‘There’s no police or state’: Haitians helpless as violence and brutality soars

Human Rights Watch says country unable to protect citizens from killing and rape by armed gangs, and floats overseas peacekeepers

Human rights abuses in Haiti are soaring while the Haitian state is almost nonexistent and unable to protect its people from the brutality of armed gangs, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has warned in a new report.

Rival criminal factions now have such a tight grip over the country that international security forces could be necessary to restore order, the rights groups said.

HRW investigators documented 67 recent killings by armed gangs in its report, Living a Nightmare, including the murders of 11 children and 12 women. It also verified more than 20 cases of rape – many of them committed by multiple perpetrators to sow terror among the population.

“Urgent action is needed to address the extreme levels of violence and the palpable fear, hunger and sense of abandonment that so many Haitians experience today,” said Nathalye Cotrino, crisis and conflict researcher at HRW.

Haiti has fallen into chaos since president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in 2021 and gangs began grabbing control of the country in bloody turf wars.

Harrowing human rights violations have become commonplace, 4.9 million people cannot regularly get enough food to eat, and cholera has returned amid the conflict.

Criminal groups have killed at least 2,000 people and kidnapped more than 1,000 in the first half of 2023, according to the UN.

The explosion of violence is being driven by about 150 gangs who are vying for control of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The government response to the conflict has been “weak to non-existent”, HRW said, in part because the police and the government have affiliations with the criminals, who receive a steady flow of arms and ammunition from Florida.

“Based on available information, there have been no prosecutions or convictions of those responsible for killings, kidnappings, and sexual violence, or their supporters, since the start of 2023,” HRW said in the report.

The rights body verified accounts of gruesome killings in its interviews, the use of sexual violence as a weapon, and the practice of dismembering of bodies with machetes and setting corpses alight to intimidate rivals.

“They rape us because they are in control, because they have guns, because there is nobody to defend us. There is no police or state,” a survivor of sexual violence in the sprawling Port-au-Prince slum of Cité Soleil told the rights body.

Most of the gangs are affiliated to either the G-Pèp federation or the rival G9 alliance. A recent push by the G9, led by the notorious warlord “Barbecue”, into the G-Pep stronghold of Brooklyn in Cité Soleil has caused the violence to flare.

The rivals called a truce in late June but the ceasefire is flimsy and the two groups continue to abuse local populations.

The police’s inability to fight back means a growing number of Haitians are turning to vigilante groups for protection. Vigilantes, sometimes co-operating with police, have killed more than 200 suspected criminal members as of June, HRW said.

The 97-page report comes days before the UN secretary general, António Guterres, is expected to propose a plan to deploy international peacekeeping forces to Haiti.

Ariel Henry, who became interim leader following Moïse’s assassination, requested assistance from the UN in October last year to restore order. The Henry government has failed to hold elections and now has no single elected official in office.

Kenya proposed leading a taskforce earlier this month with the backing of the US and Canada, though civil society groups raised concerns over the human rights record of police in the east African country.

Nearly all of the civil society representatives interviewed by HRW said the situation is so dire that international forces are now necessary to push back the gangs.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I was hoping you would consider taking the step of supporting the Guardian’s journalism. 

From Elon Musk to Rupert Murdoch, a small number of billionaire owners have a powerful hold on so much of the information that reaches the public about what’s happening in the world. The Guardian is different. We have no billionaire owner or shareholders to consider. Our journalism is produced to serve the public interest – not profit motives.

And we avoid the trap that befalls much US media – the tendency, born of a desire to please all sides, to engage in false equivalence in the name of neutrality. While fairness guides everything we do, we know there is a right and a wrong position in the fight against racism and for reproductive justice. When we report on issues like the climate crisis, we’re not afraid to name who is responsible. And as a global news organization, we’re able to provide a fresh, outsider perspective on US politics – one so often missing from the insular American media bubble. 

Around the world, readers can access the Guardian’s paywall-free journalism because of our unique reader-supported model. That’s because of people like you. Our readers keep us independent, beholden to no outside influence and accessible to everyone – whether they can afford to pay for news, or not.

