DRUG AND HAITI
Just imagine the quality of learning if kids did not consume drugs and alcohol!
If it's a problem in Jacmel, it's a problem in many more places... Very sad... In my experience, the worst influence comes from the deportees from the US. Just sayin'. I can usually spot them a mile away. Strut, cloths, sneakers, and language English and/or Kreyole. Sell drugs, manipulate, use and abuse anyone and everyone. Haiti can't turn in this direction and succeed. It will turn everything into rum, kleren, and dominos...
Multi-Award-Winning 'THE SWEETEST GIRL'
THE SWEETEST GIRL Short Film that has been getting Oscar buzz, was screened last Sunday at the Urban Film Festival Lyric Theatre in Miami on Sunday September 5th."
The short film, which won Best Picture at the ‘The South Florida International Film Festival is a compelling crime thriller by Samuel Ladouceur (“A Great Day in Harlem,” “Power,” “Boardwalk Empire”). It has been awarded Best Picture at The South Florida International Film Festival in the Black & African category. The Sweetest Girl’. inspired by true events, is a compelling and provocative love story, set in Haiti, haunted by human trafficking and gun violence.
Short Film -- https://www.yanatha.com/sweetestgirlshortfilm
Leaked Audio Confession Blows Lid Off Mystery of Haiti’s Murdered President
Thu, September 2, 2021, 4:44 AM
Joseph Odelyn/AP
Let’s say that you’re a foreign mercenary. And that you and some of your best buds, who are also foreign mercenaries, have just shot to death the leader of an island nation, the inhabitants of which are now likely to be more than a little vexed with you. And let’s further say that there’s an escape plan already set up that would see you out of the dead president’s home and safely on your way.
What do you think you would do next?
Well, if you were one of the Colombian mercenaries who killed Haitian President Jovenel Moïse back in July, you’d apparently choose to push back on the get-away plans so as to stick around and ransack the home looking for loot.
U.S. Admits Training Colombians Accused of Killing Haiti President as Part of Billion Dollar War on Drugs
That was just one of many jaw-dropping details revealed during some 15 hours of audio-taped confessions reportedly given by the Colombian mercs to Haitian officials which were, in turn, leaked to Colombian media giant Caracol in late August. In fact, the testimony given by the former soldiers, many of whom had been trained by the U.S., may have solved the riddle of who funded and masterminded the plot against Moïse.
In a follow-up piece by La Semana, another major print and web presence in Colombia, the confessions were confirmed as having been recorded “before the authorities in Haiti.” Subsequently, dozens of media hubs in Latin America ran stories about the Colombians’ tragic misadventures.
“Before the operation [the Colombian mercenaries] had been informed that Moïse had between 18 and 45 million dollars in his house,” Caracol reported. “There were three tasks: the first was to [kill] the president, the second was to take the entire camera system, and the third was to find the suitcases of money,” said retired Colombian army captain Germán Rivera, who is referred to as “Mike” during the audio sessions.
After the assassination, and about a half-hour of searching, Mike and his crew of 26 Colombians and two Haitian American commandos had dismantled the cameras and found “two suitcases and three boxes apparently loaded with bills,” according to Caracol.
Kidnappers release U.S. veteran and security expert, whose snatching hit “close to home”
BY ONZ CHÉRY SEP. 03, 2021
The Haitian Times
Brahms Alexis, 44, an entrepreneur based in Port-au-Prince, felt immune to the kidnapping crisis in Haiti — until it hit close to home. Alexis’s friend for over 30 years, Olivier Kernizan, was kidnapped. Kernizan was kidnapped in front of his Croix-des-Bouquets home on Aug. 27.
“When they kidnapped someone you know it’s different,” Alexis said, speaking from Port-au-Prince. “It leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I was biting my nails the whole time, wondering what was going to happen, hoping they wouldn't mess things up,”
For five days, Alexis wondered if Kernizan was being fed, if the kidnappers were beating him, if his high blood pressure grew worse and more. When he received a text that the kidnappers released his friend, Alexis’ mind finally went at ease.
Haiti is reeling from a devastating earthquake, COVID-19 pandemic and political instability. Here's how to help.
A 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Haiti took nearly 2,200 lives, decimated homes, schools, offices and churches across the country and left hospitals overwhelmed with thousands of people injured.
Meanwhile, Grace lashed Haiti as a tropical depression on Monday, dumping up to 10 inches of rain before regaining tropical storm status early Tuesday. The heavy rains pelted people huddling in fields and searching for survivors.
To make matters worse, Haiti is struggling with the coronavirus pandemic, recovery from other disasters, and the assassination last month of President Jovenel Moïse.
Political leaders, volunteers and residents from across the globe have raised support and offered help. Even more have asked how they can help. But nonprofit groups and experts say such factors will make raising money for the nation even tougher.
And aid to Haiti has been under scrutiny for years, which was compounded in 2015 when an investigation from ProPublica and NPR questioned where $500 million raised by the American Red Cross was spent. Their investigation found that the Red Cross had grossly overstated how many houses the organization built in the years after the 2010 Haitian earthquake and had used portions of the money to cover overhead and management.
Haiti's death toll from earthquake soars to 1,400 as Tropical Depression Grace dumps 'torrential rains'
'Losses will be high':How Haiti's earthquake compares with its 2010 quake in size, devastation
The American Red Cross said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press that it is not seeking donations for Haiti relief at this time, but will work with its partners – including the Haitian Red Cross and the Red Crescent – to respond to the earthquake. It also disputed the ProPublica-NPR findings.
How to help Haiti: List of organizations
People who want to help the people of Haiti can check out these organizations:
Partners in Health employs more than 6,300 staff, including 2,500 community health workers, to provide primary care, maternal and child health care, HIV and tuberculosis services, and more advanced secondary and tertiary care. The organization is working to provide hospital beds and outreach teams. Donate here.
SOIL has been working in some of the poorest areas in Haiti to facilitate the community-identified priority of ecological sanitation since before the 2010 earthquake. The organization has worked to "take emergency supplies to the areas affected and assess the need," it wrote on its donation page. Donate here.
Locally Haiti has been working to secure requested items for medical workers, for families and for the school tit founded in 1989. Donate here.
World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés said on Twitter that the organization that supplies meals to countries in need is ready to help. The organization later tweeted that "we have activated our culinary school kitchen in Port-au-Prince & also have a team in Jeremie working to get food in & distributed before the storm hits." Donate here.
Hope for Haiti is working on the ground in Haiti. The Florida-based organization is gearing up to distribute $60 million in first aid supplies and medical equipment. Donate here and tag your donation.
UNICEF is prioritizing “the resumption of essential services” south of the island, distributing medical, education and recreational supplies in areas where “health centers, schools, bridges and other essential facilities and infrastructure on which children and families depend on” have been impacted. Donate here.
Humanity & Inclusion has worked in the country since before the 2010 earthquake. A Haitian team is on the ground distributing hygiene kits, medical supplies and critical aid. Donate here.
Project HOPE is partnering with local organizations for emergency response and offering Personal Protective Equipment and other medical supplies. Donate here.
Midwives for Haiti has been training Haitian midwives to increase access and to empower local communities. They’re currently assembling a disaster response, but have said that “getting goods and medications into Haiti is going to become even more difficult than it is now.” Donate here.
Doctors Without Borders is working with hospitals to assist injured patients in both Port-au-Prince and local areas. They’re helping to respond to the latest natural disasters.. Donate here.
If you're looking at another organization where you can send help, check to see whether it is legitimate. An easy way to check is by going to charitynavigator.org. It's better to donate to local organizations, experts say, or organizations with Haitians on their staff and on the ground.
