{"id":31960,"date":"2021-07-13T08:20:45","date_gmt":"2021-07-13T04:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=31960"},"modified":"2021-07-13T08:20:45","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T04:20:45","slug":"slain-haitian-president-faced-calls-for-resignation-sustained-mass-protests-before-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/slain-haitian-president-faced-calls-for-resignation-sustained-mass-protests-before-killing\/","title":{"rendered":"Slain Haitian president faced calls for resignation, sustained mass protests before killing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Mo\u00efse in his home outside Port-au-Prince ended a presidency that had plunged the already troubled nation deeper into crisis<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/span>The late Haitian President Jovenel Mo\u00efse in November 2019.<\/span>\u00a0Jovenel at a podium with men sitting behind him<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Haitian President Jovenel Mo\u00efse was\u00a0assassinated in the early morning hours of July 7, 2021, in a brazen attack on his private home outside Port-au-Prince, the capital.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mo\u00efse\u2019s wife was also shot in the assault that killed her husband. The assailants have not been identified, and Haiti\u2019s prime minister reports he is running the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mo\u00efse\u2019s assassination ended a four-and-a-half-year presidency that plunged the already troubled nation deeper into crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n

A political novice<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jovenel Mo\u00efse, 53, was born in 1968, meaning that he grew up under the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. Like most Haitians today, he lived through turbulent times \u2013 not only dictators but also\u00a0coups and widespread violence, including political assassinations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mo\u00efse, a businessman turned president, made his way into politics using political connections that stemmed from the business world. Initially he invested in automobile-related businesses, primarily in the north of Haiti, where he was born. Eventually, he ultimately landed in the agricultural sector \u2013 a\u00a0big piece of the economy in Haiti, where many people farm.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2014, Mo\u00efse\u2019s agricultural finance company Agritrans\u00a0launched an organic banana plantation, in part with state loans. Its creation\u00a0displaced hundreds of peasant farmers, who received minimal compensation.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the business brought Mo\u00efse prominence. It was as a famed banana exporter that Mo\u00efse met then-Haitian President Michel Martelly in 2014. Though he had no political experience, Mo\u00efse became\u00a0Martelly\u2019s hand-picked successor in Haiti\u2019s next election.<\/span><\/p>\n

Martelly was\u00a0deeply unpopular by the end of his term, but party leaders assumed that Mo\u00efse would be more welcomed given his relatable background in farming.<\/span><\/p>\n

A divisive and unstable presidency<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead, Mo\u00efse barely eked out a\u00a0win in a November 2016 election\u00a0that fewer than 12% of Haitians voted in. His meager electoral victory came after two years of delayed votes and\u00a0confirmed electoral fraud by Martelly\u2019s government.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2017, Mo\u00efse\u2019s first year in office,\u00a0the Haitian Senate issued a report accusing him\u00a0of embezzling at least US$700,000 of public money from an infrastructure development fund called PetroCaribe\u00a0to his banana business.<\/span><\/p>\n

Protesters flooded into the streets crying \u201cKot K\u00f2b Petwo Karibe a?\u201d \u2013 \u201cwhere is the PetroCaribe money?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Lacking the trust of the Haitian people, Mo\u00efse relied on hard power to remain in office.<\/span><\/p>\n

He created a kind of police state in Haiti,\u00a0reviving the national army\u00a0two decades after it was disbanded and\u00a0creating a domestic intelligence agency\u00a0with surveillance powers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since early last year, Mo\u00efse had been ruling by decree. He effectively shuttered the Haitian legislature by refusing to\u00a0hold parliamentary elections scheduled for January 2020\u00a0and summarily\u00a0dismissed all of the country\u2019s elected mayors in July 2020, when their terms expired.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sustained protests\u00a0\u2013 over gas shortages and blackouts, fiscal austerity that has caused\u00a0rapid inflation and deteriorating living conditions, and\u00a0gang attacks that have killed several hundred, among other issues \u2013 were a hallmark of Mo\u00efse\u2019s tenure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Existing street protests exploded in early 2021 after Mo\u00efse refused to hold a presidential election and\u00a0step down when his four-year term ended in Feburary. Instead, he claimed his term would end one year later, in February 2022, because Haiti\u2019s 2016 election was postponed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before his death, Mo\u00efse planned to\u00a0change the Haitian Constitution\u00a0to strengthen the powers of the presidency and\u00a0prolong his administration.<\/span><\/p>\n

Memories of a dictatorship<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

For months before his assassination, Haitian protesters had been demanding Mo\u00efse\u2019s resignation.<\/span><\/p>\n

For many Haitians, Mo\u00efse\u2019s undemocratic power grabs recall the 30-year, U.S.-backed dictatorships of Fran\u00e7ois Duvalier, known as \u201cPapa Doc,\u201d and his son, Jean-Claude \u201cBaby Doc\u201d Duvalier.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both Papa Doc and Baby Doc relied on\u00a0murdering\u00a0and\u00a0brutalizing\u00a0Haitians to remain in power, with the unspoken approval of\u00a0Western political interests\u00a0in Haiti. Working with the Duvaliers, U.S. manufacturers in Haiti ensured that their investments were profitable by pushing for wages\u00a0to remain low and working conditions to remain poor.<\/span><\/p>\n

When mounting Haitian protests ended the regime in 1986, Baby Doc fled the country. The Duvaliers had enriched themselves, but Haiti was left in\u00a0economic collapse and social ruin.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 1987 Haitian Constitution that Mo\u00efse sought to change was written soon after to ensure that Haiti would never slide back into dictatorship.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond Mo\u00efse\u2019s use of state violence to suppress opposition, anti-Mo\u00efse protesters before his killing pointed out another similarity with the Duvalier era: the United States\u2019 support.<\/span><\/p>\n

In March, the U.S. State Department announced that it supported Mo\u00efse\u2019s\u00a0decision to remain in office until 2022, to give the crisis-stricken country time to \u201celect their leaders and restore Haiti\u2019s democratic institutions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That stance \u2013 which echoes that of Western-dominated international organizations that hold substantial sway in Haiti,\u00a0such as the Organization of American States\u00a0\u2013 sustained what was left of Mo\u00efse\u2019s legitimacy to remain president.<\/span><\/p>\n

Haitians unhappy with continued American support for their embattled president held\u00a0numerous demonstrations outside the U.S. embassy\u00a0in\u00a0Port-au-Prince, while Haitian Americans in the U.S.\u00a0protested outside the Haitian Embassy in Washington, D.C.<\/span><\/p>\n

From its invasion and military occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934 to its support of the Duvalier regime, the U.S. has played a\u00a0major role in destabilizing Haiti.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ever since the devastating Haitian earthquake of 2010, international organizations like the United Nations and nonprofits like the American Red Cross have also had an\u00a0outsize presence in the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, the unpopular president that foreign powers supported in hopes of achieving some measure of political stability in Haiti has been killed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamanisha John<\/span>
\n<\/strong>Florida International University<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on 13 July 2021<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Mo\u00efse in his home outside Port-au-Prince ended a presidency that had plunged the already troubled nation deeper into crisis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":31961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8348],"tags":[29183,12554,5684,29186,29184,29187,17521,29185],"class_list":["post-31960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-conversation","tag-assassination","tag-caribbean","tag-haiti","tag-haiti-protests","tag-jovenel-moise","tag-tamanisha-john","tag-the-conversation","tag-us-haiti-relations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Haitian.jpg?fit=1200%2C628&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-8ju","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}