Haiti News Round-Up: Kenya Offers to Lead Intervention Force

In a statement released on Twitter Saturday, Kenya’s foreign minister Alfred Mutua expressed his country’s intention to lead a multinational force in Haiti — a contingent of 1,000 police officers to “help train and assist Haitian police restore [sic] normalcy in the country and protect strategic installations.” An assessment mission is expected to travel to Haiti in the coming weeks.

The same day, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Kenyan president William Ruto to discuss regional security issues, including the offer to lead a multinational force in Haiti. For many years, Kenya has been a key US military ally in East Africa, hosting US military bases and participating in US-backed operations on the continent, including the war against al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Kenya’s announcement comes after a high-level US delegation that included Todd Robinson, the head of the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, traveled to Nairobi last week. Former US ambassador to Haiti Michel Sison, now the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, and former head of the UN mission to Haiti Helen Lalime, who now serves as an advisor to Sison, were both reportedly involved in the discussions.

On Monday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that the United States and Ecuador would draft a UN Security Council resolution to authorize deployment of the international force, though the mission would not be a traditional UN peacekeeping operation. The US is “committed to finding the resources to support this multinational force,” Miller added.

The offer of police assistance was welcomed both by the de facto Haitian authorities, who initially requested such an intervention in October 2022, and by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is due to deliver a report to the Security Council this month on “the full range of support options the United Nations can provide to enhance the security situation.” On Tuesday, the Bahamian government, which has been intercepting record numbers of Haitian migrants, announced that it would provide an additional 150 officers for the planned force.

For the last year, countries have been reluctant to lead such a mission to Haiti, in part due to concerns about the mandate of de facto prime minister Ariel Henry and the lack of a broad-based political accord. Canada, which the US had pressured to lead an intervention force, has instead focused on financial and technical assistance to the Haitian police. On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, while welcoming Kenya’s offer, appeared frustrated with the pace of reform and lack of political dialogue.

“We’ve been there in Haiti for three decades at different times to help counter the violence, the political instability, an appalling humanitarian situation, and we still find ourselves now in a situation that is among the worst ever,” he said. “We are here to put pressure on the political class in Haiti, which is not taking seriously the responsibility they have to compromise and restore security.”

The issue of foreign forces remains a point of contention for many Haitians. In particular, there are concerns about the Kenyan forces’ reputation. The Associated Press reported that, “as the U.S. government was considering Kenya to lead a multinational force in Haiti, it was also openly warning Kenyan police officers against violent abuses.” Haiti’s ex-prime minister Claude Joseph, a member of the opposition to the de facto authorities, also expressed concern: “Kenya […] is embroiled in its own internal socio-political crisis. […] The anti-government protests against the rising cost of living are violently repressed by the police. Can a police force that is not professional in its own country act as such abroad?”

In The New York Times, Jean Jonassaint, a professor at Syracuse who studies Haiti, questioned the choice of Kenya to lead such a mission, given the language barrier. “I don’t think 1,000 soldiers can solve the problem in Haiti, especially coming from Kenya, because they don’t speak French, don’t speak Haitian Creole and cannot communicate directly to the population,” he said. The US and UN have pledged to learn from previous failed interventions, but the language barrier was also a significant issue in the 13-year MINUSTAH operation, which was led by Portuguese-speaking Brazilian troops.

The announcement of a multinational force also threatens to derail ongoing political negotiations. For months, Haitian civil society organizations have warned that the imposition of a security intervention, without first establishing a more broadly acceptable and legitimate transitional government, would be unlikely to succeed, and would instead simply consolidate the de facto authorities’ power.

Escalation of violence prompts US Embassy to call for evacuation

The US State Department has ordered its nonemergency staff at the US embassy in Port-au-Prince to leave Haiti due to escalating violence. It also reissued its “Do Not Travel” advisory for the country, which advises US citizens to leave the country immediately. Earlier in the week, dozens of Haitians displaced by ongoing violence, and seeking refuge in front of the US embassy, were teargassed by the Haitian National Police (PNH). Those attacked included children and pregnant women.