Contributing: Gabriela Miranda, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
Press release
Haiti earthquake: over half a million children at risk of waterborne diseases - UNICEF
02 September 2021
UNICEF/UN0504692/RouzierOn 18 August 2021, in Marceline, near Camp Perrin district, children and their families have access to clean and safe water at one of the four water stations supported by UNICEF in Les Cayes, Haiti.
PORT-AU-PRINCE / PANAMA CITY, 2 September 2021.- About 540,000 children in the southwest of earthquake-stricken Haiti are now facing the possible re-emergence of waterborne diseases, UNICEF warned today.
Severe conditions in southwestern Haiti - where over half a million children lack access to shelter, drinking water and hygiene facilities - are rapidly increasing the threat of acute respiratory infections, diarrhoeal diseases, cholera and malaria.
“The lives of thousands of earthquake-affected children and families are now at risk, just because they don’t have access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene,” said Bruno Maes, UNICEF Representative in Haiti. “Cholera has not been reported in Haiti since February 2019, yet without urgent and firmer action the re-emergence of cholera and other waterborne diseases is a real threat that is increasing by the day.”
Prior to the earthquake, only over half of the healthcare facilities in the three departments most affected by the earthquake had basic access to water services. In the aftermath of the earthquake, nearly 60 per cent of people in the three most affected departments do not have access to safe water. Thousands of people whose houses have collapsed lack access to sanitation due in part to the damage wrought by the earthquake.
With the National Directorate for Water and Sanitation (DINEPA) and civil society partners, UNICEF is to improve access to water, sanitation and hygiene for affected families:
• About 73,600 people receive access to safe water through water trucking systems, six water treatment plants and twenty-two bladders
• Over 35,200 people benefitted from the distribution of about 7,000 hygiene kits, including household water treatments products, soap, water storage, handwashing devices and hygiene pads.
A week after the earthquake devastated Haiti, UNICEF shipped more than 65,000 water purification tablets, 41 bladders, three water treatment units and family hygiene kits. UNICEF has already ordered 31,200 additional hygiene kits. UNICEF, the only UN agency to deliver safe drinking water to the affected population, aims to reach 500,000 people with WASH support.
“Our efforts to deliver more safe drinking water don’t match the dire needs in all the affected areas,” said Maes. “Impatience and sometimes frustration are mounting in some Haitian communities, and this is understandable. But obstructing relief operations won’t help. In the past few days, several distributions of essential hygiene items had to be temporarily put on hold as tensions arose on the ground. Together with financial constraints, insecurity is currently slowing down our lifesaving activities on the ground.”
UNICEF is calling on local authorities to ensure safe conditions for humanitarian organizations to operate and scale up relief assistance to earthquake-affected communities. The 14 August earthquake which struck Haiti has further exacerbated an already challenging humanitarian situation shaped by persistent political instability, socioeconomic crisis and rising food insecurity and malnutrition, gang-related violence and internal displacement, the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the Haitian-Dominican migration influx.
In addition to the US$48.8 million appeal made for 2021, UNICEF is now requesting a humanitarian appeal for children (HAC), of US$73.3 million to scale up its interventions in response to the earthquake and internally displaced persons. So far, less than 1 per cent of this required funding has been received.
UNICEF is calling on the international community to urgently provide additional funding for the humanitarian response and prevent the emergence of waterborne diseases in Haiti after the earthquake.
Earthquake Response Brings Hope in Haiti
Recovery efforts are underway following Haiti’s recent earthquake, but officials have warned that many rural areas remain completely cut off without assistance of any kind. One exception is the hard hit farming community of Laborde, where the initial response is nothing short of remarkable… even though much more remains to be done.
It is a testament to the power of local leadership that farmers in this rural area, working with our regional field agronomist, came up with their own recovery plan within days of the earthquake. Not only is the support they are now receiving exactly what they requested, but the community is also fully in charge of distribution and organization. This level of local coordination has helped to avoid the chaos that often follows a disaster of this kind, and also means that residents are able to begin focusing on long-term rebuilding without delay.
While this recovery plan was developed by the local branch of the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA) in Laborde, it is the response to our initial appeal for funding and support that has made it a reality. So we say thanks to all those from around the world who have made donations, and to the Raising Haiti Foundation and the Julian Grace Foundation for providing emergency grants. And rather than listing the many NGOs that responded to the SFA's request for on-site assistance, we have highlighted their contributions in the following progress report.
And for those who have not yet contributed… the opportunity is one click away:
The farmers in Laborde asked for four kinds of support in their emergency response plan: food, medical care, tents (we had to substitute tarps for tents) and water. Here is what has been provided as of today:
Challenge: Stored farm produce was lost, basic farming operations were disrupted, and access was made difficult for products like rice that come from outside the immediate area.
Response: The SFA approached World Central Kitchen (WCK) for help with food for Laborde. The roots of the organization go back to the earthquake in 2010. Chef José Andres saw the devastation at that time firsthand and subsequently established WCK with the belief that food can be a positive agent of change for communities in need. Now the organization is back in Haiti and from their field operation serving the residents of the Les Cayes area, they are also providing 720 hot meals each day for the SFA farmers and others in Laborde.
We have also purchased and distributed 2,500 lbs of rice. But this is a drop in the bucket compared to what we are going to need in the coming months. Our three-step strategy is to start with hot meals, transition to bulk dry food distribution, and then get back to normal self-reliance as soon as possible.
Challenge: There is almost no regular medical service in the immediate area.
Response: At the invitation of the SFA, Project Medishare has just wrapped up a week-long medical marathon in which they conducted daily clinics open to all the residents of Laborde. Farmers were so grateful to see the Medishare doctors and nurses that several brought gifts of avocados and coconuts, a particularly meaningful gesture given the food shortage in the area. In addition to some minor injuries suffered during the earthquake, the medical team has been dealing with every imaginable ailment and symptom, which is not surprising given the almost total lack of medical service available in Laborde.
Medishare’s 9-member team, along with medical supplies, arrived in nearby Les Cayes on Monday morning via two helicopters and a small plane – all operated at no charge by World Hope International.
Challenge: Up to 60% of homes homes were destroyed or damaged and many families are sleeping in the open in the midst of heavy rain.
Response: While the original request from Laborde was for tents, the SFA has substituted tarps. And all but a handful of the 225 distributed so far began life as sails on boats and yachts. The Sails for Sustenance organization and the New Orleans Yacht Club normally provide used sails as part of their service to Haiti’s subsistence fishermen, but in response to a request from the SFA they diverted a supply of these sails – some of which were so large it took eight people just to unload them from the truck and then lay them out in a field. The same team then spent days cutting the sails into tarps that have been very well received by families in Laborde.
With our sail-to-tarp operation finely tuned, we are waiting on a second and much larger supply of sails and other much needed materials from Sails for Sustenance, the New Orleans Yacht Club and the TSR (Twin Sisters Reunited) Association in coming weeks.
Challenge: Water in local wells and other natural sources was contaminated as a result of the earthquake.
Response: For the first few days we provided some bottled water, but this has now been replaced by water purification tablets. We purchased enough of these tablets to treat 320,000 gallons of water, and demonstrations are done with each distribution to ensure proper use of the product. Based on positive feedback from farmers, we have just made a second purchase of the same quantity of tablets.
While emergency response has been the first priority, the SFA has begun working on both home and farm building repairs as well as the longer-term agricultural recovery phase. The latter is focused on increasing the local seed bank capacity, supplying pumps to improve irrigation, introducing a livestock program, and expanding the tree existing planting operation with a focus on fruit trees.
In other news, the Haiti Response Coalition, in partnership with a group of diaspora and Haiti-based organizations, created a campaign calling on all those who operate in Haiti to pledge to a set of standards for a Haitian solution and a rights-based response to the earthquake. The SFA has signed the pledge and urges others to read it and do the same.
