Tag: Haiti

Two more journalists killed in Haiti as gang violence continues to rage

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Two more journalists have been killed in Haiti in the past month as rampant gang violence has gripped the capital of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas.
Ricot Jean, who worked for Radio-Tele Evolution Inter was found dead on Tuesday, a day after he was reportedly kidnapped by men wearing police uniforms. Jean was a prominent cultural activist in the Haitian capital and hosted a weekly radio show.
Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement that radio reporter Dumesky Kersaint was fatally shot in mid-April. Kersaint was reportedly killed by a stray bullet “between the evening of April 15 and the morning of April 16” in the Mahotiere 83 neighborhood in the municipality of Carrefour.
“The security crisis in the country is putting journalists at a constant risk of extreme violence. It is the authorities’ responsibility to make sure reporters can do their jobs without fear of violence,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director.
The National Association of Haitian Media also condemned the killings, adding that the “climate of tolerated and fueled violence” led to Kersaint’s death. He was an online journalist for Radio Tele Inurep, according to local media reports.
At least two other journalists have been killed in the troubled Caribbean country this year amid an unprecedented surge in gang violence.
John Wesley Amady and Wilguens Louissaint were killed by gang members while reporting in a conflictive area south of Port-au-Prince in January.
At least nine journalists were killed in Haiti last year, the deadliest year for Haitian journalism in recent history, according to Unesco.

Between January and March the UN human rights office counted 531 killings, 300 injuries and 277 kidnappings in gang-related incidents, mostly in Haiti’s gang-dominated capital.
Haiti’s predicament is rooted in hundreds of years of foreign exploitation, decades of dictatorial rule under the Duvalier dynasty, and a string of natural disasters including a 2010 earthquake that levelled Haiti’s capital and killed more than 200,000 people.
But the current crisis intensified in 2021 when Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in his Port-au-Prince mansion. Since then, politically powerful gangs have commandeered more than 60% of the capital, elements of the resource-starved police force have gone into open revolt, and Haitian politics has been consumed by infighting.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 28, 2023
Canada is ‘elbows deep’ in helping Haiti, Trudeau says

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Trudeau announced Canada will send two navy vessels to the Haitian coast as part of a surveillance and intelligence operation.
The announcement is the latest in Canada’s piecemeal response, short of the military intervention requested by acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Trudeau said the deployment of the navy vessels is intended to deter gangs from using waterways as “an extra sphere of influence.” They will not be there to intercept migrants, he added.
“They are there to assist the Haitian National Police in their efforts to control the gang activity in Port-au-Prince and along the coast,” Trudeau told reporters, wrapping two days of meetings with Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders.
Haiti and climate change topped the leaders’ agendas.
In addition to the two ships, Canada will airlift three MRAPS (mine-resistant light armored vehicles), purchased by the Haitian National Police, to the country “in the coming days.”
The Canadian leader said his government’s focus is to intervene in an “atrocious situation” by strengthening the Haitian National Police. “What’s happening in Haiti is absolutely heartbreaking — and we need to do everything we can that will help.”
Both the White House and Canadian government have for months emphasized the need to find a Haitian-led solution to prevent the country from descending further into lawlessness.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters Tuesday that discussions continue with Canada and other partners in the hemisphere, the Organization of American States and the United Nations about what can be done to bring stability and security to Haiti.
A Haitian-led response has yet to emerge, and enduring interlaced humanitarian, political and security crises risk plummeting the country into further misery.
Canada has leaned on sanctions as a tool to choke financial flows to Haitian elites and gangs linked to violence in the country — a strategy that saw the addition of two names to its list of 17 sanctioned individuals Thursday.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 17, 2023
4 key suspects in Haiti presidential slaying in U.S. custody

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The fourth suspect was identified as Colombian citizen Germán Rivera García, 44, who is among nearly two dozen former Colombian soldiers charged in the case.
Rivera, along with Solages and Vincent, face charges including conspiring to commit murder or kidnapping outside the U.S. and providing material support and resources resulting in death, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Sanon is charged with conspiring to smuggle goods from the U.S. and providing unlawful export information. Court documents state that he allegedly shipped 20 ballistic vests to Haiti, but that the items shipped were described as “medical X-ray vests and school supplies.”
It was not immediately known if the four suspects had attorneys who could comment on the development. The men are scheduled to appear in federal court Wednesday in Miami.
A total of seven suspects in the case are now in U.S. custody. Dozens of others still languish in Haiti’s main penitentiary, which is severely overcrowded and often lacks food and water for inmates.
The case has reached a virtual standstill in Haiti, with local officials last year nominating a fifth judge to investigate the killing after four others were dismissed or resigned for personal reasons.
One judge told The Associated Press that his family asked him not to take the case because they feared for his life. Another judge stepped down after one of his assistants died under murky circumstances.
Court documents state that exactly two months before Moïse was killed, Vincent texted Solages a video of a cat “reacting alertly” to the sound of gunfire and that Solages laughed, prompting Vincent to respond: “That’s the way Jovenel will be pretty much, but (sooner) if you guys really up to it!”

The document states that Solages responded that “(this) cat will never come back,” and “trust me brother, we definitely working our final decision.”
Then in June, some 20 former Colombian soldiers were recruited to supposedly help arrest the president and protect Sanon, who envisioned himself as Haiti’s new leader. Rivera was in charge of that group, the documents state.
A day before the killing, Solages falsely told other suspects that it was a CIA operation and that the mission was to kill the president, according to the documents. Shortly before the killing, authorities said, Solages shouted that it was allegedly a DEA operation to ensure compliance from the president’s security detail.
About a year after the killing, U.S. authorities say they interviewed Solages, Vincent and Rivera while they were in Haitian custody and that they agreed to talk.
The other suspects already in U.S. custody are Rodolphe Jaar, a former U.S. government informant and a Haitian businessman who was extradited from the Dominican Republic, where he was detained in January 2022.
That same month, U.S. authorities arrested Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios, a former Colombian soldier who was deported by Jamaica after fleeing there from Haiti. While en route to Colombia, he was deained by U.S. officials in Panama during a layover.
Also in January 2022, authorities arrested former Haitian Sen. John Joël Joseph, who also had fled to Jamaica.
Alfredo Izaguirre, a Miami-based lawyer for Palacios, said Tuesday’s arrival of the four other suspects will postpone the trial because they all have to be tried at the same time. He said Palacios had been prepared for the trial to begin in early March, but now it could be postponed for up to four months.
Haiti police say other high-profile suspects remain at large, including a former Supreme Court judge who authorities say was favored to seize power from Moïse instead of Sanon as originally planned. Another fugitive is Joseph Badio, alleged leader of the plot who previously worked for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and the government’s anti-corruption unit until he was fired, police say.
Emmanuel Jeanty, an attorney for the president’s widow, Martine Moïse, who was injured in the attack and flown to the U.S. for care, did not return a message for comment.
In December, Martine Moïse tweeted that her husband — who also has been accused of corruption, which he denied — had fought against it, which resulted in his assassination. “Despite the blockages, 17 months later, the people are demanding #Justice,” she wrote.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 1, 2023