Power vacuum, earthquake and crime -- Haiti sinks deeper into gloom
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Port-au-Prince (AFP)
Haiti sunk deeper into confusion and fear Wednesday, a day after the Port-au-Prince prosecutor was sacked for requesting the indictment of the prime minister on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise.
The country has been rudderless and beset by a worsening humanitarian and political crisis since an armed hit squad killed the president on July 7, a crisis only worsened by a deadly earthquake a month later.
- Prime Minister in hot seat -
Moise's last political act was to appoint Ariel Henry as head of government as prime minister. But even before the funeral of the head of state, a standoff had erupted between Henry and his former interim predecessor, Claude Joseph.
Amid pressure from various countries, tensions seemed to ease, with politicians in Port-au-Prince unanimously demanding that those responsible for the president's slaying be brought to justice. Henry solemnly pledged to do so.
But over the following weeks, the new premier proved incapable of keeping another promise: to create a climate conducive to the organization of fresh elections.
Worse, Henry is now suspected of having had telephone exchanges in the hours after the attack with one of the main suspects of the president's assassination. Henry has swept away the accusation without any response, other than dismissing the prosecutor who leveled the accusations against him.
- Power vacuum -
The abrupt presidential void since July 7 was a final blow for Haitian democracy. Moise had not held any elections since coming to power in 2017, and as a result Haiti now has only 10 elected officials.
Members of parliament left their seats in January 2020, leaving only a third of the Senate as the sole symbolic guarantor of legislative power. But they lacked any ability to legislate or control the actions of a government whose legitimacy was contested.
Moise, criticized by the opposition for authoritarian overreach, also weakened the justice system by not appointing new judges to the higher ranks of the judiciary.
In February, after denouncing an attempted coup, the late president illegally forced three judges on the Appeals Court into retirement. Lacking sufficient members to convene, the highest court of justice in the country is now paralyzed.
- No referee in sight -
With a hollowed-out political class, any interim management of Haiti is now adrift.
After dozens of military coups, Haiti demobilized its army in 1995, but it was reconstituted by Moise in 2015. It still has only about 500 members, mostly engineers more capable of tackling natural disasters than any foreign foes.
The ranks of the National Police force may have grown since its foundation in 1995, but it still has fewer than 20,000 officers serving a crime-wracked country of 10 million, and has been shaken by internal disputes
The force has also seen its credibility undermined by the fact that no police officer protecting the president was even injured during the assassination.
Over the past five years, the United Nations has steadily reduced its presence in the Caribbean country. The UN first withdrew its peacekeepers -- sent in 2004 after the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide -- in 2017, and then in 2019 wound up its police mission.
And Haiti's modern troubles come barely a decade after a 2010 earthquake killed some 200,000 people and a subsequent cholera outbreak killed another 10,000.
Foreign diplomats have observed all this with a silence that speaks volumes. Even if any informal exchanges have been organized with the Haitian political class, no official note on the crisis has been issued by the Core Group, made up of representatives of the United Nations, the European Union and the Organization of American States, as well as various embassies, since July 17.
- Poverty, insecurity, earthquake -
At a time when most Haitians struggle to put food on the table, widespread insecurity is hindering any prospect of economic recovery.
Heavily armed gangs control several suburbs of the capital, from where they carry out kidnappings with impunity and regularly block all access to the only oil terminals in the country.
Finally, a month after the earthquake that devastated southwestern Haiti and killed more than 2,200 people, some 650,000 Haitians, including 260,000 children and adolescents, continue to need emergency humanitarian aid, Unicef said Tuesday.
© 2021 AFP
Stranded migrants protest in southern Mexico
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Tapachula (Mexico) (AFP)
Dozens of mostly Haitian migrants stranded in southern Mexico protested on Wednesday to demand the right to travel freely to the United States.
Around 200 people marched through the city of Tapachula near the border with Guatemala to the immigration office to ask for documents that would allow them to head north.
Mexican security forces have recently broken up several migrant caravans attempting the journey, prompting accusations of excessive use of force
Rights activists are seeking a court order allowing the migrants to leave Tapachula, where thousands have been stranded for months without permission to cross Mexican territory.
Campaigners on Wednesday submitted five injunction requests for urgent cases to the federal courts, said Luis Garcia of the Center for Human Dignification.
"Today these families are going to go on foot, by bus or however they can towards the northern border," he told reporters.
Migrants stuck in Tapachula face overcrowding, inadequate healthcare and the risk of coronavirus infection, medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said last week.
On Monday campaigners will seek permission for 7,000 migrants to travel in a caravan to Mexico City and demand a solution from President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Garcia said.