Regards,
ps: shout out to Digicel for donating minutes for the SFA earthquake response team in both Laborde and Les Cayes!
'Haiti needs time to breathe' after 1st devastating earthquake since 2010 disaster
Yahoo/News
Nearly two weeks after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake devastated the Caribbean country of Haiti, killing more than 2,200 people, its surviving citizens and aid workers continue the treacherous work of rebuilding the region.
More than 7,000 homes were destroyed and about 30,000 families were left homeless in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, according to official estimates.
And while an all-hands-on-deck approach has consumed the western part of the island of Hispaniola, many Haitian citizens are wary of foreign intervention that could leave them in a worse position than they’re currently in.
“Haiti needs time to breathe,” Haitian American activist Marleine Bastien told Yahoo News. Bastien was born in the small village of Pont-Benoit in the late 1960s and went to high school there, before seeking political asylum in the U.S. in 1981.
“No country can thrive under constant meddling and interference from foreign nations,” she said. “Haiti wants nations who want to collaborate with them and other nations to support them in times of need. Haiti doesn't need any nation to come and dictate to the Haitian people.”
The country is currently at a historical crossroads. In early July, President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated at his home in a Port-au-Prince suburb by a group of 28 foreign mercenaries. Political chaos ensued as two men claimed leadership of the country. Two weeks after Moïse’s killing, Ariel Henry, a prominent neurosurgeon backed by the U.S., became Haiti’s new leader.
But since then, not much has changed. Rampant gang violence, inadequate police leadership and long-standing mistrust of the government have characterized the former French-ruled republic for decades. Adding insult to injury, just 0.24 percent of the country’s population has received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to Oxford University’s Our World in Data.
Now, with the latest earthquake, the first since the country’s cataclysmic magnitude 7.0 quake in 2010, which left more than 100,000 dead and several hundred thousand displaced, many Haitians simply want relief and stability. But they also want these things on their own terms.
PRESS RELEASE
USAID Provides $32 Million
to Respond to Haiti Earthquake
On August 26, Administrator Samantha Power traveled to Haiti, where USAID is leading the United States government response to the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck on August 14. While in Haiti, Administrator Power met with Haitians impacted by the disaster as well as Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry and other Haitian government officials. She also met with those contributing to the U.S. response on the ground, including the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), members of the US military, and USAID staff based in Haiti. During her visit Administrator Power emphasized the United States’ commitment to supporting the people of Haiti during their time of need and announced $32 million in new humanitarian assistance from USAID to support earthquake response efforts.
Administrator Power, U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Michele S. Sison, USAID Mission Director Christopher Cushing, U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) U.S. Navy Admiral Craig S. Faller, USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance Assistant to the Administrator Sarah Charles, and USAID DART Leader Tim Callaghan conducted an aerial tour of affected areas in southwestern Haiti. The group then visited the commune of Maniche, in Les Cayes Department, where they surveyed damage and discussed priority needs with community members and local first responders.
Maniche was among particularly hard-hit towns in the region. Administrator Power met with families whose homes were destroyed by the earthquake and visited their homes with them to see the damage. She had numerous conversations with impacted community members, as well as with Maniche’s mayor, police chief, local firefighters and Civil Protection officials. The group visited the town’s school, which was destroyed, and discussed the challenges facing children who wouldn’t be able to start the school year as planned. The Administrator also met with USAID Haitian surge staff who joined with the Haitian officials as part of the immediate response to the earthquake. The group also met with local Haitian partners of the UN World Food Program, which recently distributed USAID food assistance to more than 5,000 people in the town. Last week, WFP began transporting from Port-Au-Prince 830 metric tons of USAID food supplies—enough to feed more than 62,000 people for one month—and is distributing it in affected areas.
In Port-au-Prince, Administrator Power, Ambassador Sison, Admiral Faller and Rear Admiral Keith Davids, commander of Joint Task Force (JTF)-Haiti, met with Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Jerry Chandler, Director General of Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency, to discuss the continued scaling up of U.S. assistance effort and continued collaboration with the Government of Haiti on the earthquake response and recovery. Administrator Power emphasized the importance of improved security in addressing the medium and long-term needs of the Haitian people. The Administrator and Prime Minister agreed that continuing to partner to build capacity within the Government of Haiti is a priority going forward.
Administrator Power held a press conference in Port-au-Prince where she began by expressing her profound condolences to the families of the US service members and Afghans who were killed in Kabul today. She then described how USAID’s $32 million in just-announced humanitarian assistance would support earthquake response efforts, including by supporting humanitarian partners delivering urgently needed health care services, emergency shelter and food, safe drinking water, hygiene and sanitation assistance, gender-based violence prevention and response, child protection, and psychosocial support services.
Later in the day, Administrator Power visited SOUTHCOM’s JTF-Haiti Operations Center in Port-au-Prince, where she thanked Admiral Faller and members of JTF-Haiti for their work providing air transport for relief personnel and supplies in support of USAID’s earthquake response, and for medevacing critically injured Haitians to receive medical treatment. As of August 26, JTF-Haiti--including the U.S. Coast Guard--has conducted 413 missions, assisted or rescued 458 people, and delivered more than 205,700 pounds of vital aid, including food, water, medical supplies, and equipment.
Afterwards, Administrator Power met with USAID Haitian staff who were impacted by the earthquake. She also sat down with members of the USAID DART team to thank them for their work leading U.S. government response efforts on the ground. She then joined them in a memorial that honored the life of DART member and revered USAID colleague Tresja Denysenko. Denysenko passed away unexpectedly on August 19 in Haiti while serving on the DART.
For the latest updates on USAID’s humanitarian assistance in Haiti:August 14 2021 Haiti Earthquake
UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Office of Press Relations
For Immediate Release
August 26, 2021
The United Nations Volunteers Programme opens a call for Haitians to become UN Volunteers and support the UN Humanitarian Response in the aftermath of the earthquake.
We would much appreciate your support in sharing widely and, if possible, through your channels, the attached press release. Indeed, find here some images if needed.
For media inquiries, please contact:
In Panama – UNV Regional Office:
Carmen Ramirez,
In Haiti:
Farlone Timo,
Bests,
Farlone TIMO
UNV Program Assistant
UNDP / HAITI Office
14, Rue Reinbold, Bourdon
Port-au-Prince, Haïti (W.I)
Pandemic took heavy toll on student achievement in Broward, Miami Dade schools, tests show |
Remote learning during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic took a heavy toll on student achievement, according to state test results discussed by the Broward County School Board Tuesday. |
The Miami Herald
Although the results of the tests taken last spring weren’t used to determine if children progressed to the next grade, they showed challenging times lie ahead in getting children — many of whom have not been in a classroom in over a year — caught up academically.
Of particular concern were high school algebra results. Only 23% of Broward County high school students achieved a satisfactory score of 3 or higher. That’s down 19 points from the 42 percent levels of 2019. “I can’t even come up with the right adjective to describe them,” said Board Vice Chair Laurie Rich Levinson. “This was a 19% drop from the last time students were tested during the 2019 school year.”
Broward middle school students taking algebra 1 also had a big drop in their test scores, with only 70 percent scoring a three or higher in the standardized tests, down 21 points from the 91 percent metric in 2019. Miami-Dade high schoolers fared only slightly better in algebra 1, with 32% achieving a satisfactory or better score, down 8 points from 40 percent in 2019, according to the results released at the Broward meeting Tuesday.
Miami-Dade middle school students also had a significant drop in algebra 1, with 71 percent scoring 3 or higher, down 17 points from the 88 percent in 2019. The results of the Florida Standards Assessment and the End of Course exams were released by the district in late July, but the School Board only publicly discussed them Tuesday.
