EXCHANGE VALUE

Aga Khan emerald fetches record $9 mn in Geneva auction


By AFP
November 12, 2024


A Christie's employee poses with The Aga Khan Emerald - Copyright AFP Fabrice COFFRINI

A rare square 37-carat emerald owned by the Aga Khan fetched nearly nine million dollars at auction in Geneva on Tuesday, making it the world’s most expensive green stone.

Sold by Christie’s, the Cartier diamond and emerald brooch, which can also be worn as a pendant, dethrones a piece of jewellery made by the fashion house Bulgari, which Richard Burton gave as a wedding gift to fellow actor Elizabeth Taylor, as the most precious emerald.

In 1960, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan commissioned Cartier to set the emerald in a brooch with 20 marquise-cut diamonds for British socialite Nina Dyer, to whom he was briefly married.

Dyer then auctioned off the emerald to raise money for animals in 1969.

By chance that was at Christie’s very first such sale in Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva, with the emerald finding its way back to the 110th edition this year.

It was bought by jeweller Van Cleef & Arpels before passing a few years later into the hands of the United States’ Harry Winston, nicknamed the “King of Diamonds”.

“Emeralds are hot right now, and this one ticks all the boxes,” said Christie’s EMEA Head of Jewellery Max Fawcett.

“We might see an emerald of this quality come up for sale once every five or six years.”

Also set with diamonds, the previous record-holder fetched $6.5 million at an auction of part of Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor’s renowned jewellery collection in New York.

Mysterious diamond-laden necklace fetches $4.8 mn in Geneva auction


By AFP
November 13, 2024


The mysterious necklace contained around 300 carats of diamonds

 - Copyright AFP SAUL LOEB

Elodie LE MAOU

A mysterious diamond-laden necklace with possible links to a scandal that contributed to the downfall of Marie Antoinette, sold for $4.8 million at an auction in Geneva Wednesday.

The 18th century jewel containing around 300 carats of diamonds had been estimated to sell at the Sotheby’s Royal and Noble Jewels sale for $1.8-2.8 million.

But after energetic bidding, the hammer price ticked in at 3.55 million Swiss francs ($4 million), and Sotheby’s listed the final price after taxes and commissions at 4.26 million francs ($4.81 million).

The unidentified buyer, who put in her bid over the phone, was “ecstatic”, Andres White Correal, chairman of the Sotheby’s jewellery department, told AFP.

“She was ready to fight and she did,” he said, adding that it had been “an electric night”.

“There is obviously a niche in the market for historical jewels with fabulous provenances… People are not only buying the object, but they’re buying all the history that is attached to it,” he said.



– ‘Survivor of history’ –



Some of the diamonds in the piece are believed to stem from the jewel at the centre of the “Diamond Necklace Affair” — a scandal in the 1780s that further tarnished the reputation of France’s last queen, Marie Antoinette, and boosted support for the coming French Revolution.

The auction house said the necklace, composed of three rows of diamonds finished with a diamond tassel at each end, had emerged “miraculously intact” from a private Asian collection to make its first public appearance in 50 years.

“This spectacular antique jewel is an incredible survivor of history,” it said in a statement prior to the sale.

Describing the massive Georgian-era piece as “rare and highly important”, Sotheby’s said it had likely been created in the decade preceding the French Revolution.

“The jewel has passed from families to families. We can start at the early 20th century when it was part of the collection of the Marquesses of Anglesey,” White Correal said.

Members of this aristocratic family are believed to have worn the necklace twice in public: once at the 1937 coronation of King George VI and once at his daughter Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953.

– ‘Spectacular’ –

Beyond that, little is known of the necklace, including who designed it and for whom it was commissioned, although the auction house believes that such an impressive antique jewel could only have been created for a royal family.

Sotheby’s said it was likely that some of the diamonds featured in the piece came from the famous necklace from the scandal that engulfed Marie Antoinette just a few years before she was guillotined.

That scandal involved a hard-up noblewoman named Jeanne de la Motte who pretended to be a confidante of the queen, and managed to acquire a lavish diamond-studded necklace in her name, against a promise of a later payment.

While the queen was later found to be blameless in the affair, the scandal still deepened the perception of her careless extravagance, adding to the anger that would unleash the revolution.

Sotheby’s said the diamonds in the necklace sold Wednesday were likely sourced from “the legendary Golconda mines in India” — considered to produce the purest and most dazzling diamonds.

“The fortunate buyer has walked away with a spectacular piece of history,” Tobias Kormind, head of Europe’s largest online diamond jeweller 77 Diamonds, said in a statement.

“With exceptional quality diamonds from the legendary, now extinct Indian Golconda mines, the history of a possible link to Marie Antoinette along with the fact that it was worn to two coronations, all make this 18th Century necklace truly special.”

The US empire is hidden in plain sight

Spectators observe a F-15E Strike Eagle war-plane at RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk, which has hosted US forces since 1949. JETPHOTOS/ALAMY.

LONG READ

THE NEW INTERNATIONALIST
1 September 2024
Matt Kennard

So-called RAF bases filled with US military personnel are a tell-tale sign of Britain’s key role in US imperialism, writes Matt Kennard.

Four years after my book The Racket was first published, I started my own media outlet with historian and journalist Mark Curtis. It was a departure from what I had focused on before – the consequences of US imperialism around the world – because this new publication, Declassified UK, would cover British foreign policy.

Britain handed the mantle of world domination to the US after World War Two and the received history is that it then retired from any kind of imperial role. I found out pretty quickly at Declassified that this was a misunderstanding. The truth is the empire never died. Britain merely became a ‘junior partner’ to the US hegemon. London’s adjunct status did not mean it was insignificant, however. The City of London’s role as the world’s financial capital which spreads neoliberalism around the world, Britain’s vast network of military bases, alongside its corporate giants like BP and BAE Systems, showed the country still served a critical imperial role for its senior partner.

But a more interesting realization for me came when I started to look at the institutions that make up the US empire and their role in Britain. I had spent years looking at what institutions like the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, or the US military were doing in the Global South, where their power was exercised against often weak states. But I saw quickly that the infrastructure of the US empire which had colonized so much of the world had also colonized my home country, the country where I had lived nearly all my life. Britain, in fact, appeared to be more completely under the control of its American ally than any country I’d looked into around the world in The Racket.

The similarities did not stop there. Like the mainstream media could never mention the term ‘US empire’ or explain its real role in world affairs, those same establishment journalists did not touch US influence in Britain. This was, again, an invisible empire, hiding in plain sight. The work I began doing would have never made it into the pages of my old employer, the Financial Times, like so many truths in The Racket never could.

Into the state

The colonization by the US empire of Britain became particularly clear when the Labour party elected Jeremy Corbyn leader in September 2015. A veteran anti-war and anti-imperialist politician and activist, Corbyn was a complete outlier within the British political system. He was dangerous to the rule of the British establishment, but also the ability of the US to retain Britain as a vassal state. The different pressure points that stay hidden in normal times, when the system is running like it should, quickly became exposed. This was made explicit in June 2019, when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Britain and was recorded saying privately: ‘It could be that Mr Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.’

