Haiti Prime Minister Claude Joseph has appealed to citizens on Thursday to hand over the suspected assassins of President Jovenel Moise to the police and not to lynch them amid a nationwide state of siege.
Hundreds of residents clamored outside a police station in the capital Port-au-Prince where suspects were being held, shouting “burn them” and setting fire to a vehicle they presumed was that of the assassins.
Haiti’s police arrested and shot four of the men suspected of assassinating President Jovenel Moise and are hunting for the masterminds behind the operation, Haiti’s police chief said in a televised news briefing on Thursday.
At least two suspects were believed to be at large.
Police General Director Leon Charles described the killers as “mercenaries” and said that security forces had engaged in a fierce gun battle with the suspected assassins that lasted late into the night and six suspects were taken in custody, while three corpses were retrieved. Police were heavily patrolling the area from early on Thursday.
“We have the physical authors, now we are looking for the intellectual authors,” Charles said.
Identities and details about the gunmen were still emerging. One of the men arrested is a Haitian-American US citizen named James Solages, Haiti’s minister of elections told the Associated Press. The US State Department could not confirm if a US citizen was among those arrested.
President Moise, 53, was killed at his private home in the early morning hours of July 7 by what appears to be a group of highly trained killers, opening up a political vacuum just as Moise and other civil leaders were preparing for elections and discussing revisions to Haiti’s constitution.
Moise, elected in 2016 with less than 600,000 votes out of a potential 6.1 million, was sworn in as president in 2017. Opposition parties had said Moise’s term should have ended in February, five years after his predecessor stepped down, and say he was trying to hold on to power by decree. Moise had contended his term extended until 2022.
A nation of 11 million, Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas with 4 million people living in hunger, widespread gang violence and armed groups controlling broad areas of the country including many neighbourhoods in Haiti’s capital. It faces a COVID epidemic and has been racked with political instability.
Moise on July 5 appointed a replacement prime minister for Joseph, Ariel Henry, who had been forming a new government at the time of the assassination. Henry had not been sworn in and challenges Joseph’s legitimacy.
According to Haiti’s constitution, Moise should be replaced by the president of Haiti’s Supreme Court, but the chief justice died in recent days from COVID-19, leaving open the question of who might rightfully succeed to the office.
The bodies of two people shot by police are seen inside a car as people look through the windows, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on July 8, 2021. [Estailove St-Val/Reuters]“Stakeholders need to set aside their differences and to chart a common way forward and overcome this difficult moment in a peaceful manner,” UN Haiti envoy Helen La Lime said in a virtual media briefing from New York.
Joseph assured La Lime the elections were on track to be held on September 26 with a second round in November this year, she said.
La Lime said a Security Council discussion Thursday centred on a request by Haiti for additional security assistance.
A UN peacekeeping mission begun in 2004, after a rebellion toppled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ended in 2019 with the country still in disarray.
Prime Minister Joseph is moving to “assure the continuity of the state” amid a “political vacuum” following Moise’s assassination, Haiti Ambassador to the US Bocchit Edmond told the MSNBC news outlet on Thursday.
Edmond said Haiti is asking the US to help in the investigation and to help provide security. The US State Department said it was responding to a request for investigative assistance.
Haiti First Lady Martine Moise was injured in the attack and was transported by air to a US hospital in Florida for medical care.
Haiti’s land border with neighbouring Dominican Republic and airport at Port-au-Prince remained closed on Thursday amid a nationwide state of emergency declared by Joseph.
Public transport and street vendors were scarce, an unusual sight for the normally bustling streets of Port-au-Prince.
Marco Destin, 39, was walking to see his family since no buses, known as tap-taps, were available. He was carrying a loaf of bread for them because they had not left their house since the president’s killing out of fear for their lives.
“Everyone at home is sleeping with one eye open and one eye closed,” he said. “If the head of state is not protected, I don’t have any protection whatsoever.”
Destin said Haiti has always been a complicated country and that he was not sure what the upcoming days would bring. “Haiti doesn’t know what direction it’s heading in right now,” he said. “To be honest, I don’t know what the solution is. There’s always been a fight for power.”
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Haiti PM asks Haitians to help find assassins, asks for unity - Al Jazeera English
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