The Haitian police announced on Wednesday night the death of four alleged “mercenaries” and the capture of two others, accused of killing President Jovenel Moïse at his home. “Four mercenaries were killed, two placed under our control. Three policemen who had been taken hostage were recovered ”, said the director general of the Haitian police, Léon Charles, in a statement read on television. Charles has also revealed that his men are conducting a capture operation in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
According to the police chief, his men managed to find the alleged murderers because they pursued them after the attack, perpetrated at dawn on Wednesday at the residence where the president slept with his wife, who was injured but “is out of danger.” as reported by the Haitian Executive.
Charles has not disclosed any other information about the identity or motivations of the perpetrators of the murder, the agency reports. AFP. According to the judge investigating the case, quoted by the local press, President Moïse, 53, received 12 bullets, and his office and room were ransacked. Hours earlier, Prime Minister Claude Joseph had promised Haitians that the president’s assassins would “pay for what they did in court.” According to the Haitian ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond, the command was made up of “professional” mercenaries who pretended to be officials of the US anti-drug agency.
Moïse’s death brings the country to a stage of uncertainty and fuels the idea of creating a “Somalia in the Americas”, as some analysts have described. Added to the humanitarian crisis caused by a year of pandemic and hurricanes is the violence of urban gangs, which have raised the level of terror due to the assaults and kidnappings that plague the country. At the same time, political chaos seems to be installed as the only form of government in the poorest nation in America (and one of the poorest in the world).
The murder has surprised the political and diplomatic classes in the country, since it occurs just over two months before the presidential and legislative elections called for next September 26. In those elections it was already established that Moïse could not be a candidate and, therefore, was the roadmap accepted by the international community to solve the crisis. The opposition accused Moïse of clinging to power and ruling by decree since he dissolved the Assembly. In an interview with this newspaper, the president assured that he would leave power in 2022 on the grounds that his actual arrival to the post had occurred in 2017, later than expected.
Moïse took office in the midst of controversial elections that had to be repeated, but subsequently won clearly and without the need for a second round. Last February, Moïse denounced a failed coup and an assassination attempt and even a Supreme Court judge proclaimed himself legitimate president. “The coup is not a specific event, but a sequence of actions. Until now governments were puppets of economic groups, but this does not happen today and our decisions feel very bad for those who feel powerful and untouchable. A small group of oligarchs is behind the coup and wants to take over the country, “he denounced then in the interview with MRT.
Jovenel Moïse was elected in 2015 with the promise of bringing running water and electricity to the entire country. With the arrival at the White House of Joe Biden, both the State Department, the OAS (Organization of American States) and the Core group, the group of countries that are friendly to Haiti, including Canada, the United States, France, Spain or Brazil, supported the option of Moïse ending his term in 2022, although they demanded the restoration of the different powers of the State.
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