Pompeo had served as CIA director from 2017–18, and Corbyn later told me he believed Pompeo’s comments were intended as ‘a quite deliberate message’ to him. Corbyn then mentioned the CIA-organized overthrow of Chile’s democratically-elected president Salvador Allende in 1973.

Britain’s traditional subservience to the US ‘could have gone a different way at various points in modern history, recently if Jeremy Corbyn hadn’t been destroyed by a vicious media campaign,’ Noam Chomsky has written. But it was not a coincidence. The US was integral to building a British political system that made a ‘different way’ next to impossible. I began looking at how the US state had been interfering in British politics to stop the rise of anti-imperialist leaders. Britain has never had a prime minister that was not signed up to the US imperial project. I started to realize this was not a mistake, but the result of concerted efforts from Washington.

One particularly interesting organization was the British-American Project (BAP), which describes itself as ‘a transatlantic fellowship of over 1,200 leaders, rising stars and opinion formers from a broad spectrum of occupations, backgrounds, and political views’. Work to create the BAP began, with funding from the US embassy in London, in the early 1980s when Labour was headed by Michael Foot, the first non-atlanticist Labour leader to emerge since World War Two. The BAP’s aim was to push British progressives into a pro-American political position at a time when the CIA was worried about the strength of the Labour left and its ‘anti-American’ views.

Many Labour figures who became outspoken critics of Corbyn’s leadership from 2015–2020 were also involved in the BAP. Corbyn was the first non-Atlanticist Labour leader since Foot resigned in 1983.

Corbyn was dangerous to the rule of the British establishment, but also to the ability of the US to retain Britain as a vassal state

Declassified files from the CIA show how concerned the intelligence agency then was by the left turn in Labour. The BBC noted ‘the deep level of concern inside the CIA about the strength of the Left within Labour in the early 1980s, a political force which the agency regarded as anti-American’. The CIA was particularly concerned about Foot winning the 1983 general election, with an internal report stating that ‘a Labour majority government would represent the greatest threat to US interests’. Foot’s 1983 election manifesto questioned ‘the programme for establishing American-controlled cruise missiles on our soil’ and noted that a new European security pact should end with the ‘phasing out’ of NATO. The BAP’s own official history notes that ‘the traditional British leftwing remained deeply suspicious of the United States, particularly on foreign policy and security issues’ in the period, adding ‘this was the era of Michael Foot’s leadership of a Labour Party committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament’.

Historian Stephen Dorril has written that Eugene Rostow, President Reagan’s director of the US arms control and disarmament agency, was in 1982 ‘concerned about the growing unilateralist movement’ and ‘helped initiate a . . . propaganda exercise in Britain, aimed at neutralizing the efforts of CND’. Michael Foot was a founder and strong supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), while Corbyn has been a member of the peace group since he was 15 and was, at the time of his election to the Labour leadership, its vice-chair.

The US neutralization campaign, which was leaked to the Washington Post, ‘would take three forms’, Dorrill continued: mobilizing public opinion, working within the churches, and a ‘dirty tricks’ operation against the peace groups. William Casey, then head of the CIA, met with the US Information Agency to organize the propaganda campaign in Europe. But in 1985, with Foot defeated and the BAP established, the CIA expressed concern that the Labour Party was still ‘in the hands of urban leftists given to ideological extremes’.

The CIA made its 1980s files about Labour available online in 2017, soon after Corbyn was elected leader. They were extensively covered by the British media and contained two specific references to Corbyn, who was a Labour MP at the time.


Michael Foot's non-atlanticist position was considered a major threat to US interests. Here he boards a plane to Moscow with shadow foreign secretary Denis Healey to strike a nuclear disarmament deal with the Soviet Union. PA IMAGES/ALAMY.

One file noted Corbyn’s support in 1986 for an El Salvadoran trade union federation, Fenastras, which was linked to Marxist guerrillas during the country’s civil war, while the US backed the military government. Corbyn was also mentioned in a US diplomatic cable sent from Istanbul in 2002, and published by WikiLeaks, describing a protest in the city against the US push for war in Iraq, which embassy staff apparently monitored. ‘Union leaders made speeches and the crowd chanted anti-US and anti-war slogans including “No to Imperialist War”, and “We Will Not Be American Soldiers”,’ the cable noted, adding that ‘speakers included a British Member of Parliament, Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour Party’.

Old dogs, new tricks

The BAP and its cultivation of the progressive forces in Britain to a pro-US position reminded me of what I had seen around the world, with the funding of civil society to keep target societies under Washington control. I started then looking at some of the specific institutions I’d seen enforcing US control in places like Bolivia and Ecuador. One of them – the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – pops up regularly throughout The Racket. I quickly found that the NED was also working in Britain, funding media groups, something which had picked up around 2015, the year Corbyn was first elected leader of the Labour party. A non-profit corporation funded by the US Congress, it had ploughed over £2.6 million into seven British independent media groups in the five years up to 2020.

The NED was ‘created… to do in the open what the Central Intelligence Agency has done surreptitiously for decades,’ the New York Times reported in 1997. That included spending millions of dollars to ‘support things like political parties, labor unions, dissident movements and the news media in dozens of countries.’ Since the end of the Cold War, the NED had grown and been involved in trying to undermine or remove governments independent of Washington, including democratically elected ones in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Allen Weinstein, the director of the research study that led to the creation of the NED in the 1980s, remarked in 1991: ‘A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.’13

The NED traditionally focused on Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia. But I found the organization had recently funded three British media outlets and four UK press freedom groups. All were seen as on the progressive end of the political spectrum.

The NED was created in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, who actually set out the idea in a set-piece speech in Westminster, in front of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The aim, he said, was ‘to foster the infrastructure of democracy’. This was a time of embarrassing scandals for the CIA. A Washington Post article soon noted: ‘The old concept of covert action, which has gotten the [CIA] into such trouble during the past 40 years, may be obsolete.’

The NED was meant to defend against these scandals by putting certain programmes out into the open. ‘The sugar daddy of overt operations has been the National Endowment for Democracy,” the Washington Post continued. “Through the late 1980s, it did openly what had once been unspeakably covert.” CIA whistleblower Philip Agee, who served in the agency in the 1960s, commented in 1995: ‘Nowadays, instead of having just the CIA going around behind the scenes and trying to manipulate the process secretly by inserting money here and instructions there and so forth, they have now a sidekick, which is this National Endowment for Democracy.’

John Kiriakou, a CIA officer from 1990 to 2004, told me that recent changes in the law have widened the potential targets of US information operations. ‘In 2011, the US Congress changed the law that forbade the Executive Branch from propagandizing the American people or nationals of the other ‘Five Eyes’ countries – the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand,’ he said.

‘The National Endowment for Democracy, like Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, countless Washington-area “think tanks”, and Radio/TV Martí, are the vehicles for that propaganda,’ he added, referring to the US broadcaster that transmits to Cuba.

Kiriakou, who served in the agency’s core directorate of operations, continued: ‘And what better way to spread that propaganda than to funnel money to “friendly” outlets in “friendly countries”? The CIA’s propaganda efforts throughout history have been shameless. But now that they’re not legally relegated to just Russia and China, the whole world is a target.’ One particularly interesting case was Index on Censorship, the UK’s foremost free expression group which monitors threats to free speech and publishes censored writers. It received £603,257 from the NED in 2016–21, according to its Charity Commission accounts.