In a July 26 press release, the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), condemned the PNH officers’ behavior, and in particular criticized the PNH’s acting director general, Frantz Elbe:

“RNDDH condemns with the utmost rigor the outrageous use of force by PNH agents against a population left alone to fight, who, by going to the premises of the US Embassy in Haiti, were only seeking refuge. RNDDH recalls that the right to seek refuge whenever one’s life, safety, or any other fundamental rights and freedoms are threatened or violated, is recognized for all persons.”

Those who sought shelter outside the embassy had fled violence perpetrated by the Kraze Baryè gang led by Vitel’homme Innocent, who is wanted by the FBI in connection with the kidnapping of missionaries in 2021. In its release, RNDDH accused Innocent of being Elbe’s “protege.” The organization claims that Innocent is known to travel accompanied by state vehicles and that in recent weeks he had met with state officials. Since then, attacks have intensified, RNDDH reported.

On the same day the US issued its travel advisory, a US nurse and her young child were kidnapped in the Cité Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, where she worked at a local clinic. The case has generated international headlines, President Joe Biden has been briefed, and the US government has said it is working for their release.

After a brief respite — seemingly as a result of the Bwa Kale citizen justice movement — local groups have documented a sharp rise in violence in recent months. RNDDH reported at least 40 people abducted and 75 murdered from May to mid-July.

US Senate holds two Haiti-related meetings

Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held two hearings related to Haiti. On Tuesday, the committee held a nomination hearing for Dennis Hankins, President Biden’s nominee for the next US ambassador to Haiti. This was followed the next day by a hearing with Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Brian Nichols and a top USAID official. Despite the high-level attention on Haiti and the looming prospect of a US-financed multinational intervention, only two senators showed up to ask questions.

EU amends rules to impose sanctions on individuals and businesses in Haiti

The Council of the European Union amended its sanctions regime in order to allow the EU to autonomously impose restrictive measures on “individuals and entities responsible for threatening the peace, security or stability of Haiti, or for undermining democracy or the rule of law in Haiti.” While no individual or entity has been sanctioned at this stage, the measures are comprised of a travel ban for individuals, as well as a freezing of funds for individuals and entities. In addition, EU entities and individuals will be forbidden from making funds available to those listed, either directly or indirectly.

“With this new framework for restrictive measures, we are sending a clear signal to Haitian gang leaders and their financiers: we know how they operate and there will be no impunity. The EU stands with Haiti and its people,” Josep Borell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy stated. The EU joins Canada, the US and the United Nations in issuing sanctions against Haitian individuals and entities.

The EU, however, has been reluctant to take leadership or an active role in the planned multinational force. In conversations with the press ahead of the EU-Latin America and Caribbean Summit, the EU Ambassador to Haiti, Stefano Gatto, said that the bloc could not support Haiti without the leadership of the United States and Canada. “Proposing to engage our security apparatus in Haiti when the Russian army is just 300 kilometers away from the European Union is quite complex,” he said, highlighting that the war in Ukraine had captured the bloc’s attention.

“In the field of security, we could not be at the forefront or take the leadership,” Gatto added. “There are countries much closer to Haiti that can do it on our behalf. Why would the Union help Haiti when countries in the hemisphere such as the United States, Canada, or the Latin American countries, are not doing it themselves? […] We can participate in any initiative if it is led by a country from the American hemisphere.”

Expulsions and deportations of Haiti continue 

On August 2, ICE deported some 55 Haitians to Port-au-Prince. The move comes less than a week after US officials ordered the departure of all nonemergency staff, due to safety concerns. According to Witness at the Border, it is the 285th such flight to Haiti since the beginning of the Biden administration, sending a total of more than 27,000 individuals to Haiti.

