Tag Archives: President Jovenel Moise

Haiti crippled by fuel shortages as gang leader demands prime minister resign

By Brian Ellsworth and Gessika Thomas

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -Haiti’s streets were unusually quiet on Tuesday and gas stations remained dry as gangs blocked the entrance to ports that hold fuel stores and the country’s main gang boss demanded that Prime Minister Ariel Henry resign.

Days-long fuel shortages have left Haitians with few transport options and forced the closure of some businesses. Hospitals, which rely on diesel generators to ensure electricity due to constant blackouts, may shut down as well.

The situation has put further pressure on a population already struggling under a weakening economy and a wave of gang kidnappings, which include the abduction earlier this month of a group of Canadian and American missionaries.

Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, leader of the ‘G9’ coalition of gangs in the metropolitan area of the capital Port-au-Prince, said in a radio interview on Monday night that he would ensure safe passage of fuel trucks if Henry leaves office.

“The areas under the control of the G9 are blocked for one reason only – we demand the resignation of Ariel Henry,” Cherizier said in an interview on Haiti’s Radio Mega.

“If Ariel Henry resigns at 8:00 am, at 8:05 am we will unblock the road and all the trucks will be able to go through to get fuel.”

A spokesperson for Henry’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Reuters was unable to contact Cherizier.

His statements show how gangs have taken on an increasingly political role following the July assassination of President Jovenel Moise. Cherizier has said Henry should “answer questions” linking him to Moise’s murder. Henry has denied any involvement.

Elections had originally been scheduled for November but were suspended after Henry last month dismissed the council that organizes elections, which critics had accused of being biased in favor of Moise. Henry has promised to appoint a new non-partisan council that will set a new date.

Kidnappings have been in the headlines for months as Haitians from all walks of life face abduction by the increasingly powerful gangs.

The missionaries traveling as part of a trip organized by Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries was abducted by a gang called 400 Mawozo that operates east of the capital and is seeking a ransom of $1 million for each person.

Christian Aid Ministries asked people in a statement on Tuesday to remember both those “being held hostage as well as those recovering from the experience of being kidnapped.”

‘THE WORST I’VE SEEN’

Haiti’s foreign aid bureau BMPAD, which oversees fuel procurement, tweeted a video saying the country has 150,000 barrels of diesel and 50,000 barrels of gasoline, with another 50,000 barrels of gasoline set to arrive on Wednesday.

A total 100,000 barrels of diesel and gasoline would supply Haiti’s fuel needs for five to seven says, said Marc Andre Deriphonse, head of the country’s service station owners’ association ANAPROSS.

Businesses have been warning that they may have to halt operations for lack of fuel. Telecoms firms said some cell towers are no longer in operation.

“This is the worst I’ve seen,” said one motorcycle taxi driver waiting to pick up passengers outside Port-au-Prince, when asked about the fuel shortages. He declined to give his name.

Motorcycle drivers strap one-gallon containers to their bikes in the hopes of filling them with fuel sold on the black market. A gallon of gas on the street can now fetch $20, compared with typical filling station prices of around $2.

Transportation industry leaders have called for strikes to protest the wave of kidnappings, which have disproportionately affected truck drivers and public transport workers.

United Nations children’s agency UNICEF on Sunday said it had negotiated fuel deliveries to Haitian hospitals but that the provider later refused to make the deliveries, citing security conditions.

At one police station near Port-au-Prince, two officers had been unable to get to work due to fuel shortages, according to a police official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak with reporters.

“Most of our vehicles have about a quarter of a tank,” he said.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth and Gessika Thomas in Port-au-Prince, Additional reporting by Brad Brooks, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Haiti former first lady calls for help in unraveling husband’s murder

By Dave Sherwood

(Reuters) – The widow of Haiti’s slain President Jovenel Moise called on the international community to help track down those responsible for gunning down her husband in a late night raid by suspected mercenaries at the couple’s home in July.

Moise’s assassination plunged the Caribbean nation, already plagued by hunger and gang violence, further into chaos, and triggered a hunt for the masterminds across the Americas.

Wearing a black dress and sling following the injuries she suffered during the attack, Martine Moise told Reuters in a room flanked by bodyguards on Monday that while Haitian authorities had made some advances, she feared progress had slowed.

“I feel that the process is… stalling a little,” she said. “The people that did this are still out there, and I don’t know if their name will ever be out. Every country that can help, please help.”

Nearly two months after the July 7 assassination of her husband, key aspects of the murder remain shrouded in mystery. Haitian police have arrested more than three dozen suspects, including 18 Colombian mercenaries, an obscure Haitian-American doctor they say aspired to be president, and the head of Moise’s security team.

But they have made public little in the way of evidence.

“Those people (they have arrested) did it, but someone gave the orders, someone gave the money,” Moise told Reuters.

She said she had spoken twice with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and felt they could “find the people that financed that odious crime.”

As security worries have dogged the investigation in Haiti, one judge investigating the case stepped down, citing concerns for his safety.

First lady Moise said Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is also now dealing with the aftermath of an August earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people, must call for elections as soon as possible to ensure stability.

“I think the advice that my husband would give him (is) try to have an election. With the election you can have peace, you can think long term,” she said.

Elections initially slated for September have been postponed until November, and some have speculated they could be delayed further following the quake.

“If they want elections to happen, (they) will,” said Moise.