Margaret Thatcher meets with Ronald Reagan, 28 November 1978, prior to their respective election wins. Reagan went on to create the National Endowment for Democracy which ploughed millions of dollars into British media. KEYSTONE PRESS/ALAMY.

Index’s chief executive at the time, the former Labour MP Ruth Smeeth, was appointed in June 2020 – six months after losing her seat in parliament. A US diplomatic cable, published by WikiLeaks in 2010, named Smeeth as a source for the US embassy in London to ‘strictly protect’. The cable – written in 2009 by US deputy chief of mission in London, Richard LeBaron – noted: ‘Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Burton Ruth Smeeth (strictly protect) told us April 20 that [Prime Minister Gordon] Brown had intended to announce the elections on May 12.’ The cable continued that ‘a despondent Smeeth said’ Brown had to abandon his election plan after a drop in Labour’s poll numbers following a media scandal. LeBaron added: ‘This information has not been reported in the press.’ The cable was classified as ‘confidential’ and ‘not for foreign eyes’.

One of the founders of Index in 1972, the poet Stephen Spender, had earlier resigned as editor of Encounter magazine when it was exposed as being funded by the CIA. Spender said he was unaware of the funding arrangements. Spender then founded Index, and quickly solicited a ‘substantial grant’ from the Ford Foundation, which Frances Stonor Saunders states, in her award-winning work The Cultural Cold War, acted as a conduit for CIA funds in the period. Saunders told me it was ‘widely known at the time the Ford Foundation was a witting partner of the CIA’. In her book, Saunders wrote: ‘The foundation’s archives reveal a raft of joint projects.’

This is how it works. Not just in the developing world, but, I was learning, in the developed world, too. In fact, the control was even deeper. I soon understood that the US was not just interfering in the British political process, media and civil society. The hidden fist of the US empire which I’d seen deployed all over the developing world – the massive American military – was also occupying Britain.

I found the US Air Force (USAF) had 9,730 personnel permanently deployed throughout Britain, a number which was increasing rapidly. Britain, in fact, hosted the third highest level of USAF personnel of any country in the world, ahead of historic US military outposts like South Korea and Italy. These American airmen had flown bombing missions to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya from their bases in Britain. ‘The USAF presence in Britain isn’t just some remnant of the Cold War, it’s ongoing and very active,’ Kate Hudson, chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said. During Ukraine tensions in 2022, huge American B-52 nuclear-capable bombers were seen leaving and arriving at a RAF base in Gloucestershire. ‘The US says they were on a training exercise to ensure they are “ready”, presumably for war on Ukraine,” Hudson added. ‘Once again we have a situation where war or other military actions can be prosecuted from Britain without parliamentary scrutiny.’

The hidden fist of the US empire which I'd seen deployed all over the developing world — the massive American military — was also occupying Britain

Of the 55,223 active-duty US airmen deployed overseas in 2021, 16 per cent were hosted in Britain. There were, in fact, more active-duty USAF personnel in Britain than in 40 of the US’s own states. This included Maryland, which hosts Joint Base Andrews, home to Air Force One and known as ‘America’s Airfifield’. US military personnel in Britain are all in England, with access to 11 Royal Air Force (RAF) bases, stretching from Cambridgeshire to Yorkshire. They are known officially as United States Visiting Forces (USVF). Altogether there were 12,147 US military personnel in Britain in March 2022. A further 150 Americans are deployed with NATO, the majority at its intelligence centre at RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire. The US military also had 100 personnel based in London, including 52 inside the American embassy, and a further 135 people deployed at multiple undisclosed locations across the UK.

Jewel in the crown

The largest US military presence is at RAF Lakenheath, a 727 hectare site in Suffolk. Despite being called an RAF base, it is leased to the USAF, and its population is overwhelmingly American. There were 5,404 US Department of Defense personnel based there in 2022. A nondescript village with a population of 5,000 people, Lakenheath directly abuts the US base and has a clear American influence. The Turkish barber proudly displays the Stars and Stripes alongside the Union Jack on its shop front. The Volvo car dealership on the outskirts sells only to US military personnel.

In the Co-op on the quiet high street, Klara, 24, is stacking shelves. She followed her boyfriend, an engineer, to Lakenheath a year ago after he found work nearby. ‘It has been quite weird at times, because obviously there’s a lot of people moving in and out throughout the year,’ she told me. ‘Especially working in the shop, I do see a lot of new faces for such a small village.’ She added: ‘There’s a lot of Americans coming in.’ Klara said the US aircraft have become more frequent in recent months. ‘With the planes it does get loud sometimes.’ Does she have any security fears about living next to a USAF base? ‘Personally I do think about it. If war does happen, we are kind of like the target aren’t we, with the base right there, so yeah it is a bit scary sometimes, if you actually properly think about it.’

A road sign for cars exiting RAF Lakenheath reminds drivers: ‘Drive On The Left’. The issue has been on the national agenda since 2019 when 19-year-old Harry Dunn was killed by the wife of a CIA officer driving on the wrong side of the road near RAF Croughton, another US-leased base in Northamptonshire. The US helped the driver, Anne Sacoolas, leave the country soon after, and later said she had diplomatic immunity for the alleged crime. As well as being a CIA base, RAF Croughton is a USAF communications station and accounts for 25 per cent of all military communications from Europe back to the US.

The US is spending billions of pounds upgrading air bases in Britain to enable Washington to intercept international communications and launch military strikes more quickly. Some of the locations are hubs for offensive bombing missions. RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire is the USAF’s only bomber Forward Operating Location, or military base, in Europe. The aircraft deployed there ‘enable US and NATO warfighters to conduct a full spectrum of flying operations’. Made available by the British government, it was used by US bombers during the war in Iraq in 2003. Just after I visited, two nuclear-capable American B-52 bombers were spotted leaving RAF Fairford for a ‘target acquisition’ exercise over mainland Europe.

But the UK appears to have very little control over what happens on the USAF-operated bases or the missions that are flown from them. The overarching framework for the stationing of US forces in the UK comes from two pieces of legislation. In 1951, NATO agreed a ‘status of forces’ agreement to govern hosting arrangements between its member states. The following year, The Visiting Forces Act incorporated the NATO agreement into UK law. But Hudson said that these agreements ‘ultimately reserve jurisdiction of US personnel to the US’. Most of the American bases are called RAF stations and leased by the US. ‘Because of this, while the physical buildings comprising the bases are usually the property of the UK Ministry of Defence, very little of what happens in them is controlled by the British government,’ Hudson said. The empire never sleeps and, despite the mainstream media working to keep it invisible, it’s everywhere.

This is an edited version of the new preface to The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire by Matt Kennard. The second edition is out now, published by Bloomsbury and available at bloomsbury.com and via all good bookshops.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

Five things to know about Cyprus

Paris (AFP) – The eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since Turkish troops invaded its northern third in 1974.