While welcoming Kenya’s offer of security assistance, Dominican president Luis Abinader pledged to continue with his country’s draconian immigration enforcement. Over the last year, the Dominican Republic deported over 200,000 Haitians, while also building a wall along its border with Haiti.

A long interactive piece in the Washington Post looks at smuggling routes in the Bahamas that are transporting record numbers of Haitians seeking to make the journey to the US. “So far this year, Bahamian authorities have apprehended 1,736 migrants, 1,281 of them Haitian,” The Post reports. Meanwhile, this fiscal year the US Coast Guard has intercepted more than 5,000 Haitians.

Haitians around the globe march for relief

In more than 70 countries around the world, thousands of Haitians marched on July 9 to call for relief for Haiti. In the United States, marches led by pastor Gregory Toussaint in South Florida called on Congress to pass the Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act, which was just approved by the House and is now pending in the Senate. The act would mandate the State Department to regularly report on ties between Haitian elites and criminal gangs and for the US to implement sanctions on those identified. The protesters also requested for the Biden administration’s Humanitarian Parole program to remain open.

The Humanitarian Parole program also remains highly controversial, with many PNH officers applying to leave the country, a disastrous blow to the force when it is already unable to tackle the country’s security crisis. Marleine Bastien, a Haitian community activist and immigration rights advocate in South Florida, called the program “ill-advised and ill-conceived” back in February. Others have argued that the program is further exacerbating the country’s brain drain. Florida governor Ron DeSantis and the leaders of 19 other Republican states are challenging the legality of the program in federal court. According to the Department of Homeland security, some 63,000 Haitians have been approved for travel and more than 50,000 have arrived in the US.

A different march was organized by several Haitian diaspora organizations on July 21 in Washington DC, titled “Haitian Solidarity Day for Change.” In an interview ahead of the protest, one of the organizers said the effort was aimed at telling the White House that they must change their policy toward Haiti and for the international community to stop deciding for Haitians. “The decision of the country is up to the Haitians, we want to be around the table and take charge of the destiny of our country,” they said.

Haiti loses an icon

On July 31, Liliane Pierre-Paul, a long-time journalist and outspoken champion for democracy and press freedom, died of a heart attack. “Liliane will always be remembered for her courage, her determination, her profound beliefs in the democratic ideals so many died for,” Michèle Montas, widow of the slain journalist Jean Dominique, told the Miami Herald. For more on the life and legacy of Pierre-Paul, read the entire Herald article.

An American nurse and her daughter have been freed after being kidnapped in Haiti last month

CNN — 

American nurse Alix Dorsainvil and her daughter have been released after they were kidnapped 13 days ago from the community ministry where Dorsainvil works in Haiti, the organization said.

“It is with a heart of gratitude and immense joy that we at El Roi Haiti confirm the safe release of our staff member and friend, Alix Dorsainvil and her child who were held hostage in Port au Prince, Haiti. Today we are praising God for answered prayer,” the statement said. 

The organization asked that no one contact Dorsainvil or her family saying, “There is still much to process and to heal from in this situation.”

The US State Department said they “welcome reports of the release of two citizens from captivity in Haiti,” a spokesperson told CNN Wednesday, adding that they “have no greater priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas.”

Haitian National Police told CNN they couldn’t comment on the matter because it’s still under investigation.

Dorsainvil and her daughter were kidnapped from the community ministry in Port-au-Prince on July 27 – it remains unclear who kidnapped the pair and why.

The abduction – including a man pulling out a gun – unfolded in view of a patient waiting for a medical checkup, the patient told The Associated Press.

“When I saw the gun, I was so scared,” Lormina Louima told AP. “I said, ‘I don’t want to see this, let me go.’”

The same day, the US State Department ordered the departure of nonemergency government personnel from Haiti as the security situation in the country deteriorates.

The order followed a travel advisory from the US Embassy in Haiti advising US nationals to leave the country immediately due to recent armed clashes between criminal groups and police in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas have been gripped by a years long kidnapping-for-profit epidemic, with hundreds of Haitians targeted by gangs seeking ransom payments each year.