Officials said the poor performance was not unexpected, particularly in math because so few students — less than half — returned to in-person learning last school year. Educational experts say math is taught best with face-to-face visual instruction.
Earthquake in Haiti
by Amy Wilentz | Aug 14, 2021
Oh, mesi, Bon Dye, one can imagine Ariel Henry, the interim Prime Minister of Haiti, saying this morning. Thank you, Lord… not because Henry likes earthquakes or doesn’t care about the people of his country but because a 7.2 earthquake just off shore—with hundreds of buildings down, and more than 700 counted dead so far and doubtless several thousand more to come, and roads impassable, and a possible tsunami rising, and a tropical storm on the way to create mudslides and more destruction and death—is easier to deal with than the investigation of the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. The quake also struck on an important day for Haitians: today, August 14, which is the day when a legendary Vaudou ceremony was held at Bois Cayman in 1791, inaugurating Haiti’s world-changing revolution against France. Demonstrations against Henry’s government were planned for today. Cancelled. More for Henry to be thankful for.
Dealing with the limited Haitian judicial system in a highly politicized assassination is difficult and dangerous, and the assassination investigation already shows signs of a probe that will be interminable and probably fruitless.
On the other hand, Haitian governments know how to deal with earthquakes: They invite the international community in.
Not much more that they can do: you can see it all online today. They can pick up rubble with their bare hands, and they are doing that and rescuing people. They can bring the injured to local clinics that haven’t fallen down, and they are doing that. They can give them first aid themselves, and they’re doing that, using the water in their personal water bottles to wash wounds, among other acts of generosity and personal kindness. They can run from the possible tsunami toward the hills, and they’re doing that.
But the kind of resources that, say, Western European nations have for dealing with natural disasters (the stuff we saw in Germany during their floods, for example) Haitians don’t have, in large part because their state has been stolen from them by nefarious and manipulative businessmen, about ten to twenty of them in this era, who wheel and deal and steal, have taken over almost every important sector of the economy, and have convinced the international community that they are critical to Haiti’s development, when in fact they are among the biggest roadblocks that stand in the way.
Almost all of Haiti’s helicopters, for example, are privately owned by people in this group, and there’s not much money in the national coffer to pay the private sector for the emergency use of these things, the treasury having been massively looted during the previous two administrations of Presidents Michel Martelly and his protegé, the late President Moise. Of course, some of the members of this business mafya, as they are known in Haiti, will come through during an emergency, presenting themselves as patriots and offering things for free. But every favor in Haiti is paid forward down the line.
Another problem for Haitians trying to help each other during the earthquake’s aftermath are the gangs that have taken control of the southern exit of the capital and who thus block all access to the country’s biggest hospitals and best services. Today an ambulance carrying eleven victims was stopped by a gang and turned away from the southern entrance to Port-au-Prince in Martissant, which has been run by gangs for the past two months. Its passengers were held for ransom. Meanwhile major international media outlets had to rent helicopters to avoid the gangs and get out to where the damage is worst.
These street gangs are the leftovers of the Martelly/Moise era, and have been underwritten and armed by members of the mafya and their government cronies; they’re an essential part of the mafya’s business plan.
Soon, the U.S. will be back down in Haiti with a relief and recovery effort, along with Canada and no doubt others, same cast as after the even crueler earthquake of 2010, which struck at a shallower depth under the overcrowded, under-constructed capital of Port-au-Prince and killed an estimated 200,000 plus. This time relief and reconstruction will be run by Samantha Power, administrator of USAID under Biden. Last time it was Bill Clinton who ran the huge American response, under Obama, during which millions of dollars went unaccounted for and Haitians didn’t get much relief. Clinton along with his wife, who was then secretary of state, set the stage for all that has followed in Haiti: they helped certify the questionable elections of both post-earthquake presidents and thus allowed the rise of the corrupt and negligent Martelly-Moise administrations, and their criminal supporters… and the consequent ascension of the angry young shantytown gangs who now control the streets and highways of Haiti.
This morning, President Biden said, “I have authorized an immediate US response and named USAID Administrator Samantha Power as the senior US official to coordinate this effort.” We like to believe that Biden at least discussed this with Henry first, but… We do know that Power had a good conversation with the Prime Minister after Biden’s announcement.
In any case, we can only hope and pray that Power does a better job than the Clinton duo. The last earthquake came at the end of the two-decade, on-and-off relay of the presidency between the progressive Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his protege René Préval. The questionable 2011 election of Martelly, a hardline right-winger, signaled to Haitians that the era of trying (though perhaps not achieving) real democracy had come to an end, and that the international community was once again willing to put its considerable weight behind Haitian politicians who seemed to have as their primary goal a kind of authoritarian pro-business stability, even if voters didn’t much like them. In the end, during the Martelly/Moise regnum, stability was nowhere on the agenda—no measures were taken to achieve it.
Perhaps this earthquake will lead to a similar and more profound (reverse) changing of the guard. (Hands clasped together in fervent hope…) For the moment though, the Moise assassination has left the same element in charge of Haiti who were in charge when Moise was alive. That single chess piece has been eliminated, but the rest of the team is still in place. Indeed, the earthquake seems to have offered Prime Minister Henry a backdoor to a new U.S. military intervention in Haiti, which is something that was proposed immediately after he took office, with US benediction, in early July. That proposal was rejected by Haitian civil society, and Biden did not warm to it, but with the earthquake, things have changed. Steeples are fallen in the roads, hotels pancaked, schools destroyed… and perhaps Haitian sovereignty, as well.
Anyway, now Henry can work with Power to help Haitians cope with the earthquake, while possibly turning away from the supremely difficult task of naming, arresting, and trying the perpetrators of the Moise assassination. The earthquake is virtually a gift from God for him. Politically, bringing the assassins to justice is almost an impossibility for Henry, who was part and parcel of the governmental apparatus surrounding the late president, and—as Prime Minister—represents in a way the culmination and the continuation of Moise’s rule, his appointment to that position having been Moise’s last act in office, very shortly before Moise was killed. Henry would be risking… a lot …. if he actually were to hunt down and prosecute the real perpetrators and intellectual authors of the crime. Because, and I will say this only once, the dead president, his friends, and his enemies were all part of the same corrupt group that’s been running Haiti for a decade. Any one of Moise’s cohort could have helped authorize the killing (obviously, there are others to suspect outside of that circle).
Already members of the investigative team looking into the assassination have had to go into hiding because they know or might reveal facts about the crime. For now, the probe continues, and investigators scratch their collective chin. Who did it? Well, let’s say this: Someone knows.
Will the truth ever be revealed?
Ask the killers of Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in a massive explosion on a main street in Beirut in 2005. As Marlise Simons wrote in The New York Times this week, a tribunal established to prosecute the assassins of Hariri failed to show who ordered the attack, or why, after twelve years of investigation and $800 million spent.
That probe is now closed.
How to help Haiti ? Ask its citizens.
The timing could not have been worse. Just five weeks after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse plunged Haiti into political chaos, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake ripped through the nation’s rural southwest coast, buckling roads, leveling tens of thousands of homes, and reducing already flimsy infrastructure to rubble. Residents and aid workers were still taking stock when a tropical storm descended upon the region.
Nothing snaps the world to attention like a natural disaster. Haiti has been here before. In 2010, when a similar magnitude quake struck the capital city of Port-au-Prince, the entire globe, it seemed, reached out to help.
But within two years, just half of the funds had been delivered, and the world’s attention had long since moved on. Haiti was back where it started – alone in the dark.
In the intervening years, much of the news out of Haiti has centered around misappropriation of donated funds.