Issued on: 10/07/2024

The Mediterranean island of Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines for the past 50 years

 © Iakovos Hatzistavrou / AFP/File


The internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus, which controls the Greek Cypriot southern two-thirds of the island, is a member of the European Union.

Here are five things to know about Cyprus:

Aphrodite and empires

Cyprus is the mythical birthplace of the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite, who, legend has it, rose out of the foam near the ancient city of Paphos.

The island's strategic location at the crossroads between east and west has made it a target for a succession of empires from the Assyrians and early Greek settlers to the British.

It was given by Roman general Mark Anthony to his Egyptian lover Cleopatra and used by England's King Richard the Lionheart as a staging post during the Crusades.

For 300 years, it was part of the Ottoman Empire before the British took control in 1878. After an insurgency by fighters seeking union with Greece, the British granted Cyprus independence in 1960.

50 years of division

The UN-controlled Green Line in Nicosia separates the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus from the southern Greek Cypriot side © Hasan MROUE / AFP/File

Turkish troops invaded and occupied the northern third of the island in 1974 in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta that ruled Greece at the time.

Ankara's intervention followed a decade of intercommunal tension and violence between the Greek majority and the Turkish minority and the deployment of UN peacekeepers.

Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004 still a divided island. Greek Cypriot voters had rejected a UN reunification plan that was approved by Turkish Cypriots in a simultaneous referendum.

A new UN-backed peace push was launched in 2008 but collapsed in 2017.

Holiday island

With its year-round sunshine, sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters, Cyprus has long been a holiday destination.

With its sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters Cyprus has long been a tourist destination © Etienne TORBEY / AFP/File

Around 3.8 million tourists visited in 2023.

Before the division, the international jet set graced the beaches of Famagusta on the east coast. Actress Sophia Loren owned a house there, and it was a favourite of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

On the south coast, the largest casino resort in Europe opened in July 2023, with the authorities hoping it will attract an extra 300,000, high-spending tourists annually.

Russian money

Cyprus is home to a large Russian diaspora, especially Limassol on the south coast, nicknamed "Moscow on the Med".

It has faced allegations that it has been a hub for Russian money-laundering enabling oligarchs to bypass Western sanctions.

It has cracked down on those named by the United States and Britain for allegedly helping Russians to evade sanctions imposed over the Ukraine war.
Influx of asylum-seekers

Varosha, in the fenced off area of Famagusta, in the Turkish-controlled north of the divided island of Cyprus © Amir MAKAR / AFP/File

As the EU's easternmost member, Cyprus has been heavily affected by the exodus of refugees from Syria since civil war erupted in 2011.

EU figures show Cyprus has the highest number of first-time asylum applications relative to population in the 27-member bloc.

Five percent of the 915,000 people living in the south are asylum seekers.

© 2024 AFP

Hope and resignation as Cypriots mark 50 years of division



By AFP
July 9, 2024

Cyprus marks a half-century of division this month - Copyright AFP/File Amir MAKAR
Daniel Capurro and Benoit Finck

Cyprus marks a half-century of division this month, with the unresolved conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots branded on the landscape in a UN-patrolled buffer zone that cuts across the island.

Ghost villages, watchtowers and streets blocked off by concrete-filled oil drums offer a daily reminder of the brief but seismic events of 1974 that split the country in two.

As Cypriots contemplate the five decades since their communities were torn apart, many see little reason for optimism after witnessing round after round of abortive reunification talks, the most recent in 2017.

Demetris Toumazis had been due to finish his military service in the Greek Cypriot National Guard on July 20, 1974. Instead, he found himself fighting an invading Turkish army.

Taken to Turkey as a prisoner, he returned three months later to a divided homeland.

“Nobody expected things to turn out the way they did, and it’s 50 years now and there’s still no solution, and there’s no hope,” Toumazis said.

George Fialas, a fellow Greek Cypriot veteran of the conflict, told AFP that reunification was “a lost cause”.

“I don’t believe that we will be back (reunified),” he said.

Fialas too was performing his military service that summer. Like Toumazis, he was posted close to his family home in Varosha, a suburb of the costal city of Famagusta that was then the island’s premier beach resort.

He described chaotic scenes during the invasion with little information available, deadly air strikes and no news of his family just a few kilometres away.

“I didn’t know where they went, and they didn’t know where I was… there was no communication,” Fialas said. It would be months before he saw them again.



– Intercommunal violence –



The invasion was the culmination of a fractious period in the island’s history.

A British colony since 1878, Cyprus became independent in 1960, but only after a bloody four-year insurgency by Greek Cypriots seeking union with Greece.

Instead, Britain, Greece, Turkey and Cypriot leaders negotiated for the island to become independent under a delicately balanced constitution.

This guaranteed representation for the Turkish Cypriots, who then made up around 18 percent of the population, and forbade both union with Greece or Turkey and partition.

That system collapsed in intercommunal violence in late 1963 that prompted Turkish Cypriots to retreat into enclaves before international peacekeepers deployed.

An uneasy status quo lasted a decade, before the military junta in Athens instigated a coup on July 15, 1974 seeking to unite the island with Greece.

Turkey responded by landing troops on the island’s north coast.

It was during the invasion that Toumazis and his mortar unit were captured outside Nicosia when Turkish tanks burst through National Guard lines and surrounded them.

“The whole line was broken,” he said. “We were behind factories — we had no idea what was happening and so we were stuck there.”

He was eventually taken to Turkey, only returning to Cyprus in October, by which time most of his family had fled abroad.



– Changing attitudes –



In 1983, the north unilaterally declared independence as the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, a state recognised only by Ankara, which keeps thousands of troops on the island.

The United Nations, whose peacekeepers patrol the buffer zone between the two parts of the island, is making a push for new talks, but Stefan Talmon, an expert on Cyprus at the University of Bonn, doubts there will be any breakthrough.

“Any solution would mean that each side has to compromise and has to give up its sole decision-making power for its community. And I don’t think that either side is interested,” he said.

A new UN envoy was appointed this year hoping to rekindle talks, but decades of failure have left little grounds for optimism.

“We have now had at least two or three generations that… never knew a united Cyprus,” Talmon said.

Huseyin Silman, a 40-year-old from Nicosia who works at the Turkish Cypriot Global Policies Center think tank, said the younger generation, who grew up after the opening of crossing points between north and south in 2003, gave him hope for the future.

“When I was in school, the history books were quite one-sided. They were teaching us that it was all the Greek Cypriots’ fault, that Turkey came and saved us, and Greek Cypriots were our enemies and they killed us,” he said.

Younger Cypriots, however, had grown up in an era when crossing between the two sides is as simple as presenting an ID card.

“They’re establishing more and more youth organisations, where Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are participating together,” Silman said.

“Cyprus is too small to be divided.”

Despite the existence of the crossings, the two communities still live apart. The invasion turned Cyprus into an island of displaced people, with more than a third of Cypriots forced from or fleeing their homes in 1974.

The Varosha that Fialas and Toumazis knew is now a ghost town and a symbol both of displacement and decades of failed diplomacy.

Toumazis left Cyprus to study abroad and never moved back. He has no plans to mark the anniversary.

“I don’t see why we should celebrate,” he said.