The majority of victims are local, but foreigners have been seized in the past. In 2021, 17 missionaries from the United States and Canada were taken by a local gang while traveling on the road north of the capital and held for more than a month.

Authorities noted 1,014 kidnappings in Haiti from January to June this year – 256 women, 13 girls and 24 boys – according to a UN report.

Dorsainvil, a New Hampshire native, has been on staff tending to schoolchildren as a nurse since 2020 and married Sandro Dorsainvil, El Roi Haiti’s director in 2021, according to the non-profit.

She first visited Haiti after the 2010 earthquake while she was still in college and “fell in love with the people,” the non-profit said in a statement. She then spent breaks from school and summers visiting Haiti, saving her money and paying her own way back to the Caribbean nation as often as she could.

Dorsainvil’s kidnapping prompted students from El Roi Haiti and other residents to hold a demonstration demanding the freedom of the beloved nurse and her daughter.

Crowd kills over a dozen suspected gang members in Haiti

More than a dozen people were lynched by a crowd in Haitian capital Port-au-Prince on Monday, on suspicion of being gang members, according to authorities.

Video from Reuters and AFP showed burning and charred bodies with tires around them, and crowds forming near the area. Residents who spoke to Reuters and AFP on camera said they believed the victims were gang members.

“It was 3 am. The gangs invaded us. There was shooting, shooting. This neighborhood is a peaceful area, all the people in the surrounding area are peaceful citizens,” a local resident told AFP.

Before the killing, Haitian National Police had stopped and searched the victims in a minibus in the neighborhood of Canape-Vert, seizing weapons and other equipment, according to a statement from the Haitian National Police.

“More than a dozen individuals riding on board this vehicle were unfortunately lynched by members of the population,” the statement said.

Smokes seen in the Turgeau commune of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, during gang-related violence on April 24, 2023.Richard Pierrin/AFP/Getty Images

“If the gangs come to invade us, we will defend ourselves, we have our own weapons, we have our machetes, we will take their weapons, we will not run away,” a 15-year-old Haitian resident told AFP.

“We don’t ask for a lot. The gang members have invaded the area. We want the police to go ahead and confront them. We’re on our own. We have nothing,” said another. The resident added that suspected gangmembers had “invaded” the neighborhood early Monday morning around 2am.

In a tweet, Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry applauded the Haitian police on Monday for recent operations toward restoring “order and peace in our cities and neighborhoods.”

“Together, we will solve the problems related to security to move forward,” Henry wrote

Gangs control wide swathes of Port-Au-Prince, plaguing residents with extreme violence as Haitians also grapple with extreme poverty and a humanitarian crisis.

Haiti in dire need of “safe blood”

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, Apr 6, CMC – Health authorities are urging technical and financial partners to secure funding to support the activities of the National Blood Safety Programme (PNST) amid concerns for the need to increase the production of safe blood in the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country.

“Haiti has an urgent need to increase its production of safe blood, with an estimated annual demand of 60,000 to 80,000 blood bags, compared to the current production of about 20,000 bags,” said the PNST director, Dr. Ernst Noel.

Last weekend national, regional and international health officials participated in a sectoral thematic table to highlight the challenges and constraints of the PNST making an urgent appeal to technical and financial partners for assistance.

The meeting heard that the availability and safety of blood products is a cross-cutting issue in the various health care activities and has a direct impact on the health of Haitians, particularly in the area of maternal mortality, trauma, surgery and diseases such as malaria or other causes of anaemia.

“One of the goals of PAHO/WHO (Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation) in all countries is to improve the coverage, quality, safety, management, appropriate use and timely access to blood and blood products,” said PAHO’s representative in Haiti, Dr. Maureen Birmingham.

PAHO said that the meeting, which was also attended by representatives from the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP),allowed PNST executives to highlight several major challenges facing the programme, including insufficient funding for the operation of its blood transfusion stations, a shortage of human resources, repeated stock-outs of consumables and inputs, non-operational peripheral blood depots, as well as transportation difficulties.

