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Police capture, kill alleged assailants in assassination of Haitian president

By Rachel Pannett
July 8, 2021|Updated today at 3:57 a.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/08/haiti-president-assassinated/

Police killed four alleged assailants and arrested two others suspected of assassinating Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, in an attack that has escalated a spiraling political and security crisis in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

The gunmen have not been identified but Communications Minister Pradel Henriquez described them “foreigners.”

The motivation for Wednesday’s overnight attack is currently unknown. Moïse, 53, dissolved parliament in January 2020 and ruled by decree as opponents and protesters demanded that he step down. Armed gangs with unclear allegiances have seized control of growing portions of the country, terrorizing the population with kidnappings, rapes and killings.

“He had obviously many enemies,” said Robert Fatton, a politics professor and expert on Haiti from the University of Virginia. “There might have been some degree of complicity on the part of those protecting the president.”

His death raises questions around who is in charge of the country. Moïse had been due to install Ariel Henry, a neurologist, as prime minister on Wednesday after dismissing his predecessor Claude Joseph — the latest in a revolving door of prime ministers. It was Joseph who announced Moïse’s killing on Wednesday morning, and said he was now the head of Haiti’s government.

However, in a separate Associated Press interview, Henry appeared to contradict Joseph. “It’s an exceptional situation. There is a bit of confusion,” he said. “I am the prime minister in office.”

The leadership vacuum is a potential powder keg in a nation grappling with deepening economic, political and social woes, with gang violence spiking in the capital Port-au-Prince, inflation spiraling, and food and fuel becoming scarcer in a country where 60% of the population makes less than $2 a day.

“The past 30 years have been one calamity after another and now it is getting more serious,” Fatton said. “We have two individuals vying for the position of prime minister. The economy is in terrible shape, the covid situation is deteriorating. No one is vaccinated. And then you have the security situation. The police are completely fragmented and some members of gangs are former police officers.”

The Supreme Court’s chief justice, who might be expected to help provide stability in a crisis, died recently of covid-19.

Fatton said Haiti — which was subject to a controversial U.N. stabilization mission between 2004 and 2017 — could face another such intervention if the security situation worsened after the president’s murder.

The U.N. Security Council condemned the assassination on Wednesday and called on all parties to “remain calm, exercise restraint and to avoid any act that could contribute to further instability.”

In a statement, the 15-member council “made an emphatic call on all political stakeholders in Haiti to refrain from any acts of violence and any incitement to violence.” It also called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

The council is due to be briefed on Moise’s assassination in a closed-door meeting on Thursday.

World leaders were quick to condemn the assassination on Wednesday, including President Biden who said he was “shocked and saddened to hear of the horrific assassination,” and condemned “this heinous act.”

Despite the turmoil, State Department spokesman Ned Price said it was still the view of the United States that elections this year should proceed. Moïse had been ruling by decree for more than a year after failing to hold elections, and the opposition demanded he step down in recent months, saying he was leading it toward yet another grim period of authoritarianism.

Jake Johnston, a Haiti specialist from the Center for Economic and Policy Research think tank, called for patience from the international community, saying a push for new elections in the current state of turmoil was an “extremely dangerous game.”

Rather than going through with rushed elections, Haitian civil society organizations had before Moïse’s assassination proposed a negotiated departure for the president and his replacement through a nonpartisan transitional government that could undertake needed reforms and eventually oversee a secure and credible transition back to democracy. The Biden administration, the U.N. Security Council, and Organization of American States had all rejected this path forward.

“There’s multiple crises happening here. There’s a massive food crisis. Hurricane season is approaching. The economic crisis is deepening,” said Johnston. “Rather than trying to rush in and solve the situation, international actors should exercise some patience.”

The assassination could pose another big test for the Biden administration, observers said, if it fans a wave of Haitian immigration.

Gang violence and the coronavirus outbreak are both worsening. A shooting rampage in the streets of Port-au-Prince last week left at least 15 people dead. At least 278 Haitians have been killed this year in attacks that have led some citizens to flee the capital, traveling by boat and plane to avoid dangerous, gang-controlled roads.


By Rachel Pannett
Rachel Pannett writes about Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific for The Washington Post. She joined the Post's foreign desk in 2021 after more than a decade with The Wall Street Journal, where she was deputy bureau chief for Australia and New Zealand. Twitter
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/08/haiti-president-assassinated/