“We have a fair amount of hubris when it comes to intervening in other countries and thinking we know what’s best for them,” says Robert Maguire, a retired international affairs professor. “We don’t have a very good track record in listening to the people in these places and hearing what they are telling us.”
“The look for quick results has really gotten in the way of the longer, slower work of helping to reinforce and create institutions,” he adds.
Money is needed, of course, but equally important are patience and a willingness to recognize the agency and expertise of the Haitian community.
“The same people who survived and rebuilt after 2010, they are still there,” says Kathie Klarreich, a journalist who lived in Haiti for two decades. “The honest, hardworking humanitarians who live there will surface.”
B.M.
*U.S. steps back from call for Haiti elections this year after quake, virus and assassination*
_BY MICHAEL WILNER_
_UPDATED AUGUST 17, 2021 05:36 PM_
The Biden administration is no longer calling for elections in Haiti to be held this year as it assesses the political repercussions of the recent earthquake, which devastated part of the country just weeks after the president was assassinated.
The 7.2 magnitude earthquake that leveled buildings in Southwest Haiti on Saturday has only heightened U.S. concern over the security situation as gang activity and the probe into President Jovenel Moïse’s July 7 killing have overstretched the Haitian National Police.
“It’s too early to tell what the impact on the political process of the earthquake is,” Jake Sullivan, White House national security advisor, said at a press briefing. “We’re in the process of assessing that.”
A senior administration official told McClatchy earlier Tuesday that the White House supports Haiti holding new elections when possible, citing the earthquake, assassination and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“We strongly support holding elections as soon as they are viable,” the official said. “Even pre-earthquake, they’re in the middle of a pandemic, and the security situation was one that was concerning.”
The comments from both officials are a step back from repeated calls from the State Department for elections in Haiti to be held this year after Moïse’s murder.
“The policy remains that we want to make sure Haitians can freely and fairly exercise their right to vote,” the senior administration official said. “Right now the focus is on an immediate response to the aftermath of the earthquake.”
Officials do not anticipate the scale of the devastation to compare with the 2010 earthquake which struck near the Haitian capital and resulted in an estimated 300,000 deaths.
But the humanitarian crisis around the recent earthquake is still expected to be severe, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. The death toll from the weekend earthquake is now over 1,400.
Haiti’s hospitals have been understaffed, ill-equipped, and filled with COVID-19 patients in a country where very few people have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
On the day of the assassination, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters that “it is still the view of the United States that elections this year should proceed” — a position the administration has repeated multiple times since.
Days before the quake, Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council published a new calendar for elections and a controversial constitutional referendum — dates that now seem uncertain.
“The earthquake may delay that process even more now, probably into early 2022,” said Georges Fauriol, an expert on Haiti and senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“That puts a burden on key international supporters, in particular the United States,” Fauriol said, “because the more you move into 2022, the more you hit the historical calendar of presidential terms — and that essentially means you run into ‘22 with the delayed beginning of a normal presidential term.”
Moïse was already governing Haiti by decree before his assassination because the country had failed to hold elections on time. U.S. officials had been pressing Haiti to hold elections as soon as technically feasible to reconstitute parliament and fill local offices.
The new calendar calls for the first round of presidential elections to take place on Nov. 7 and runoffs in January. But in an interview with the Miami Herald on Sunday, Prime Minister Ariel Henry dismissed the new dates.
“We do not have an election calendar,” Henry said.
_McClatchy White House correspondent Francesca Chambers and Miami Herald Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles contributed reporting._
Message from Mayor Daniella Levine Cava After suffering the impacts of COVID-19 and the recent assassination of President Moïse, the people of Haiti are now coping with the aftermath of the devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Saturday morning. As a community that shares deep bonds with the Haitian people, we are united in our enormous grief for the lives lost and our concern for all those suffering on the island and here in Miami-Dade. Miami-Dade County stands ready to support in every way we can. Since Saturday, we have worked to marshal aid to the people of Haiti in partnership with the Ayiti Community Trust and Operation Helping Hands, a partnership of the United Way of Miami-Dade and the Miami Herald / El Nuevo Herald. We're working through the Office of Emergency Management to coordinate efforts with Haitian-led nonprofits on the ground to provide resources to those afflicted. We are in close contact with the federal government and have shared our readiness to lend our extraordinary Miami-Dade Fire Rescue teams to support any search and rescue missions on the island. We want also want to acknowledge the enormous generosity of so many here in our community who have given what they can to support the relief effort. This support will continue to be essential as Haiti works to provide immediate relief and eventually to rebuild from yet another tragedy. I encourage all County employees who are able to contribute to these efforts by donating through Ayiti Community Trust or Operation Helping Hands . We are also working with the Consulate General of the Republic of Haiti to determine how best to get donated goods such as medical supplies and food to those in need. Moving forward, I will continue to keep employees updated on these efforts and I'm deeply appreciative for the support and generosity our workforce has already shown for the people of Haiti. Our community came together like never before in the aftermath of the tragedy in Surfside, and I know we can do so again following this unthinkable disaster for our neighbors who are hurting. To the Haitian people and all those here in our community impacted by this tragedy: our hearts are with you. I know that in the face of devastation, you will once again show the world how resilient and courageous you are.May God be with you. Ke Bondye avèk ou.Yours in service,Mayor Daniella |
Former Colombian Soldiers (HENM) Deny Killing Haitian President
Detained in Haiti, Colombians say they thought they were on a DEA mission to arrest President Jovenel Moïse: ‘We were fooled’
July 30, 2021 8:43 pm ET
PORT-AU-PRINCE—The former Colombian soldiers jailed in Haiti in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse say they didn’t kill him and thought they were on a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration mission to arrest the leader, lawyers from the Colombian state, who talked to the men, said Friday.
“They said they didn’t know what happened,” said Luis Andrés Fajardo, the No. 2 in Colombia’s human rights agency. He spoke with most of the 18 men for about three hours at a Haitian prison. “It was a trap,” he recalled several saying.
The former servicemen, ex-special operations soldiers who’d fought guerrillas in Colombia, had been hired by a Miami security company and arrived here between May and June, according to relatives, text messages, and Haitians who interacted with them. But the owner of the company and a group of Haitian businessmen, the police here say, instead took part in a plan to assassinate Mr. Moïse.
In the meetings with the lawyers, in which the servicemen for the first time detailed their account for Colombia’s government, the former soldiers repeated the same phrase over and again: “We were fooled.”
Even so, some of the men didn’t speak or spoke little, preferring to spend the time writing letters for Mr. Fajardo’s delegation to take back to their relatives in Colombia. The men had been tightly handcuffed for 24 hours a day for more than a week, they said, and about half of them were cuffed to each other, Mr. Fajardo said.
The DEA declined to comment. It has previously said that individuals who yelled “DEA” at the time of the killing to gain entrance to the president’s home weren’t acting on behalf of the agency.
Mr. Moïse was killed when gunmen stormed his home in Port-au-Prince in the early hours of July 7. Three of the former Colombian soldiers were killed soon after in a shootout with the Haitian police, authorities here said. The 18 Colombians were captured in the days following the attack.
Police have arraigned or implicated more than 40 people during their investigation. They include a Haitian senator, a supreme court judge, a former cocaine trafficker who became a U.S. informant, and several Miami businessmen. Members of the security team assigned to protect Mr. Moïse are being interrogated, and their leader has been charged. Colombia’s chief of police, Gen. Jorge Vargas, said on July 15 that two of the former servicemen plotted with those planning the operation against the Haitian president, basing their comments on the Haitian investigation.
But no clear motive or mastermind has emerged in an investigation involving three countries.
The 18 Colombians have been kept in a small, roughly 125-square-foot corridor since their arrest. Investigators from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and Colombia’s government have been in Haiti trying to determine how the crime took place.