"We're going to go to Mexico City no matter what. Tapachula is not a garbage dump," he added.
Activists including Garcia ended a 72-hour hunger strike they held to demand free transit and an end to the use of force against migrants.
The National Migration Institute (INM) recently suspended two of its agents for mistreating a Haitian migrant while dispersing one of the caravans.
Mexico has seen increased arrivals of migrants fleeing violence and poverty since US President Joe Biden took up residence in the White House with a promise of a more humane approach toward migrants.
Mexican authorities have arrested more than 147,000 undocumented migrants so far this year -- three times more than in the same period of 2020, according to the INM.
© 2021 AFP
Haiti government begins unraveling as newly accused PM fires justice minister
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Haiti’s government is starting to crumble as Prime Minister Ariel Henry faces increased scrutiny from authorities investigating the president’s slaying, with Henry firing the justice minister late Wednesday, just hours after another top official resigned and accused Henry of obstructing justice in a sharply worded letter.
Henry’s dismissal of Justice Minister Rockfeller Vincent came a day after he fired Port-au-Prince’s chief prosecutor, who had linked the prime minister to a key suspect in the killing of President Jovenel Moïse.
Meanwhile, Renald Lubérice, who served more than four years as secretary general of Haiti’s Council of Ministers, said he could not remain under the direction of someone who is under suspicion and who “does not intend to cooperate with justice, seeking, on the contrary, by all means, to obstruct it.”
Lubérice also said he is concerned about the alleged evidence against Henry in the killing.
“May each minister put himself at the height of his mission at this historic crossroads,” he said
A spokesman for Henry declined to comment. Vincent tweeted that the confidence Moïse showed him allowed him to serve with “dignity, competence, loyalty and a sense of public service.”
Vincent added that Haiti is obligated to bring those responsible to justice: “It is a matter of national dignity. I am counting on the independence of the justice of my country to shed light on this emblematic case and all the other pending cases.”
Henry appointed Liszt Quitel as justice minister and Josué Pierre Louis as the council’s secretary general. Quitel had been serving as interior minister under Henry and was once an adviser to then Haitian President René Préval.
The appointments come less than a week after then Port-au-Prince chief prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude asked Henry to meet with him Tuesday to explain why he had two phone conversations with a key suspect just hours after the July 7 killing of Moïse at his home. The suspect, Joseph Badio, was fired from the government’s anti-corruption unit in May and remains a fugitive, according to police, who seek him on charges including murder.
On Tuesday, Claude ordered the judge overseeing the case to charge and investigate the prime minister based on that evidence. Hours later, a new chief prosecutor replaced Claude on orders of Henry, who accused Claude of an undefined, “serious administrative fault.”
The day before Claude was fired, Vincent ordered that the chief of Haiti’s National Police increase security for the prosecutor, saying he had received “important and disturbing threats” in recent days.
The developments underline that Moïse’s Tèt Kale party is fracturing, said Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia.
Some politicians are aligning themselves with Henry and others are breaking away, threatening to further destabilize the country as it tries to recover from the turmoil of the assassination and a recent earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people as it prepares for upcoming presidential and legislative elections.
Among those breaking away is Senate President Joseph Lambert, a one-time Moïse ally who recently proclaimed himself as provisional president in a move that has only received support from several politicians and has not been recognized by Henry’s administration or anyone in the international community.
“I don’t know how long the power struggle can continue,” Fatton said. “All of it is bewildering. We’ll have to wait to see if the situation settles and if Ariel Henry wins that battle.”
Henry, who Moïse named as prime minister shortly before he was killed, has not spoken publicly on the issue this week, saying only over the weekend that he is focused on stabilizing Haiti and would not be distracted by summons, maneuvers or threats.
Haiti’s ombudsman-like Office of Citizen Protection recently called on Henry to resign and asked the international community to stop supporting him.
On Wednesday evening, a key group of diplomats issued a statement saying it encouraged efforts by Henry and other political leaders to reach an agreement and form an inclusive government “to preserve national cohesion and allow the country to resume its journey towards political stability.”
The Core Group, composed of ambassadors from Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the U.S., France, the European Union and representatives from the United Nations and the Organization of American States, also demanded that “full light be shed on the assassination” of Moïse.
More than 40 suspects have been arrested in the slaying, including 18 Colombian ex-soldiers who have accused Haitian authorities of torturing them while they are in custody. The investigation has faced several setbacks, including death threats that have forced court clerks to go into hiding and a judge to step down after one of his assistants died in unclear circumstances.
(AP)
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