Thursday, July 8th, 2021
Four “mercenaries” shot dead
Dead and arrests after the presidential murder
After the fatal attack on Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse, security forces killed several suspects and arrested others. The alleged murderers are English and Spanish speaking “foreigners”, says the head of government.
Several suspects have been killed following the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. Four “mercenaries” were shot dead on Wednesday and two more were arrested, the police said. The attack on Moïse caused international consternation and is likely to exacerbate the crisis in the Caribbean country, which is characterized by instability and great poverty. The UN Security Council will deal with the situation in the country on Thursday.
Moïse was murdered in his home. His injured wife was flown to the United States for treatment.
(Photo: AP)
The officers started pursuing the alleged perpetrators immediately after the attack, said the chief of the national police, Leon Charles. Three police officers who had been taken hostage were released. The operation in the capital Port-au-Prince continues. The police did not provide any information on the identity of the alleged attacker or possible motives for the crime.
Moïse was shot dead in his home in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday night. His wife Martine, who was injured in the attack, was flown to Miami for treatment. She is out of danger, said Prime Minister Claude Joseph on television on Wednesday evening. Your condition is “stable”.
Government declares a state of siege
Joseph had called a special session of the cabinet after the assassination. “We have decided to declare a state of siege across the country,” he announced afterwards. This gives the government additional powers for two weeks.
The murder of Moïse will not “go unpunished”, emphasized Joseph, who also announced a two-week state mourning from Thursday and called on the population to calm down. The police and the army would keep things in order, he assured me. The airport in Port-au-Prince has been closed.
Shortly after the President’s assassination, the head of government said that the attackers were English and Spanish-speaking “foreigners”. Haiti’s ambassador to the US, Bocchit Edmond, spoke of “professional” mercenaries posing as employees of the US drug law enforcement agency DEA.
Internationally, the attack on Moïse caused horror. The Foreign Office in Berlin expressed its “dismay”. US President Joe Biden spoke of a “despicable act”. According to diplomats, the UN Security Council is considering the presidential murder in an emergency meeting on Thursday. The meeting requested by the USA and Mexico will therefore take place behind closed doors. The Dominican Republic, which, like Haiti, is located on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean, announced that the border would be closed immediately after the attack.
Moïse ruled by decree
Moïse’s murder comes at a politically sensitive time in Haiti. The 53-year-old had last ruled the country by decree after a parliamentary election planned for 2018 was postponed, among other things, because of protests against him. In the past four years, Moïse has changed the head of government four times. It was only on Monday that he announced the appointment of the new head of government Ariel Henry, who was to replace Joseph after only three months in office.
The US called on Wednesday to hold the parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for September in Haiti as planned. This could restore a functioning parliament and enable a peaceful transfer of power to a new president, said the spokesman for the US State Department, Ned Price.
The opposition accused the president of unlawfully holding onto his mandate. Moïse, who took office in February 2017, had always argued that his term of office would normally end in February 2022. From the perspective of his political opponents, however, Moïse’s mandate expired in February of this year. The reason for the dispute is the cancellation of the result of Moïse’s first choice in 2015 due to fraud allegations. A year later he was elected again.
In addition to the political crisis, there is widespread violence in Haiti. In the past few months kidnappings and ransom demands have increased in the poorest country on the American continent.
Moïse, who had made a name for himself as a successful entrepreneur before entering politics, began with the promise to fight poverty and rebuild the country, which has also been ravaged by natural disasters. To the end, however, critics accused him of not addressing the numerous crises in the country.
.