Moise confirmed previous comments she had made in interviews on her interest in running for president herself but said that she would take care of her family first.

“I want to run for president. I won’t let the vision of the president die with him. With the earthquake too, there’s a lot to be done in Haiti,” she said.

HAITI RUMOR MILL

Amid the ongoing investigation and arrests, conspiracy theories about the murder in Haiti have swirled for weeks.

Friends of the murdered president have told Reuters he feared for his life immediately before he was killed.

His wife on Monday said he had not talked to her of a specific plot against him.

“If he knew he would talk about it… but he never did,” she said. “Because having Colombians, having soldiers here in Haiti, they are here for something.”

She denied social media rumors that Moise had squirreled away millions in cash in his official residence in the upscale suburb of Petion-Ville.

“It is a president. There is some money. But the amount of $48 million that I heard in social media, that can’t be true. Where in the room (can you stick) $48 million?”

(Reporting by Dave Sherwood, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Haiti to swear in new prime minister in wake of president’s assassination

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Haiti will usher in a new prime minister on Tuesday as Ariel Henry takes the reins of the Caribbean country nearly two weeks after President Jovenel Moise’s was gunned down in a murder plot that likely extends far beyond its borders.

Official memorial services for the slain Moise were to begin on Tuesday as the impoverished nation struggling with lawlessness fueled by violent gangs eagerly awaits findings of the investigation into the assassination.

Moise was killed on July 7 in the middle of the night at his private residence in Port-au-Prince by a group of more than 20 mostly Colombian mercenaries. The leader’s own security chief, some Haitian police officers and a couple of Haitian-Americans have been taken into custody on suspicion of involvement in the conspiracy to murder the president.

Moise’s killing has rocked an already fragile political system while focusing attention on weak security institutions beset by powerful gangs that control swathes of Haiti like feudal lords.

Elections have not been held in Haiti since 2016, but are currently set for September.

Henry, a 71-year-old neurosurgeon, was tapped by Moise to be the new prime minister just days before he was assassinated. But he was not then formally sworn in to the position.

Claude Joseph, the former prime minister, clung to the job in the immediate aftermath of the assassination despite sharp criticism from domestic political opponents who accused him of pursuing a reckless power grab.

Joseph has returned to his previous job as foreign minister, just as several other ministers are expected to keep their old portfolios for now.

Moise’s wife Marine Moise, who was also shot during the assassination, arrived back in Haiti over the weekend after being treated for her wounds at a hospital in Miami.

(Reporting by Andre Paultre and Dave Graham; Writing by David Alire Garcia; editing by Grant McCool)

Haitians awake to uncertainty after presidential assassination

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Haitians awoke to uncertainty on Thursday, awaiting the outcome of a gun battle between police and a hit squad that assassinated President Jovenel Moise, while politicians argued over who should assume the leadership of the violence-wracked country.

Moise, 53, was shot dead early on Wednesday at his home by a commando of trained killers, pitching the poorest country in the Americas deeper into chaos amidst deep political divisions, hunger and widespread gang violence.

Haiti’s police and army managed to track down and encircle the presumed assassins, who included foreign mercenaries, and were engaged in a fierce battle with them late on Wednesday night, officials said.

They had so far killed four suspects, apprehended two and freed three police officers taken hostage.

“The police are still in combat with these assailants,” Police General Director Leon Charles said in televised comments late on Wednesday, as gunshots rang through the capital.

The sprawling capital on the shores of the Caribbean appeared calm on Thursday morning as police prowled the streets in the Pelerin neighborhood where a standoff with the remaining gunmen continued, a Reuters witness said.

Moise’s death has generated confusion now about who is the legitimate leader of the country of 11 million people, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.

That does not bode well in a nation that has struggled to achieve stability since the fall of the Duvalier dynastic dictatorship in 1986, grappling with a series of coups and foreign interventions.

“I can picture a scenario under which there are issues regarding to whom the armed forces and national police are loyal, in the case there are rival claims to being placeholder president of the country,” said Ryan Berg, an analyst with the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS).

The 1987 constitution stipulates the head of the supreme court should take over. Meanwhile, amendments that are not unanimously recognized stipulate it be the prime minister, or, in the last year of a president’s mandate – like in the case of Moise – the parliament should elect a president.

Adding further complications: the head of the supreme court died last month due to COVID-19 amid a surge in infections in one of the few countries worldwide to have yet to start a vaccination campaign.

There is no sitting parliament as Haiti failed to hold legislative elections in late 2019 amid political unrest.

And Moise had just this week appointed a new prime minister, Ariel Henry, to take over from interim prime minister Claude Joseph, although he had yet to be sworn in when the president was killed.

Joseph appeared on Wednesday to take charge of the situation, running the government response to the assassination, appealing to foreign governments for support and declaring a state of emergency.

Henry, however, told Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste that he did not consider Joseph the legitimate prime minister anymore and he should revert to the role of foreign minister.

“I think we need to speak. Claude was supposed to stay in the government I was going to have,” Henry was quoted as saying.

The Dominican Republic said on Wednesday it was closing its border with Haiti and bolstering security amid fears of a breakdown in order in the country.

The United Nations Security Council was due to hold a closed-door meeting on the situation in Haiti on Thursday.

A U.N. peacekeeping mission – meant to restore order after a rebellion toppled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 – ended in 2019 with the country still in disarray.

(Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Mark Heinrich)