Eduardo Florez, a criminal defense lawyer working with the Colombian government’s rights office, said a few of them have minor injuries: an injured foot, stitches in the back of the head. The men had been provided food and water. They told the Colombian lawyers they didn’t want to be transferred from the jail for fear of being killed.
“They are very nervous,” said Mr. Florez, who said they also haven't seen a judge or been formally entered into the court system. “And they are conscious of all that.”
The lawyers from the Colombian human rights delegation are some of the first to gain access to the former servicemen, who haven’t yet been able to secure their own defense attorney. They were able to see them after the Organization of American States and Haiti’s Citizen Protection Office, a human rights body, connected them to relevant officials. A request sent by Colombia’s ambassador to Haiti to the Haitian justice ministry has remained unanswered, Mr. Fajardo added.
On Friday, Colombia’s government expressed concern about the treatment of the men.
The government said Marta Lucía Ramírez, Colombia’s foreign minister, wrote a letter to Haiti’s ambassador in the Andean country, urging Haiti to ensure due process for the Colombians and provide them with legal assistance. Ms. Ramírez said injured detainees haven't received adequate medical treatment and weren’t being guaranteed humanitarian conditions in the jail.
I remind you that your government has the moral and legal obligation to protect detainees under your jurisdiction,” Ms. Ramírez said.
Spokespeople for Haiti’s prime minister and acting president didn’t return requests for comment. Leon Charles, the head of Haiti’s national police, didn’t return calls.
The men have all been repeatedly interviewed by FBI agents and Haitian investigators, the Colombians told Mr. Fajardo.
“There is one thing in all this that is bizarre…they are all in the same room,” the lawyer said. “Normally, in an investigation, if you want to know the truth, you have to separate them.”
In their comments to the lawyers, the men said they had been serving an arrest warrant for the president.
After the president was killed and Haitian authorities responded, putting out a call for the public to help find foreign-speaking gunmen, 11 of the Colombians fled to the Taiwanese embassy. Mr. Fajardo said they still believed they were on a legitimate, government mission. The Taiwanese embassy said it allowed Haitian police to arrest them.
At one point during the lawyer’s visit, Haitian police came in and handed out paper and pens to the men to write letters back home to their families.
“I’m innocent,” wrote one prisoner in a letter to his family which he handed to the lawyers to take back to Colombia.
Mr. Fajardo said the prisoners recalled signing a document in French that they didn’t understand.
Mr. Florez said he thinks the men gave up the right to speak to a lawyer when they talked to the FBI.
The men were hired by CTU, a Miami-based security firm, Haitian authorities have said. A lawyer for its owner, Antonio Intriago, said his client would issue a statement soon. “Our client is innocent and is working to clear his name,” he wrote in an email.
In their Haitian jail, some of the former Colombian soldiers seemed to cling to hope that the company that hired them would resolve the impasse, Mr. Fajardo said.
“They said, ‘What is going to happen to the company we are working for,’ ” he said. “They thought it is going to get them a lawyer and everything.”
—José de Córdoba in Mexico City and Jenny Carolina González in Bogotá, Colombia, contributed to this article.
EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (August 1st, 2021)
Ex. 16, 2-4 +12-15; Ps. 78; Eph. 4, 17, 20-24; Jn. 6, 24-35 By +Guy Sansaricq.
The crowd stunned by the miracle of the multiplication of the breads follows Jesus to the other side of the lake longing for more favors. Jesus begins by scolding them: “You run after me because you have eaten bread and are filled! Run rather after the food that lasts forever, the bread the Father has given you!”
Is it not true that we strain ourselves for passing goods yet find no time for what is permanent and eternal?
The work of God, He continued, is that you believe in the one He sent! Jesus Himself is the supreme treasure we should all long for. For 2000 years millions have found this teaching to be true. What about you? Then, referring to the manna, often called the bread from heaven Jesus stated: “I am the real bread that comes from heaven to give life to the world. I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never hunger; he who believes in me will never thirst!
From this point on, Jesus speaks about the real presence of his body and blood in the bread and wine of the Mass. Ps. 4 warns us that we tend to “love what is worthless and chase after lies.” Jesus is calling us to seek Him who is infinitely superior to all earthly food.”
Learn to seek and find TRUE JOY in your COMMUNION WITH JESUS’ BODY AND BLOOD!!
‘They Thought I Was Dead’: Haitian President’s Widow Recounts Assassination
Struck by gunfire, Martine Moïse lay bleeding as the assassins who killed her husband ransacked her room. Now, she says, the F.B.I. must find the mastermind behind the attack.
July 30, 2021Updated 9:04 a.m. ET
Martine Moïse, first lady of Haiti, in Florida on Thursday. Her husband’s assassins also shot her in the arm.
Maria Alejandra Cardona for The New York Times
MIAMI — With her elbow shattered by gunfire and her mouth full of blood, the first lady of Haiti lay on the floor beside her bed, unable to breathe, as the assassins stormed the room.
“The only thing that I saw before they killed him were their boots,” Martine Moïse said of the moment her husband, President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti, was shot dead beside her. “Then I closed my eyes, and I didn’t see anything else.”
She listened as they ransacked the room, searching methodically for something in her husband’s files, she said. “‘That’s not it. That’s not it,’” she recalled them saying in Spanish, over and over. Then finally: “‘That’s it.’”
The killers filed out. One stepped on her feet. Another waved a flashlight in her eyes, apparently to check to see if she was still alive.
“When they left, they thought I was dead,” she said.
In her first interview since the president’s assassination on July 7, Mrs. Moïse, 47, described the searing pain of witnessing her husband, a man with whom she had shared 25 years, being killed in front of her. She did not want to relive the deafening gunfire, the walls and windows trembling, the terrifying certainty that her children would be killed, the horror of seeing her husband’s body, or how she fought to stand up after the killers left. “All that blood,” she said softly.
The president’s funeral in Cap-Haitien, days after gunmen entered the couple’s official residence and attacked them in their bedroom.Federico Rios for The New York Times
But she needed to speak, she said, because she did not believe that the investigation into his death had answered the central question tormenting her and countless Haitians: Who ordered and paid for the assassination of her husband?
The Haitian police have detained a wide array of people in connection with the killing, including 18 Colombians and several Haitians and Haitian Americans, and they are still seeking others. The suspects include retired Colombian commandos, a former judge, a security equipment salesman, a mortgage and insurance broker in Florida, and two commanders of the president’s security team. According to the Haitian police, the elaborate plot revolves around a 63-year-old doctor and pastor, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, who officials say conspired to hire the Colombian mercenaries to kill the president and seize political power.
But critics of the government’s explanation say that none of the people named in the investigation had the means to finance the plot on their own. And Mrs. Moïse, like many Haitians, believes there must have been a mastermind behind them, giving the orders and supplying the money.
She wants to know what happened to the 30 to 50 men who were usually posted at her house whenever her husband was at home. None of his guards were killed or even wounded, she said. “I don’t understand how nobody was shot,” she said.
Martine Moïse, the first lady of Haiti, this month at a memorial for her assassinated husband, Jovenel Moïse. Federico Rios for The New York Times
At the time of his death, Mr. Moïse, 53, had been in the throes of a political crisis. Protesters accused him of overstaying his term, of controlling local gangs and of ruling by decree as the nation’s institutions were being hollowed out.
Mr. Moïse was also locked in battle with some of the nation’s wealthy oligarchs, including the family that controlled the nation’s electrical grid. While many people described the president as an autocratic leader, Mrs. Moïse said her fellow citizens should remember him as a man who stood up to the rich and powerful.
And now she wants to know if one of them had him killed.
“Only the oligarchs and the system could kill him,” she said.