Key dates in Cyprus’s post-independence history

By AFP
July 9, 2024

Turkish soldiers in Yialia on September 9, 1974 following their invasion of Cyprus following a Greek-backed coup - Copyright AFP/File -

This month marks 50 years since the dramatic events of 1974 left the Mediterranean holiday island of Cyprus divided to this day.

On July 15, 1974, the military junta then in power in Athens engineered a coup in Cyprus seeking to end its independence and unite the island with Greece.

Five days later, Turkish troops landed on the north coast, beginning an invasion that saw them occupy a third of the island, including Turkish Cypriot neighbourhoods of the divided capital Nicosia.

AFP looks at key dates in the island’s history:



– 1960: Independence from Britain –



On August 16, 1960, Cyprus becomes independent from Britain after a guerrilla campaign waged by fighters aiming to unite the island with Greece.

Its constitution guarantees representation for the Turkish Cypriots, who at the time make up around 18 percent of the population, and forbids both union with Greece or Turkey and partition.

In December 1963, violence erupts between the two communities as Greek Cypriot leaders seek to override parts of the constitution. Turkish Cypriots withdraw to enclaves, some of them defended by armed fighters.

In March 1964, a UN peacekeeping force for Cyprus (UNFICYP) is established.

Between 1963 and 1974, around 2,000 people are listed as missing in clashes between the two communities.



– 1974: Coup triggers invasion –



On July 15, 1974, members of the Greek Cypriot National Guard overthrow president Archbishop Makarios in a coup sponsored by the military junta then ruling Greece.

On July 20, Turkey, invoking a 1959 agreement with Greece and Cyprus’s then colonial ruler Britain, invades the north of the island saying its aim is to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority.

Three days later, the collapse of the juntas in both Athens and Nicosia leads to an interim administration and the eventual restoration of Makarios.

On July 30, Turkey, Greece and Britain meet in Geneva and establish a 180-kilometre (112 mile) long Green Line patrolled by UN troops dividing the island.

The Greek Cypriot community says the conflict left 3,000 dead and 1,400 missing. It also led to major population movements affecting around 162,000 Greek Cypriots and 48,000 Turkish Cypriots, according to the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).



– 1983: Turkish Cypriots break away –



On November 15, 1983, Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktas proclaims a breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the 38 percent of the island controlled by Turkish troops. It is recognised only by Turkey.



– 2003: Crossing the Green Line –



In April 2003, as peace talks falter, Turkish Cypriot authorities allow Greek Cypriots to visit the north and Turkish Cypriots to travel in the other direction across the Green Line for the first time.



– 2004: Greek Cypriot ‘no’ vote –



On April 24, 2004, Greek Cypriot voters overwhelmingly reject a UN reunification plan approved by Turkish Cypriots in a simultaneous referendum.

On May 1, Cyprus joins the European Union still a divided island, with Turkish Cypriots denied the full benefits of membership.



– 2008-2017: Peace talks collapse –



On September 3, 2008, the leaders of the two communities enter intensive UN-sponsored peace talks, which are joined by the three treaty powers Britain, Greece and Turkey before collapsing in 2017.



– 2020: Turkish Cypriots elect nationalist –



In October 2020, Turkish Cypriots elect nationalist Ersin Tatar, an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as their leader.

Tatar narrowly defeats pro-reunification incumbent Mustafa Akinci, in what is widely seen as a symptom of growing Turkish Cypriot disillusion over the prospects for a deal.

END THE EMBARGO!

Biden Must Remove the Designation of Cuba as Terrorist-Sponsoring Nation

BY W. T. WHITNEY

 APRIL 4, 2024
Facebook

TwitterRedditEmail

Photo by Alexander Kunze

President Obama in 2015 removed Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism (SSOT). President Trump reversed that action in January 2020, thereby aggravating economic difficulties for Cuba. President Joe Biden needs to end the designation. The time is now for representatives, senators, and other elected officials to pressure him.

Cuba is no terrorist-sponsoring nation. In accusing Cuba of hosting terrorists, the Trump administration disregarded Cuba’s invitation to Colombian guerrillas to join representatives of Colombia’s government on the island to negotiate peace.

The SSOT designation requires that targeted nations not use dollars in international transactions. The U.S. Treasury Department punishes institutional offenders. Dollars are the world’s dominant currency, and in normal circumstances, banks would use them in transactions involving Cuba. Now, however, foreign lenders steer clear of Cuba. Payments for exported goods and services may not arrive. Cuba is financially paralyzed.

Cubans are suffering. Food is short, as are spare parts, raw materials for domestic production, school and healthcare supplies, spare parts, consumer goods, and cash.  The aim of U.S. policy, as specified by a State Department memo of April 1960, is to cause shortages, despair and suffering serious enough to induce Cubans to overthrow their government.

The labeling of Cuba as a terrorist-sponsoring nation is part of the decades-long U.S. policy of embargo, which is more accurately characterized as an economic blockade, this in recognition of its worldwide reach. Reasons for removing the SSOT designation are the same ones for ending the blockade.

After all, ending the blockade is the Cuba solidarity movement’s prime goal. The campaign to persuade congresspersons to pressure the president to remove Cuba from the SSOT list must refer to the blockade, even as it pursues the more limited goal.

Congresspersons know that, as per the Helms-Burton Law of 1996, congressional action is required for the blockade’s end. They know that current political realities are unfavorable for such action.  Were they to agitate for presidential action on the SSOT matter, they would, in effect, be preparing for a fight against the whole blockade. That’s why it makes sense to use the one rationale to back up each fight.

Ending the blockade (and SSOT designation) has its uses

+      Producers and manufacturers would sell goods in Cuba.

+      With despair and discouragement having diminished, fewer Cubans would be heading to the United States; 425,000 Cuban migrants arrived in 2022 and 2023.

+      U.S. citizens could visit Cuba for recreation, cultural enrichment, and education. Their exposure to Cuban artists, scientists, and educators visiting in the United States would be gratifying.

+      For the blockade to end would disappoint proponents.  They should have been disappointed by the results of the decades-long experiment showing that the blockade did not work. Regime change did not happen. Blockade apologists could reasonably enough move on to something else.

+      An end to the U.S. blockade (and SSOT designation) would gratify nations in the UN General Assembly that annually, and all but unanimously, vote to approve a resolution calling for the blockade’s end. Critics of U.S. interventionist tendencies, wherever they are, would be pleased. The U.S. government would earn some love.

Ideals and values 

+      The blockade is cruel. It causes human suffering.

+      It violates international law: “Whatever view is adopted, either that of coercion or aggression, it is quite evident that the imposition of the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba constituted an illegal act … the blockade is a fragrant violation of the contemporary standard which is founded on … sovereign equality between states.” (Paul A. Shneyer and Virginia Barta, The Legality of the U.S. Economic Blockade of Cuba under International Law, 13 Case W. Res. J. Int’l L. 451 (1981) 

+  The blockade is immoral. It contributes to sickness and deaths: “By reducing access to medicines and medical supplies from other countries and preventing their purchase from US firms, the embargo contributes to this rise in morbidity and mortality.” (Richard Garfield, DrPH, RN, commenting on Cuba’s “Special Period” of shortages following the fall of the Soviet Bloc – Am. J. Public Health 1997, 877, 15-20.)

