By Isabelle John
Who was President Moïse?
Jovenal Moïse had been the President of Haiti since the year 2017. Haiti was considered to be the poorest nation in the Americas.
His time during office was rocky and this was because he was slammed with several accusations of corruption and there were several demonstrations against him earlier in the year.[1]
Moïse’s Rise to Power
After a contentious two-round election cycle in the years 2015 and 2016, Moïse came to power, though after a sharply depressing turnout. Haiti had a population of eleven million people, yet he only received around six hundred thousand votes out of the eleven million.
His rise to presidency was supported by nationwide anti-corruption protests over the misappropriated and embezzled funds from Petrocaribe. Petrocaribe was Venezuela’s oil-purchasing program.
The duration of Moïse’s term was also quite heavily contested. In 2019, Moïse held no legislative elections and hence, the parliament was dissolved in the earlier months of 2020. He then proceeded to rule by decree.
His belief was that the current way that Haiti was governed and the current version of the constitution that was upheld made Haiti relatively ungovernable and therefore had the need to reform the statutes through a greatly unpopular referendum.
This referendum was postponed in June and then continued to be rescheduled to take place at the same time as the legislative and Presidential elections that were to be held in the month of September.
This new constitution that Moïse was backing would add more powers to the Presidency, which included the elimination of the current prohibition against the consecutive Presidential terms.
This was what the country considered to be its key safeguards to ensure dictatorship did not arise.[2]
Moïse’s Popularity with the Locals
Moïse was handpicked to be President by his predecessor, Michael Martelly, the konpa singer who was also known as Sweet Mickey. Martelly came into power in 2011, once again through a round of elections entangled in fraud.
Funnily enough, the local Haitians had no idea who Moïse was until Martelly picked him to be a part of the Presidential election. At the time, he was a banana exporter.
He went by the nickname Nèg Bannann, also known as Banana Man. He was portrayed and sold to the public as a self-made successful rural entrepreneur who was living outside of Haiti’s political class.
Moise’s banana company was called Agritans and this company had received millions of dollars as aid from Martelly’s government.
These funds, according to Haiti’s Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes were funds that were embezzled from Petrocaribe. It must be mentioned that an Agritans lawyer did deny these allegations, hence that is all they are as of now.[3]
The Assassination
President Jovenal Moïse as he lived through his final moments of his life was left abandoned and unprotected, quite like Haiti’s most vulnerable citizens lived their daily lives. Moïse was found dead on July 7th, 2021, in the early-morning hours at quite the young age of 53.
He was shot dead in his home in the hills above Port-au-Prince. Not only was he shot in his own house but he was shot in his own bedroom.
There were no casualties that were reported among the Presidential guards, who were known as the General Security Unit of the National Palace, or any of the other security agents that would have been expected to have defended the premise. However, Moïse’s wife, Martine, was wounded during the attack.
She is currently under care at a South Florida Hospital recovering from her gunshot wounds.[4]
The Investigation
The details surrounding the attack remain to date to be a mystery. However, according to the Haitian officials, Moïse was assassinated by a band of foreign mercenaries.
These mercenaries included two Americans of Haitian descent and twenty-six Colombian nationals. Authorities claim that they were represented by Florida-based Haitian pastor with a mind to replace Moïse as President.[5]
- Florida-based Haitian Pastor. Person of Interest?
The Haitian police have arrested Christian Emmanuel Sanon, who is a Florida-based Haitian pastor. They have described him to be a “key suspect” in the investigation of the assassination. Sanon is a 63-year-old Haiti-born pastor who Haitian authorities say flew on a private jet into the Caribbean country in the last month.
These authorities claim that Sanon has had “political objectives” to achieve and hence had proceeded to recruit a group of Colombian gunmen from a Florida firm. This firm is known as the Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy.
As per the Washington Post’s reports, they claim that Sanon had hopes that he would be able to lead a multibillion-dollar reconstruction of his devasted crisis-stricken homeland.
A tapestry of natural and manmade disasters is what the locals would call their modern history and hence Sanon was rooting for a revolt that would cause Haiti’s unpopular president to be forced from power.
Many individuals are quite skeptical of the narrative that is surfacing around Sanon. Sanon has also reportedly denied allegations on his involvement on the assassination of the Haitian president.
The skeptics that rise are that it was insane to think that a random anonymous individual like Sanon would want the power and be in a position to be able to become Haiti’s leader, if he did overthrow the current president.
Not only was he completely unknown in all of Haiti’s political circles, he did not even live in the country. There are many individuals like him with the will to save the country but that is where it ends as no one takes them seriously in the country. They do not have a political base and they do not have a political party.