Dressed in black, with her arm — now limp and perhaps useless forever, she said — wrapped in a sling and bandages, Mrs. Moïse offered an interview in South Florida on the agreement that The New York Times not reveal her whereabouts. Flanked by her children, security guards, Haitian diplomats and other advisers, she barely spoke above a whisper.
She and her husband had been asleep when the sounds of gunfire jolted them to their feet, she recalled. Mrs. Moïse said she ran to wake her two children, both in their early 20s, and urged them to hide in a bathroom, the only room without windows. They huddled there with their dog.
Her husband grabbed his telephone and called for help. “I asked, ‘Honey, who did you phone?’” she said.
Mrs. Moïse said investigators have yet to answer the central question of the case: Who ordered and paid for the assassination of her husband?Matias Delacroix/Associated Press
“He said, ‘I found Dimitri Hérard; I found Jean Laguel Civil,’” she said, reciting the names of two top officials in charge of presidential security. “And they told me that they are coming.”
But the assassins entered the house swiftly, seemingly unencumbered, she said. Mr. Moïse told his wife to lie down on the floor so she would not get hurt.
“‘That’s where I think you will be safe,’” she recalled him saying.
It was the last thing he told her.
A burst of gunfire came through the room, she said, hitting her first. Struck in the hand and the elbow, she lay still on the floor, convinced that she, and everyone else in her family, had been killed.
None of the assassins spoke Creole or French, she said. The men spoke only Spanish, and communicated with someone on the phone as they searched the room. They seemed to find what they wanted on a shelf where her husband kept his files.
“They were looking for something in the room, and they found it,” Mrs. Moïse said.
She said she did not know what it was.
“At this moment, I felt that I was suffocating because there was blood in my mouth and I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “In my mind, everybody was dead, because if the president could die, everybody else could have died too.”
President and Mrs. Moïse in 2019.Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press
The men her husband had called for help, she said — the officials entrusted with his security — are now in Haitian custody.
And while she expressed satisfaction that a number of the accused conspirators have been detained, she is by no means satisfied. Mrs. Moïse wants international law enforcement agencies like the F.B.I., which searched homes in Florida this week as part of the investigation, to track the money that financed the killing. The Colombian mercenaries who were arrested, she said, did not come to Haiti to “play hide and seek,” and she wants to know who paid for it all.
In a statement on Friday, the F.B.I. said it “remains committed to working alongside our international partners to administer justice.”
Mrs. Moïse expected the money to trace back to wealthy oligarchs in Haiti, whose livelihoods were disrupted by her husband’s attacks on their lucrative contracts, she said.
Mrs. Moïse cited a powerful Haitian businessman who has wanted to run for president, Reginald Boulos, as someone who had something to gain from her husband’s death, though she stopped short of accusing him of ordering the assassination.
Mr. Boulos and his businesses have been at the center of a barrage of legal cases brought by the Haitian government, which is investigating allegations of a preferential loan obtained from the state pension fund. Mr. Boulos’ bank accounts were frozen before Mr. Moïse’s death, and they were released to him immediately after he died, Mrs. Moïse said.
Police officials gather evidence around the presidential residence in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. Joseph Odelyn/Associated Press
In an interview, Mr. Boulos said that only his personal accounts, with less than $30,000, had been blocked, and he stressed that a judge had ordered the release of the money this week, after he took the Haitian government to court. He insisted that, far from being involved in the killing, his political career was actually better off with Mr. Moïse alive — because denouncing the president was such a pivotal part of Mr. Boulos’s platform.
“I had absolutely, absolutely, absolutely nothing to do with his murder, even in dreams,” Mr. Boulos said. “I support a strong, independent international investigation to find who came up with the idea, who financed it and who executed it.”
Mrs. Moïse said she wants the killers to know she is not scared of them.
“I would like people who did this to be caught, otherwise they will kill every single president who takes power,” she said. “They did it once. They will do it again.”
She said she is seriously considering a run for the presidency, once she undergoes more surgeries on her wounded arm. She has already had two surgeries, and doctors now plan to implant nerves from her feet in her arm, she said. She may never regain use of her right arm, she said, and can move only two fingers.
“President Jovenel had a vision,” she said, “and we Haitians are not going to let that die.”
Protests and riots erupted the day before the president’s funeral. Federico Rios for The New York Times
Anatoly Kurmanaev and Harold Isaac contributed reporting from Port-au-Prince.
The body of slain Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was returned to his hometown Friday for a private funeral amid heavy security following violent protests and fears of political volatility in the Caribbean nation.
Martine Moïse arrived to cries of "Justice! Justice!" as she headed straight to her husband's casket, climbing the stairs and stopping in front of it. Her right arm in a sling, she lay her left arm on the casket and then brought it to her heart as she stood there in silence. Her eyes filled with tears as her three children joined her.
Minutes later, a group of supporters grabbed a large portrait of Moïse and paraded with it as the police band began to play the national anthem over loud wails.
As the ceremony began, hundreds of protesters clashed with police outside the private residence. Shots erupted and tear gas and black smoke wafted into the ceremony. Protesters' cries carried over religious leaders speaking at the funeral.
Earlier, cries of "Assassin!" filled the air at the arrival of Haiti's National Police Chief León Charles. Haitians clad in somber suits, shiny shoes and black and white formal dresses shouted and pointed fingers at the neighboring seating platforms where Haitian officials and foreign dignitaries sat above at least a dozen men with high-powered weapons.
"You didn’t take any measures to save Jovenel! You contributed to his killing!" one woman yelled.
On the grounds below, one Moïse supporter threatened Charles: "You need to leave now or we’re going to get you after the funeral!"
Newly appointed Prime Minister Ariel Henry arrived after to cries of, "Justice for Jovenel!"
White T-shirts and caps emblazoned with his picture were distributed to supporters the day before what is expected to be the final ceremony to honor Moïse, who was shot several times on July 7 during an attack at his private home that seriously injured his wife, Martine.
"This is something that will be engraved in our memory," said Pedro Guilloume, a Cap-Haitien resident who hoped to attend the funeral. "Let all Haitians channel solidarity."
Moïse’s body arrived shortly after dawn at his family’s seaside property where the funeral is being held. Six officials carried the brown casket up a stage where they saluted it and stood before it in silence for several minutes before draping a large red and blue Haitian flag over it.
Before the funeral began, a man wrapped himself in a large Haitian flag and approached the casket, crying out, "We need to fight and get justice for Jovenel!" Next to him, a man carrying a T-shirt commemorating Moïse joined in as he yelled, "Jovenel died big! He died for me and for the rest of the country…We’re not going to back down."
The funeral comes days after a new prime minister supported by key international diplomats was installed in Haiti — a move that appeared aimed at averting a leadership struggle following Moïse's assassination.
Henry, who was designated prime minister by Moïse before he was slain but never sworn in replaced interim prime minister Claude Joseph, and has promised to form a provisional consensus government until elections are held.
On Thursday, violent demonstrations hit neighborhoods in Cap-Haitien as groups of men fired shots into the air and blocked some roads with blazing tires. One heavily guarded police convoy carrying unknown officials drove through one flaming barricade, with a vehicle nearly flipping over.
A priest who presided over a Mass on Thursday morning at Cap-Haitian’s cathedral to honor Moïse warned there was too much bloodshed in Haiti as he asked people to find peace, noting that the poorest communities are affected.
On Thursday evening, Martine Moïse and her three children appeared at a small religious ceremony at a hotel in Cap-Haitien where Henry and other government officials offered their condolences.
"They took his life, but they can’t take his memories," said a priest who presided over the ceremony. "They can’t take his brain. They can’t take his ideas. We are Jovenel Moïse."