The thematic table thus emphasised the need to decentralise activities, particularly testing, to guarantee rapid access to blood and to have a functional hemovigilance system. The strengthening of existing blood transfusion structures as well as the establishment of sustainable financing and the recruitment of qualified human resources were also identified as key elements.

Participants called for increased support from national and international partners, which would have a direct and significant impact on saving lives, preventing infections and improving health in Haiti. They also commended the efforts of the MSPP and PNST for their leadership and unwavering commitment to this critical program for the health of Haitians.

Tastes of Haiti found just outside Burlington

For those looking for a taste of the Caribbean, the culinary delights of Haiti are available just past the Burlington city limit sign in Whitsett.

“We are living the American Dream,” said Djosen Vilnor, who owns King Queen Caribbean Bar & Grill along with her brother, the chef, Hilder Vilnor.

After immigrating from a war-torn and hostile political environment in Haiti, the Vilnors came to North Carolina in 1993, Hilder Vilnor said.

“Where we came from was tough, but we are grateful for our lives here in the US,” he said.

His sister added: “A bag of rice at a store here may cost around $20, but back in Haiti, it will cost around a thousand dollars — and people can’t afford it because there is no work. There is also no threat of roving gangs here. We are lucky to be in America.”

Their family had to learn a new language and learn about a new country, but Djosen Vilnor said, “We wouldn’t be here without God and the community around us here. We are grateful for all of the help that we have gotten.”

Family is an important theme running through King Queen.

“Most days, my sister and I are the only ones here working,” Hilder Vilnor said. “I’m cooking, and coming out to talk to customers, and my sister is taking orders and running food. I even clean the tables.”

They opened the restaurant in 2020 after 10 years of running a food truck, Djosen Vilnor said.

“Unfortunately, it was just a week before North Carolina closed in-person dining. That was tough, but here we are. We are blessed,” she said.

Haitian cuisine may be foreign to some diners, but Djosen Vilnor urges people to give it a try.

“All Haitian food isn’t spicy, but we use spice. It’s called Epis, and it’s just seasoning, but every family’s is different and special,” she said. “I truly love educating diners and getting to know them and learn about them. It is really exciting to me.”

Epis blends fresh herbs, onions, garlic and peppers and is similar to the traditional Caribbean green seasoning as well as Dominican sofrito, according to Simply Recipes.

The restaurant is known for its oxtails, jerk chicken, pineapple bowls and red snapper dishes, she said.

“We spend a lot of time with our food — stewing and roasting. That’s where the love comes in,” she said. “You can really get a taste of our homeland in our cooking.”

King Queen Bar & Grill is at 90 Cape Fear Dr., Suite D, Whitsett. It is open Tuesday-Sunday for lunch and dinner.

Family of US couple kidnapped in Haiti pleads for release

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Nikese Toussaint was at church, so she didn’t see the text message from her sister.

All she knew at that point was that their brother and his wife, who live in the U.S., had landed safely in Haiti to visit ailing relatives and prepare for Rara, a colorful and boisterous festival born out of the dark days of slavery.

It wasn’t until Toussaint got home and her sister followed up the unread text with a phone call that she learned her warnings had materialized: their brother, an accountant; his wife, a social worker; and another person were snatched off a public bus amid a surge in gang-related kidnappings.

Toussaint took a deep breath. Not again, she thought.

Seventeen years earlier, gangs had kidnapped two of her cousins in the capital of Port-au-Prince. They were eventually released but remain traumatized.

This time, the gang that kidnapped her brother, wife and another person is demanding $200,000 — each.

“How are we ever going to come up with that money?” Toussaint told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday from the U.S.

The kidnapping occurred March 18, and since then, her brother, Jean-Dickens Toussaint, has been allowed to make only two brief calls.

All his family knows is that he and his wife, Abigail Michael Toussaint, are tied up. The phone calls are too brief to find out if they are being given food or water or treated generally well, Nikese Toussaint said.