This results in them having no standing to be able to run for elections or have anyone back them.[6]
- The Colombian Gunmen
There are investigators in Colombia, the United States, and Haiti who are poring over this perplexing murder mystery trying to understand what actually went down. As of now, 20 have been detained, while three individuals were killed by the police and five are still on the run.
The perpetrators included more than 20 hired gunmen from Colombia, a Miami security firm, a US-based evangelist, a convicted cocaine smuggler, and a DEA informer called “Whiskey”.[7]
However, these Colombian gunmen claim that they had been duped as they were told that they were going to work as bodyguards in Haiti and not go on a mission to murder the president.
However, a smaller portion of the group did have quite detailed information on the operation and were aware of what was to go down.
The US Defense Department has now revealed that some of the Colombians who were a part of that group did receive military training while in the United States when they were a part of the Colombian army.
The Haitian officials said that the assailants had proceeded to disguise themselves as DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) agents and in a video that was purportedly short shortly before the attack outside Moïse’s residence, a man can be heard shouting in English. He is heard to be saying “DEA operation, everybody stay down!”.[8]
The Conspiracy Theories
People have the theory that the murder could be an inside job that had been commissioned by people within the country who had some kind of interest in the removal of the President, Jovenal Moïse.
- Claude Joseph?
The Colombian broadcaster Carol, on Wednesday, had claimed that investigators had their suspicions on Haiti’s interim Prime Minister, Claude Joseph. They suspected that he had ordered the murder and that he was in talks with Moïse’s alleged killers in the weeks following up to his death.
However, the police chief in Haiti, Léon Charles has called this claim a lie and his Colombian counterpart confirms this by saying that he has had no information regarding Joseph and his involvement with the murder.
- Joseph Félix Badio?
Gen Jorge Luis Vargas, the Colombian police chief said on Friday that the investigators suspect Joseph Félix Badio has something to do with the murder. Badio is a former official in Haiti’s justice ministry. They suspect he may have ordered the murder however the reasoning behind why remains to be unclear.
- Dimitri Hérard?
Meanwhile, in Haiti, there are talks and reports that Dimitri Hérard, who is Moïse’s former security chief is being held in solitary confinement as there is confusion on how not one of the president’s bodyguards had been injured during the assassination raid.[9]
All these conspiracy theories are in vain however, as the police are still in search for what they call the “mastermind” behind the plot of the assassination.
What is Happening Now? What About the President’s Wife?
Martine Moïse has now returned to the Caribbean nation after her treatments in South Florida for the gunshot wounds that she suffered under the attack. She was seen to be wearing an arm sling and a bulletproof vest after she arrived at the Port-au-Prince airport last Saturday.
A Haitian official in a tweet mentioned that Mrs. Moïse has indeed returned to the country in order to prepare for her husband’s funeral and last rites to be held this coming week.
Mrs. Moïse since the attack has made very few comments. She recorded an audio message from her hospital bed recounting the moments the assassins “riddled” her husband with bullets after they had burst into their home and into their bedroom.
She mentioned that everything happened so quickly that Moïse was unable to “say a single word”. Earlier last week she had tweeted: “This pain will never pass,” with regards to her husband’s death. Investigators and relevant authorities have hope that Mrs. Moïse as a witness will be able to help them understand who conducted this assassination and the reasoning behind it.[10]
Reference-
- “Haiti: Wife of assassinated President Jovenal Moïse returns after surviving attack”, BBC, July 18 2021, available at: bbc.com. (last visited on July 18, 2021). ↑
- Edwidge Danticat, “The Assassination of Haiti’s President”, The New Yorker, July 14 2021, available at: newyorker.com (last visited on July 18, 2021). ↑
- Supra to note 2 ↑
- Supra to note 2 ↑
- “Haiti: Wife of assassinated President Jovenal Moïse returns after surviving attack”, BBC, July 18 2021, available at: .bbc.com. (last visited on July 18, 2021). ↑
- Joe Parkin Daniels and Tom Phillips, “The assassination of Haiti’s leader remains shrouded in mystery: ‘We may never know’”, The Guardian, July 16 2021, available at: theguardian.com. (last visited on July 18, 2021). ↑
- Supra to note 6 ↑
- “Jovenal Moïse: Colombia ex-soldiers ‘in on plot to kill Haiti president’, BBC, July 16 2021, available at: bbc.com. (last visited on July 18, 2021). ↑
- Supra to note 6 ↑
- Supra to note 2 ↑