Moïse was sworn in as Haiti’s president in February 2017 and faced increasing criticism in recent years from those who accused him of becoming increasingly authoritarian. He had been ruling by decree for more than a year after the country failed to hold legislative elections.
Authorities have said that at least 26 suspects have been arrested in the killing, including 18 former Colombian soldiers. Police are still looking for several more suspects they say were involved in the assassination plot, including a former rebel leader and an ex-senator.
For about 10 minutes, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse attempted to call security forces to counter the early morning raid that unfolded at his home earlier this month before he was assassinated, according to a report.
SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (July 25th, 2021)
2 Kings 4, 42-44; Ps. 145; Eph. 4, 1-6; Jn. 6, 1-15. By +Guy Sansaricq
For the next four weeks we will be meditating prayerfully on Chapter 6 of St. John’s Gospel. The text begins with the stunning miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. Jesus feeds a multitude of five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fishes. That mighty deed is used to introduce Jesus’ fantastic teaching on the “BREAD OF LIFE.”
This miracle is to be seen in the light of two similar mighty deeds reported in the Old Testament: first, the manna in the desert and second, the feeding of 100 people by Prophet Elijah with a handful of barley. In both cases, God fed hungry crowds with very little.
The details reported by John bring forth great teachings:
1. a) Jesus does not create the food out of nothing but uses the little resources of the people. The little merchant boy had to give up his 5 loaves and 2 fishes with great trust in Jesus who appears to require FAITH before performing his mighty deed.
2. b) The Apostles are used to PUT ORDER in the crowd. The crowd that is being fed must not be in disarray. Likewise, The CHURCH must also be an organized body.
3. c) Also God’s gift is abundant. There were 12 baskets of leftovers.
4. d) After the miracle Jesus escapes from the crowd who wanted to make of Him their
KING. The do-gooders must not seek human honor nor political stature.
Man’s spirit needs to be fed just like his body. We are called to hunger for the bread of life.
*Announcement of Daniel Foote as Special Envoy for Haiti*
The Department of State is pleased to announce that Ambassador Daniel Foote, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, will serve as its Special Envoy for Haiti. The Special Envoy will engage with Haitian and international partners to facilitate long-term peace and stability and support efforts to hold free and fair presidential and legislative elections. He will also work with partners to coordinate assistance efforts in several areas, including humanitarian, security, and investigative assistance. Additionally, the Special Envoy will engage stakeholders in civil society and the private sector as we pursue Haitian-led solutions to the many pressing challenges facing Haiti.
The Special Envoy will, along with the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, lead U.S. diplomatic efforts and coordinate the effort of U.S. federal agencies in Haiti from Washington, advise the Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, and coordinate closely with the National Security Council staff on the administration’s efforts to support the Haitian people and Haiti’s democratic institutions in the aftermath of the tragic assassination of Jovenel Moïse.
Special Envoy Foote brings extensive diplomatic experience to this role – including as Deputy Chief of Mission in Haiti and as the U.S. Ambassador to Zambia. The Department congratulates Special Envoy Foote as he takes on his new role and thanks him for his continued service to his country.
Battle for Power in Haiti Extends to Lobbying in Washington
Rival political figures and interests are doling out big sums to the influence industry to win support from the United States even as problems in Haiti remain unsolved.
July 21, 2021
The Haitian government had been ramping up its spending on Washington lobbying in the months before the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.Federico Rios for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The struggle for power in Haiti after the assassination of the country’s president has spilled onto K Street, where rival Haitian politicians, business leaders and interest groups are turning to lobbyists to wage an expensive and escalating proxy battle for influence with the United States.
Documents, interviews and communications among Haitian politicians and officials show a scramble across a wide spectrum of Haitian interests to hire lobbyists and consultants in Washington and use those already on their payrolls in the hopes of winning American backing in a period of leadership turmoil in Haiti.
A group text chat in the days after the killing of President Jovenel Moïse that included Haitian officials, political figures and American lobbyists showed them strategizing about countering American critics and potential rivals for the presidency and looking for ways to cast blame for the killing, according to copies of the messages obtained by The New York Times and confirmed by some of the participants. The chat began before the assassination and originally included Mr. Moïse, though it appeared to take on a more frenetic tone after he was gunned down in his home this month.
The texts and other documents help bring to life how lobbyists from firms including Mercury Public Affairs — which was paid at least $285,000 in the second half of last year by the Haitian government — are working with allied politicians to position successors in the wake of the assassination.
In addition to Mercury, lobbying filings show that Haiti’s government is paying a total of $67,000 a month to three other lobbyists or their firms, some of which have retained additional lobbyists under subcontracts.
At the same time, competing political factions are looking for ways to develop backing in Washington for their own candidates. One former Haitian lawmaker had a series of discussions about hiring a lobbyist to push the United States to recognize Haiti’s Senate president as the country’s interim leader. A different would-be leader expanded the American political team he assembled to seek support in Congress and from wealthy donors for a possible presidential campaign.
Several other Haitian politicians and interest groups approached lobbyists, political consultants and fixers offering fees as high as $10 million or more for their help.
One prominent lobbyist, Robert Stryk, signed a contract in the days after the assassination to represent a prominent Haitian business interest.
Mr. Stryk — who has worked as a fixer of sorts for foreign clients from whom other lobbyists keep their distance, including targets of sanctions and criminal inquiries in Angola, the Democratic Republican of Congo and Venezuela — would not identify his client in Haiti. But he said he was helping the client attract private investment from the United States to Haiti in an effort to shape the debate about the country’s future.
“All of the various personalities are jockeying for position, in the hopes that the United States could elevate their stature in some way,” said Christopher Harvin, a former Bush administration official who works as a lobbyist and political consultant for clients around the world.
It is not clear yet how much effect the influence campaigns might have. But the lobbying push is the latest example of the scale and reach of Washington’s influence industry and its role in seeking to sway foreign policy. Especially in countries heavily reliant on the United States for financial aid and other backing, governments and deep-pocketed interests have long paid handsomely for help winning support in Washington — or at least the appearance of it — sometimes leading to criticism that they are more focused on currying favor in Washington than addressing problems at home.
The dynamic is stark in Haiti, where a quarter of the population is acutely hungry, despite billions in international assistance since an earthquake devastated the country in 2010.
The Haitian government had been ramping up its spending on Washington lobbying in the months before the assassination as Mr. Moïse faced mounting criticism over his efforts to write a new Constitution and hold elections while the country was convulsed by violence, with thousands of protesters demanding he leave office.
As members of Congress voiced criticism, a lobbyist for the Haitian government recommended in the group text chat days before the assassination that “we should make a formal request” for Haiti’s prime minister “to visit and meet with Blinken in DC,” referring to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.
The chaotic power struggle created by the killing of Mr. Moïse has only intensified the drive for United States government support.
Haiti’s president pleaded with top officer during raid: ‘Come save my life’
The suspected assassins were made up of Haitians, Haitian-Americans and former Colombian soldiers. The shooting occurred at Moïse's Port-au-Prince home on July 7.
The attack on the 53-year-old "was carried out by foreign mercenaries and professional killers — well-orchestrated," and that they were masquerading as agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Bocchit Edmond, the Haitian ambassador to the U.S., said.
The paper said it along with the McClatchy Washington Bureau spoke to "at least three people" who received calls from the president’s house on that morning. The paper said it is still a mystery how the team managed to get past several layers of security at the home.
None of the president’s security guards were hurt.
"When I send you to protect a president, I don’t send you to live, I send you to die protecting him," one member of the security detail told the paper.
So far, police have detained more than 20 suspects they say were directly involved in the killing, including a contingent of former Colombian special forces soldiers. Other suspects were killed by authorities as they closed in.
The Associated Press contributed to this report