Haiti is famous for two things, voodoo and violent politics. The Caribbean island nation announced on Wednesday that their President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated overnight during an attack at his home. First lady Martine Moïse was reported injured in the attack and is receiving medical treatment. Political opposition factions are apparently to blame for the operation.
Footage of gunmen entering the residence of slain US-backed Haitian president on Tuesday night pic.twitter.com/abbv3249R6
— Sizwe sikaMusi® (@SizweLo) July 7, 2021
Haitian President assassinated
In Haiti, they take their politics seriously, deadly seriously. According to a statement released by acting prime minister Claude Joseph, tweeted out by Haiti’s Embassy in Canada, 53-year-old President Jovenel Moïse was killed and Martine Moïse injured when “a group of unidentified people some speaking Spanish attacked Moïse’s residence around 1 a.m. Wednesday morning, shooting him and his wife.”
Joseph condemned the hit as a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act.” The acting leader is asking the public to stay calm and assures that measures “are being taken in order to ensure the continuity of the state and to protect the nation.”
Right now, the National Police and the military “are in control of the security situation.” It seems that the reason President Moïse got whacked is because he overreached his authority and overstayed his welcome. In Haiti, the starving masses will let their tyrannical leaders get away with one of those at a time but not both.
The Imperial Palace isn’t doing much but offered sympathy. Official Palace Press Minister Jen Psaki called the assassination a “horrific attack” and promised that His Wisdom will “be helpful in any way to the people of Haiti, the government of Haiti, if there’s an investigation.” There probably won’t be one though.
The U.S. Embassy is ordering staff to stay inside the Port-au-Prince diplomatic compounds “until further notice” and American tourists are advised to stay off the streets as much as possible. The island is jam packed with 11 million people and most of them earn less than $2 per day.
The last few months have been marked by epic violence and political gridlock. Protests against their latest dictator “turned violent in February.” That’s when everyone expected him to leave office. He figured that he had another year coming because “he took office in early 2017, following a chaotic election that forced the appointment of a provisional president to serve during a yearlong gap.” They might have let him get away with that if he didn’t have such a tight fist.
BREAKING: Official: Haitian President Jovenel Moïse assassinated at home, first lady hospitalized amid political instability.
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 7, 2021
Ruling by decree
Haiti is no stranger to dictators and tyrants. That’s their usual sort of politician. They will only stand for so much corruption before they pick a new tyrant though.
President Moise “had been ruling by decree for more than a year after the country failed to hold elections and the opposition demanded he step down in recent months.” He didn’t so they killed him.
One woman who lives nearby described “I thought there was an earthquake, there was so much shooting. The president had problems with many people, but this is not how we expected him to die. This is something I wouldn’t wish on any Haitian.”
The gang violence has been spiking lately with “inflation spiraling and food and fuel becoming scarcer.” Moise didn’t make many friends when he tried to “increase his power.”
One of his schemes was “approving a decree that limited the powers of a court that audits government contracts and another that created an intelligence agency that answers only to the president.” He simply had to go.
Ever since Haiti threw off French rule at the dawn of the 19th century, “it has suffered cycles of violence, invasion and repression for most of its subsequent history, including the dynastic Duvalier dictatorship.”
Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier took over in 1957 but things got interesting in 1964 when he declared himself president-for-life. That’s when the world learned about his “feared Tonton Macoutes secret police.” When he died in 1971 his son “Baby Doc” Jean-Claude, took over. Moise appears to have continued their traditions.
