurity constitutes a major challenge that the Government and development actors must face.” He also pointed out that extreme weather events, socio-political unrest and structural weaknesses have contributed to the deterioration of the livelihoods of the most vulnerable.

A document published by the FEWS (Famine Early Warning System Network) on the situation in Haiti, noted that the exchange rate against the US$ has appreciated considerably since December 2020 reaching around 75 gourdes per US$ on the formal market and up to 95 gourdes on the informal market. 

This occurred despite the injection of US$12 million in the banking sector in January.

This situation has led to an increase in the prices of both imported and local products. Food price increases also remain above the five-year average of over 40%.

Restrictive measures to fight COVID-19, including closure of the land border on both sides of the Haitian/Dominican border, have also had negative impacts on the availability of a number of food products in Haiti. These include flour, edible oil, condiments, eggs, and sugar. There have also been heavy limitations on trade between the two countries. 

Food security conditions continue to suffer from the residual effects of the decapitalisation of farms, the socio-political crisis, and measures attached to the pandemic.

The new wave of COVID-19 affecting the major world economies, in particular the United States, the Dominican Republic, Chile, and Brazil, is further amplifying the economic recession in these two countries. This is already having a negative impact on the rate of flow and volume of migrant remittances to Haiti and, resultantly, the purchasing power of households.

Currently, following the earthquake in southern Haiti, the percentage of the Haitian population requiring food assistance has increased from 10% to 50%, with a concentration in the south of the country. This requires increased levels of food aid, including seeds and livestock aid. 

The 7.2 August 14 earthquake followed shortly after by Tropical Storm Grace significantly affected food production and habitats in the departments of Sud, Grande Anse and Nippes. 

The following impacts were recorded: 2,207 dead, 137,000 houses destroyed and significant damage to plantations in many areas, seriously affecting upcoming harvests. 

Stocks have been destroyed, and trade in food products halted, in the process reducing the quantity of local products available in public markets and considerably increasing the prices of available products.

In addition, the activities of many small and micro businesses have been suspended. For example, the manufacture and sale of charcoal, small trades and other entrepreneurial activities have been seriously affected. 

Additionally, public transport to certain localities where the earthquake caused landslides and cracks in the roadway, has remained a serious issue.

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