+ The blockade exposes certain failings of U.S. democracy. U.S. political leaders remain oblivious to polling data showing strong support for normal U.S.-Cuba relations and for ending the blockade. Leaders of the Cuban exile community have long exerted undue influence in determining U.S. policies toward Cuba. The appearance is that of an important aspect of foreign policy having been farmed out to a strident minority.

Contradictions

The U.S. government claims the blockade serves as punishment of Cuba for allegedly violating human rights. But the United States has easily co-existed with governments famous for disregarding human rights, like Nicaragua’s Somoza regime, Chile under Pinochet, Haiti ruled by the Duvaliers, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

U.S. policymakers see Cuba as a Communist dictatorship and, on that account, as deserving of economic blockade. Even so, the United States trades with Vietnam and China, where Communist parties are in power.

Vice President Joe Biden presumably backed President Obama’s action in removing Cuba from the SSOT list. Contradicting himself, he refuses to reverse former President Trump’s placement of Cuba back on the list.

Contradictions point to Cuba as special case in the history of U.S. relations with other countries. Only Cubans find an open door on arrival in the United States as irregular migrants. Such red-carpet treatment stands alone in the record of how the U.S. government handles immigration.

The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 ensured that Cubans arriving in the United States without documents would at once receive social services and a work permit and a year later be granted permanent residence and the opportunity for citizenship.

The fact of U.S. hegemonic intent and actions regarding Cuba for 200 years must be extraordinary in the history of international relations. From Thomas Jefferson’s time until the 20^th century, leaders in Washington sought to own or annex Cuba. They would later on find other modalities.

U.S.- Cuba relations have long been on automatic pilot. Pursuing justice and fairness, elected officials in Washington would be moving beyond that history. They would go against the grain as they pressure a U.S. president to no longer designate Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. Persevering, they would fight to relieve Cuba of all U.S. harassment.

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a retired pediatrician and political journalist living in Maine.

American guns fuel Haiti crisis

Brad Dress
Sat, 30 March 2024


The crisis in Haiti over gangs who have overrun the country and outmatched security forces is fueled in part by a major, illegal flow of U.S. guns to the Caribbean nation, a longstanding problem that has only grown worse despite efforts from the Biden administration to tackle it.

The gangs running amok on the island are armed with powerful American-made weapons, including .50 caliber sniper rifles and semiautomatic AR-15 rifles, along with small arms like handguns.

The Biden administration has worked to crack down on the problems, but with Haiti’s porous borders and little government control, hundreds of thousands of illegal guns are thought to be circulating there.


Romain Le Cour, a senior expert at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, said smugglers have been “literally pouring weapons into Haiti” for years, a situation he described as getting worse even during the ongoing disaster, which has limited imports.

“It is honestly outrageous to see a country and a city under total and absolute lockdown at war for a month, and there is absolutely no sign of shortage of weapons or ammunition,” Le Cour said. “The weapons keep coming in, it’s a never-ending story. We have to take care of the arms trafficking in Haiti, it’s extremely urgent.”

Since the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, gang control has solidified, particularly in the capitol of Port-au-Prince. The situation has further deteriorated in the past year, with the United Nations warning that more than 360,000 people have been displaced from their homes so far.

The last few weeks of gang fighting has grown even more volatile. The violence forced the U.S. to send in an elite team of Marines to defend the American Embassy while Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry was pressured into resigning and the government has essentially collapsed.

Gangs are estimated to now control about 90 percent of Port-au-Prince as they outgun the Haitian National Police (HNP). There are estimated to be up to 200 gangs in the country with growing ranks fighting some 9,000 HNP officers.

A Thursday United Nations report says more than 4,400 people died in Haiti in 2023 from gang violence, while deaths have skyrocketed in the first three months of this year to more than 1,500.

The report, which described the situation as “cataclysmic,” also detailed how gangs continue to maintain a “reliable supply chain” for weapons and ammunition.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk issued an appeal for a “more effective implementation” of an existing arms embargo on Haiti.

“It is shocking that despite the horrific situation on the ground, arms keep still pouring in,” Türk said in a Thursday statement.

Robert Fatton, a professor of government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia who has written books on Haiti, said the gangs would never have grown so strong without the mass proliferation of U.S. guns.

“If they didn’t have those weapons, they wouldn’t be as powerful, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “The more guns get there, the more powerful they get.”

The guns arrive to Haiti through a vast network of criminals operating abroad, many of them in Florida or other southeastern U.S. states.

Firearms are bought legally in the U.S., at gun shops or shows. They are usually smuggled in shipments leaving from Miami-Dade and Port Everglade in Florida, paid for with gang profits made through extortion and drug sales.

The ships often dock in nearby countries such as Jamaica or Panama before sending shipments through smaller vessels to Haitian ports at Port-au-Prince or Port-de-Paix, according to a 2023 United Nations report. Firearms can also arrive in Haiti through small planes flying into airports.

In Haiti, gangs control key access to maritime ports, airports and border crossings with the Dominican Republic, another avenue for arms trafficking. With the collapse of the government, there is almost no one stopping the flow of arms once they reach Haiti.

Yet Haiti relies on imports for all kinds of goods and supplies, making the country reliant on shipments that will have to keep flowing. And compounding the problem is that Haiti is notoriously corrupt, with police officers sometimes diverting weapons provided to them from international countries including the U.S. into the hands of gangs.

The United Nations noted that there could be as many as 500,000 guns in Haiti, though the exact number is not known and potentially much higher.

Alexander Causwell, an analyst at the Caribbean Policy Research Institute, said the sheer amount of guns in the country has created “pure anarchy” and a spiraling situation — regardless of future arms trafficking.

“The problem is that there’s already lots of guns there. That’s the current problem. Which is why they’re undergoing this kind of criminal insurgency against what’s left of the state,” he said of the gangs.

U.S. guns have long fueled violence throughout Latin American and the Caribbean world, including in countries such as Mexico where cartels have grown to outsized power.

The Biden administration has been trying to get at the problem. Last year it appointed a coordinator for Caribbean Firearms Prosecutions and signed a cooperation agreement with the HNP on a tracing system to better identify smugglers.

The State Department is also working with the HNP and the Homeland Security Investigations agency at the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to bolster probes. And in September, the U.S. launched Operation Hammerhead together with a Caribbean task force, seizing at least 48 pistols, 10 rifles, 10 magazines, four revolvers, and 3,371 rounds of ammunition as of November.

Washington has also moved to prosecute criminal smugglers. The Department of Justice announced in February that Joly Germine, known as the “King” of the 400 Mawozo gang, had pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to smuggle 24 high-powered weapons, including AR-15s and AK-47s from the U.S. into Haiti.

From a Haitian prison, Germine worked with his former girlfriend and at least one other person to purchase the weapons in the U.S. and smuggle them into Haiti inside of a cargo of household goods, according to prosecutors.

Although the U.S. is making efforts, Diego Da Rin, a Latin American and Caribbean consultant for the International Crisis Group, said Washington could do more to step up inspections at ports where the firearms are leaving for Haiti.

