Friday 23 July 2021
Gunshots, tear gas and attacks
Haiti’s President’s funeral escalates
The security presence at the funeral of President Moïse, who was murdered around two weeks ago, is huge. Senior politicians and diplomats come to pay their final respects to Haiti’s head of state. When shots suddenly rang out, many of them fled the ceremony.
The state funeral of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse was overshadowed by violence despite strong security measures. At the ceremony for the 53-year-old, who was murdered around two weeks ago, shots were fired in the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, and the security forces used tear gas. Some of the mourners then fled the place of burial. Barricades were erected in the city and vehicles were set on fire.
A few days earlier there had been rioting by demonstrators demanding justice for the murdered Moïse.
(Photo: picture alliance / dpa / AP)
Members of the government, representatives of foreign governments and diplomats gathered in the afternoon for the outdoor ceremony. The president’s coffin was wrapped in the red, white, and blue Haitian flag, and over it was the presidential sash. At first, the ceremony, which lasted several hours, went off without incident. When later shots were fired outside the burial site and the police used tear gas, some participants fled the place amid clouds of tear gas.
There had already been clashes in the city earlier this week when Police Chief Léon Charles inspected the security precautions for the funeral. Many residents of the north accuse the security forces of not having adequately protected Moïse. Also on Friday, several streets in Cap-Haïtien were blocked by barricades and cars in flames. Several shops were burned down. Local and foreign journalists were attacked by protesters.
Widow charges Haitian politics
Moïse was shot dead by a murder squad in his home in the capital Port-au-Prince on the night of July 7th. According to police, “26 Colombians and two US citizens of Haitian origin” belonged to the command. More than 20 people have been arrested since then. According to police, the attack was planned by Haitians with political ambitions and connections abroad.
Before his funeral on the grounds of the family residence, Moïse’s widow Martine, who was injured in the attack on her husband and flown to Florida for treatment, complained in her eulogy that her husband had been “brutally murdered”. “What crime did you commit to deserve such punishment?” she asked. The widow called Haitian politics “rotten and unfair” and said her husband tried to change that. “The whole system” turned against him “overnight”. Nevertheless, she does not want “revenge or violence”.
The murder plunged the Caribbean state, which was already marked by instability and great poverty, into an even deeper crisis. Moïse had last ruled Haiti by decree after a parliamentary election planned for 2018 was postponed, among other things because of protests against him.
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