Haitian protests against the Henry-Bogoliu-Porcelli outbreak: fuel shortages, food shortages and gang violence during cholera outbreaks
Now, world powers are considering a recent Haitian government request to send international armed forces for urgent help alleviating a wide range of problems. But while many Haitians express deep distrust of an international troop presence after a history of troubled foreign intervention, citizens also say they are outraged that their own government is absent.
Thousands of Haitians died in the last cholera outbreak in the country in 2010, after infected sewage from a United Nations peacekeepers camp contaminated a river.
Doctors and nurses can’t get to work if the roads aren’t clear. We need their help to distribute fuel and for the school to open again.
The deadly infection has already killed eight people, according to Haiti’s health ministry, and 68 new cases have been identified in the first week of October according to the medical humanitarian group, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The country has been paralyzed with schools, businesses and public transportation closed due to anti-government protests. Haitians have been demonstrating against chronic gang violence and food and fuel shortages.
Their fury was further fueled last month when Henry announced that he would cut fuel subsidies in order to fund the government – a move that would double prices at the pump. The main port in Port-au-Prince has been blocked by powerful gangs who have worsened the fuel crisis.
Guterres on Sunday urged the international community “to consider as of matter of urgency the request by the Haitian Government for the immediate deployment of an international specialized armed force.”
Entire neighborhoods were set aflame and thousands of people were forced from their homes this summer as the result of brutal gang battles in Port-au-Prince.
Hundreds were left dead, injured or missing. Criminals still control or influence parts of the country’s most populous city, and kidnappings for ransom threaten residents’ day-to-day movements. In recent weeks, many people in cities called for the resignation of Henry in the face of high fuel prices, inflation and crime.
“We hope the international community sends rapidly the specialized armed forces in response to our demand before things get worse,” Jean Junior Joseph, an adviser to Henry, told CNN on Monday.
The fate of Haiti, after the American invasion and the loss of his father Aristide, the most powerful boogeyman, a pawn
I was standing on the tarmac watching the American plane carry Aristide into exile, and I felt like something was lost. The best of what he represented — a demand for just redistribution, from without and within, as a route to true democracy and equity, was gone. What remained was his worst impulse: the gangs that had helped secure his presidency. It was a trauma from which Haiti has never really recovered, leaving it a broken nation living in the shadow of the most powerful country in the world — a boogeyman, a headache, a pawn.
Dan Foote was a former U.S. special envoy to Haiti, and has criticized Washington’s policy ever since. The American foreign policy still believes that Haiti is a bunch of dumb black people, who can’t organize themselves, and we need to tell them what to do or it will get really bad, he told me. The internationals have messed Haiti up many times. Time has come to give the Haitians a chance. What’s the worst that can happen? They make it worse than we have?”
Haiti has been used and abused by other countries since Christopher Columbus landed on the island in 1492. The United States has seesawed between shunning and smothering Haiti, initially refusing to recognize the country, then invading it in 1915, turning it into a quasi-colony for 19 years. Cold War calculations kept the United States in control of Haiti’s politics and economy, even after the brutal regimes of the father and son.
Over the past dozen years, Haitian politics has grown ever more fractured as the country has been battered by a shattering earthquake and a series of storms and hurricanes. American-backed leaders credibly accused of corruption have dominated the political scene.
The country’s political culture became frighteningly paranoid because of the isolation and foreign interference. The country quickly grew apart in the absence of a modern industrial economy. The poor people of the United States, Canada, France, and beyond are left in the dark by the fact that most of the money used to import goods and sell it to all other people comes from a mercantile class.
Haitian sanctions for foreign intervention-protests-gangs-cholera: Batiste’s frustrations and frustration in a cholera camp
“There is a thing I want God to do, which is give us peace,” Batiste said, sitting inside St. Pierre Catholic Church in Port-au-Prince.
Most Haitians are staying home these days, because they don’t have fuel and, even in rich neighborhoods like this one, gangs are trading gunfire and kidnapping residents off the streets. But on this Sunday, the pews are packed with Haitains seeking solace. Batiste says he hasn’t been working, so he put on a crisp black dress shirt and he came to Mass to try to clear his head.
You can see the desperation as you arrive in Port-au-Prince’s main airport. Across the street, at Hugo Chávez Square, there is a growing camp for people who have been pushed out of their homes and neighborhoods by violence.
Outside a makeshift shelter there, 27-year-old Fabiola Julme is washing clothes in a bucket. She said she had nothing to do with the gangs that burned down her house. She’s just trying to survive.
There’s no government presence at the camp. People don’t seem to care where the authorities are. There’s no clean drinking water and people are sleeping on wet ground in makeshift tents.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/04/1131254613/haiti-sanctions-foreign-intervention-protests-gangs-cholera
The Status of Haiti: a “Scalar Problem” in the Light of the Ariel Henry Assassination and the UN Security Council
In the other corner, Shelan Joseph cradles her son. His bones are visible through his skin because he has lightened his hair and lost weight. Joseph, who’s 33, says she has no money to take him to the doctor.
Jean-Martin Bauer, the country director for the World Food Programme, says the situation in Haiti is the worst it has ever been. He has never before classified a population in the Americas to be on the verge of famine.
Bauer says that in some of the neighborhoods under siege, mothers have no other choice but to boil water with salt because they have to feed their children.
There’s only so much that can be done when staff are threatened and can’t come to the office. We’re doing our best.
The assassination of President Jovenel Mose last year created a power vacuum which led to this latest crisis. The man appointed as prime minister after his death, Ariel Henry, remains the de facto authority but lacks public support and his constitutional mandate has expired. Gangs, who received weapons and support from politicians, have seized the moment.
He says that the situation in Haiti is “at a breaking point”. “We have no justice. We are supposed to have 30 members for the Senate — we only have 10. Our economy is dead.
The multiple security, humanitarian and economic crises are so dire that, in early October, Prime Minister Henry and 18 Cabinet ministers issued a letter asking the international community to urgently send in troops. Despite multiple requests for an interview with the Prime Minister to talk about the current situation, NPR never received a response.
The United States and Mexico sent a resolution to the UN Security Council but member states haven’t made a decision.
Economic sanctions, travel ban, and arms embargo were approved by the Security Council last month. This week, the United States levied sanctions on two prominent politicians, including the Senate President, accusing them of ties to gangs and international drug traffickers.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/04/1131254613/haiti-sanctions-foreign-intervention-protests-gangs-cholera
Comment parler de la d’embardation du premier ministre sup’erieur dans l”oregie chinoise
I would say something in French: ” Nous ne sommes plus une humiliation prs,” saysMichel. It means, “Another humiliation won’t make much of a difference.”
There are almost daily protests calling for Prime Minister Henry to resign. There’s a new chant. Down with the prime minister! Down with the occupation!
Sometimes the demonstrations have turned violent. The mood at the recent protest was light, but the messages were complex. A person in the crowd hoisted a Chinese flag while others carried Russian flags.