“Countries should implement all necessary measures to curb the illegal arms to Haiti, including inspections at their own ports within their own borders,” Da Rin said. “The United States hasn’t made any concrete measures in that sense.”

He also called for enhanced scanning tools for port inspections.

Fatton, from the University of Virginia, said the Navy or Coast Guard, the latter of which already patrols around Haiti primarily to watch for migrants fleeing the country, could stop more small boats heading to the island.

“If you can stop the [trafficking] at the source, that would be the key,” he said. “I think the U.S. can do much better, even if the Haitian authorities are incapable or unwilling.”

Six Democratic senators in December sent a letter to President Biden asking what efforts he is taking to address the Haiti crisis, including to stop firearms smuggling.

Congress passed in 2022 the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which increased penalties for straw purchases of firearms and for the first time made trafficking arms a federal crime.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) joined Democratic colleagues in introducing bipartisan legislation this month to require the Biden administration report on the anti-firearm-trafficking provisions in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

In a statement to The Hill, Castro called for stepping up interagency cooperation, including between the Coast Guard and Homeland Security Investigations, and for more data on the U.S. weapons ending up in Haiti.

He praised Biden for tackling the problem on several fronts, but noted there was room for improvement.

“The administration has been slow to fulfill President Biden’s campaign promise to move oversight of gun exports back to the State Department — a delay that is hampering the fight against trafficking and making it easier for legal gun exports to the Dominican Republic and other nations to end up in the hands of Haitian gangs,” Castro said. “I hope the administration will make good on that promise soon.”

Meanwhile, in Haiti, open borders and lax enforcement have created a free zone for traffickers.

For Haitians, the well-armed gangs have plummeted their country into a spiraling humanitarian crisis, which will have to be addressed first before tackling the flow of arms.

Haiti Country Director Laurent Uwumuremyi, with the humanitarian aid group Mercy Corps, said hospitals and medical facilities are becoming non-functional because of a lack of personnel and supplies, while supply chains are struggling to deliver humanitarian aid.

“If the security situation is not established in the near future, the situation is going to deteriorate very significantly,” he said.

The U.S. and the regional alliance of the Caribbean Community are working to address the situation but are confronted with the reality of a nearly collapsed Haitian government and powerful gangs armed to the teeth.

The U.N. Security Council last year supported a Kenyan-led multinational police force to enter Haiti and quell the violence.

But Kenya has halted plans to send 1,000 troops in the wake of the resignation of Henry, the prime minister, raising concerns about being unable to work with an official entity in Haiti.

Le Cour, with the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, said the multinational force may be able to move into Haiti once a transitional government council is appointed, which he said could come as soon as early April.

While there are questions about whether an international mission would be welcomed by Haitians and whether they can restore order safely and effectively, Le Cour said it “has to be done” to help the HNP.

“It’s going to be a challenge for the council,” he said, describing the task ahead as a “titanic” one. “But it’s the first step towards restoring governance and order and a minimum level of rule of law in the country.”

Voices: Haiti was once the honeymoon destination for Hollywood’s elite. What happened?


Kim Sengupta
Sun, 31 March 2024

Richard Burton poses with president of Haiti Jean-Claude Duvalier and his wife British actress Suzy Miller (AFP/Getty)

There was a time when Haiti was a favoured destination for the rich and famous. Richard and Elizabeth Taylor had one of their honeymoons there. Other visitors included Noel Coward, John Gielgud, Paulette Goddard and Irving Berlin. Mick Jagger and the broadcaster Barbara Walters came among a later generation of celebrities.

The names of the glitterati can be seen in the visitors book of the Grand Hotel Oloffson in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Graham Greene stayed while writing The Comedians, which brought the Haiti of Papa Doc Duvalier, and his murderous secret police, the Tonton Macoute, to a wider English-speaking readership.

The slide, which began with the repressive rule of Duvalier, who sought to strike terror into his subjects by identifying with Baron Samedi, the Vodou god of the dead, was never reversed. Papa Doc died in 1971, to be succeeded by his 19-year-old son, Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. The descent into chaos continued.


Haiti is now essentially a failed state, with criminal gangs controlling more than 80 per cent of Port-au-Prince. According to the United Nations around 4,450 were killed in the last year – 1500 of them in the last three months. Another 1,700 were injured. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, warned the that the “outrageous” levels of violence has brought Haiti to “ the brink of collapse”.

Many of those among the Haitian rich who have not already left the country have been holed up in recent weeks in their homes in Petionville, on a hill above the capital, listening to the echoes of gunfire and watching spreading flames as violence consumed the capital.

The gangs turned their baleful gaze up the hill to the affluent suburb of mansions, embassies and hotels which had so far managed to avoid the worst of the strife. Groups of young men arrived in their stolen motorcycles and cars, waving automatic rifles and machetes, intent on pillage and killing.

A bank, shops, cafes, petrol stations and a number of houses were looted in Petion-Ville and the adjoining districts of Laboule and Thomassin. But many of the residents had armed themselves and the security guards they employ in preparation for an attack. A vigilante group which had been increasingly active against the gangs, Bwa Kale, arrived to join in the fight.

Haiti is now essentially a failed state (AP)

Around 20 people were killed in the clashes which followed. Enraged locals burned and mutilated bodies, chopping off the hands of some who had been looting. Two gang leaders were killed in consecutive days – Makandal, and then Ernst Julme, aka Ti Greg, the head of Delmas 95, part of a gang coalition headed by Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, the most well-known of the Haiti mobsters.

The police announced that they had shot dead Julme. The vigilantes of Bwa Kale are believed to have killed Makandal. The gangs vowed retribution: but their attempt to take over the areas they already control have been thwarted for now.

Jean-Philippe Louissant and his family had barricaded their home in Petionville. “We knew what was coming, we have been seeing what has been happening, and we had to be ready. These gang leaders are very bad men – they don’t just want to rob, they want to take over this city”, he said.

“There are dead bodies lying in the streets now. There is a war going on here, I don’t think people in the outside world understand that. It is getting impossible to exist like this. We will have to leave if things don’t improve. We don’t want to leave, but we may have to.”

Jean-Philippe, his wife Celeste, and their three children are discussing plans to move to Cap-Haitien in the north coast, which is still relatively calm, and then probably to Florida where they have relations living. But the road journeys to the coast are perilous, with armed bands ambushing cars to rob and take hostages.

There is an overwhelming feeling, say Haitians, that they are being abandoned to a grim fate. It has been six months since the United Nations, with Washington’s support, approved the sending of a military support mission. For the last three months warnings have come from neighbouring Caribbean and Latin American states that Haiti was close to collapse.

A transitional council will be formed in the next few days to form an administration until elections are held later in the year. António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, welcoming the news, said he hoped this would pave the way for a more stable future.

But there is widespread perception that there is little that the transitional council will be able to do for now. People are continuing to vote with their feet. The US is evacuating its citizens by helicopter from Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic, which forms the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. The airport in Port-au-Prince has suspended operations after repeatedly coming under attack from gunmen.

The French government announced this week that it will bring out 170 of its citizens and 70 others from European Union states due to the continuing deterioration in security. Like the US operation, the evacuation will take place by helicopter.

The reason the airport was targeted, according to Barbeque and other gang leaders, was to prevent the acting president, Ariel Henry, from returning to Haiti. Henry, who had been asking for international security help for more than a year, had gone to Nairobi to negotiate the arrival of a Kenyan force. He is now in exile in Puerto Rico.

The last president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in 2021. The acting president who followed him, Claude Joseph, was subsequently indicted over Moïse’s killing. Haiti, meanwhile, degenerated into ungoverned, chaotic space.

Haiti’s army was dissolved by a previous president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The only security presence now is a beleaguered police force which is struggling to protect what is left of the national institutions. They are only just managing to repulse an attempt to raid the country’s central bank this week. An armed mob has successfully stormed the two main prisons, allowing 4,400 inmates serving sentences for violent crimes – including murders, rapes and robberies – to stream out on to the streets. Ernst Julme, who died this week, was one of those freed.

The growing anarchy has been described by Unicef’s chief in Haiti, Catherine Russell, as a “scene out of Mad Max”. The Catholic bishops’ convocation in Port-au-Prince lamented that the country was being “reduced to rubble and ashes” with “moral codes breaking down”.

Rival criminal groups are carving out territories. There are no fewer than 200 gangs in the country, a hundred of them in Port-au-Prince alone. Many of them have historic ties with politicians and successive ruling regimes which have allowed them to recruit and build up arsenals with impunity.

The police complain that they are outgunned by the gangs. Garry John Baptiste, an official with the National Police Union, maintains that successes are being achieved despite lack of help from home and abroad.

“We are eliminating some important criminals now, the leaders – that is a good message to the gangs. But they have lots of weapons. We haven’t got enough rifles or equipment – 60 per cent of the police don’t even have bullet-proof vests. We have had so many of our members killed, and these are officers who are risking their lives for just $200 a month”.

A police officer runs during an anti-gang operation at the Portail neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

There are growing calls in the US for intervention. James Foley, a former American ambassador to Haiti, points out that unless urgent steps are taken, the United States will face a failed state run by criminals and narco-traffickers about 700 miles from Florida.” Setting up a Transitional Council “is a race against time – and, in my view, it is unlikely to succeed, or even get international security forces into the country, without providing US military cover.”

For Jean-Philippe, living in Haiti is “like it was in Mogadishu”. The gang leaders, he held, were “like warlords – they want money and power”. The forming of the transitional council was a step in the right direction. But “people ask “where’s their army?’”.

I had met the Louissant family in 2010 while covering the devastating earthquake which had hit Haiti. A neighbour of his in Petionville had very kindly let me and colleagues from the Telegraph and the Guardian stay at their home – hospitality was much appreciated at a time when the few remaining hotels and guest houses remaining standing were full.

The earthquake, the “day of catastrophe”, claimed more than 220,000 lives, destroyed more than a quarter million homes and 30,000 commercial and industrial buildings. The poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with a history of natural and man-made disasters, brutal repression and endemic corruption, was reeling from what had befallen it.

The Louissants, however, refused to leave, determined, said Jean-Phillipe, to reopen the family’s factory and shops supplying electrical appliances. “We don’t want to abandon our workers, they depend on us, our customers depend on us”, he said. “Haiti will get economic help, there’ll be aid coming in, things will pick up and get much better.”

He was not the only one showing resilience. We saw the Brasserie Nationale d’Haïti, one of the country’s biggest beverage manufacturers, re-open and started rolling out its most popular product, Prestige beer. In Petionville, the Rivoli boutique repaired its showcases, to display one again Hermes scarves and Lacoste T-shirts, Tag-Heuer watches and Chanel perfume.

Elections later that year seemed to offer a firm path forward. Justice for human rights abuses of the past was due to take place with the trial of Jean-Claude Duvalier, who had returned to Haiti – but he died before facing trial.

Michel Martelly was a voted into power. A musician by profession, who split his time between Miami and Haiti, he entertained us journalists during the campaign with renditions of Creole Konpa music, and promised to root out corruption and integrate Haiti into the international community.

But hopes of a rebirth for the nation after the earthquake soon faded away. Most of the billions of dollars promised in aid from abroad did not materialise. A lot of what did arrive was misappropriated.

The old politics of Haiti were soon to resurface. Martelly had to step down in 2016 amid allegations of electoral fraud without a successor in place. He was subsequently sanctioned by the Canadian government for human rights abuse and involvement with criminal gangs. Elections held late that year brought Jovenel Moise to the presidency.

The justice system was breaking down. Kidnappings had jumped 72 per cent last year from the year before. It was not just the wealthy who were being abducted and held for ransom, but doctors, lawyers, academics. Many of the victims were routinely murdered if the payment was not made.

Noel Hypolite, a surgeon we saw working tirelessly treating patients after the earthquake, and who later helped set up a clinic for impoverished families, was among those who died. There had been a “misunderstanding”, his kidnappers acknowledged, about the location of the ransom drop. Dr Hypolite’s wife, a paediatrician, left with their family for Canada. Up to 25 per cent of medical staff are estimated to have left Haiti by the end of 2023.

Many Haitians feel now that salvation lies in international – preferably Western – intervention.

People look for salvageable pieces from burned cars at a mechanic shop that was set on fire during violence by armed gangs in Port-au-Prince (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

But foreign powers have left scars during the country’s history of two centuries. Haiti won its independence through a slave revolt which began in 1804 in what was then the French colony of Saint-Domingue, fighting off not just French forces but those of Britain and Spain.

The French isolated Haiti from the international community, demanding 150 million francs ($ 21 billion today) in reparation to lift the blockade. The penalty was reduced to 90 million francs after negotiations, but in 1914 no less than 80 per cent of Haiti’s budget was still going towards paying the debt.

The same year, 1914, US marines landed in Port-au-Prince and removed $ 500,000 in gold ($15 million today) from Haiti’s national bank to protect investment by Wall Street financiers. American forces returned a year later for two-decades of occupation. “I helped make Haiti a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues”, said the US commander Major General Smedley Butler.

Even the more benevolent deployment of a United Nations force after the 2010 earthquake brought misery. Infected sewage from their base led to 10,000 people in Haiti, cholera-free at that point, to die from the disease.

But in the current dire straits, many Haiti needs to look to the future, not the past. Jean Daniel Delone, an excellent journalist I worked with in Haiti, had been full of hope that the country would recover and stride forward from the calamities it had experienced. Now, he says, it is time to face reality.

“We are in a precarious situation. There is a shortage of water and food, and there is a desperate need for humanitarian aid”, he said. “We live close to places that suffer from gangs all the time. We can clearly hear the shooting; we’ll be in real trouble if they move in, already supplies can’t come in from the areas they’ve taken over.

“My son can’t go to school, the schools are shut. Markets, offices and factories are shut; all this leads to stress, there are bad psychological effects. With what is happening now, yes we are praying for international troops to come and help the police who are really stretched.”

Jean-Philippe Louissant agrees: “No country likes having foreign soldiers present. But we are in a desperate situation. For so many young men there are no jobs, no hope – but they have guns. What we need more than anything is security. If there is an explosion, it will not stay just in Haiti, it will spread through the region”.