The couple were on their way to Jean-Dickens Toussaint’s hometown of Leogane, which many Haitians believe organizes the country’s best Rara festival. Three pandemic years had gone by since he last led a Rara band through those streets, and the 33-year-old accountant was excited to resume his role as “colonel.”

Rara is similar to a carnival, with drums, bamboo instruments and metal horns accompanying singers as they parade through the town behind band leaders like Toussaint in an homage to the slave revolution that led Haiti to become the world’s first Black republic.

But the celebration was cut short.

The Toussaints, who are from Tamarac, Florida, never made it to Leogane.

Gangs stopped the public bus they were on as it tried to cross Martissant, considered ground zero for ongoing violence that has worsened since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

The gangs apparently noticed the suitcases in the bus and zeroed in on the couple and the person accompanying them on the trip, Nikese Toussaint said.

The family paid someone they trusted $6,000 to give to the gang, but the money vanished. It’s not unusual for gangs in Haiti to refuse to release kidnapping victims even after they’ve been paid, but Toussaint believes it was a scam.

“That’s when we said, ‘Uh, oh, we have to get help,’” she recalled. “We didn’t know what to do at that point. We don’t want to take any more risks.”

Toussaint said her family is in touch with the FBI, which is helping with the case.

“To the gangs, I want to say, we want our family back. We are not rich over here,” Nikese Toussaint said.

A statement from the U.S. State Department said the agency was aware of reports of two U.S. citizens being kidnapped and was in regular contact with Haitian authorities.

The kidnappings are the latest to target U.S. citizens, although most victims are Haitian, ranging from wealthy business owners to humble street vendors. At least 101 kidnappings were reported in the first two weeks of March alone, with another 208 people killed in gang clashes during that period, according to the U.N.

The ongoing violence in Port-au-Prince and beyond also has displaced at least 160,000 people as warring gangs set fire to neighborhoods in their bid to control more territory.

More than a week has gone by since the Toussaints were kidnapped. Their family is trying to stay strong because the couple have a son who turns 2 on Tuesday.

“We’re trying to smile,” Nikese Toussaint said of their video calls with the boy. “We have to smile with him, and give him love, and at the same time we get a little smile (from him), and that’s when the pain gets a little harder.”

Haiti's Notorious Gang Leader, Vitel'Homme Innocent, Named in Presidential Killing

Away from the besieged center of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, one gang leader has gained notoriety for attacks in the city's suburbs. Now he's being linked to the murder of former President Jovenel Moïse.

A spokesperson for the Haitian National Police (Police Nationale d'Haïti -- PNH) named gang leader Vitel'Homme Innocent as a suspect in the July 2021 assassination of President Moïse during a March 10 interview with Radio Télévision Caraïbes. Police did not clarify Vitel'Homme's alleged role in the killing.

Vitel'Homme has made a name for himself in recent months as the leader of the Kraze Baryè gang, orchestrating a string of attacks on police and residents of towns on the outskirts of Haiti's capital.

The Kraze Baryè gang attacked a PNH police station in Fort-Jacques, a wealthy suburb south of Port-au-Prince, on March 1, stealing guns and bulletproof vests, and then setting fire to the station, Haiti Libre reported.

A month earlier, on February 29, the gang reportedly shot and killed four people, including a PNH officer, again in Fort-Jacques. The same day, Vitel'Homme's men burned down a police station in Pétion-Ville, while on January 21, the gang engaged in a shootout with PNH officers in Métivier, killing at least four.

In response to the attacks, the PNH announced "Operation Tornado 1," targeting Vitel'Homme and members of Kraze Baryè in the gang's traditional strongholds of Torcelle and Pernier, areas east and northeast of Port-au-Prince, Alter Presse reported.

Kraze Baryè's attacks have marked an increase in gang activity outside of the crime-ridden capital city, whose economy is "dead," according to Eric Calpas, a gang researcher in Haiti, who spoke to InSight Crime. 

Up to 30 gangs now operate around Pétion-Ville, a suburb south of the capital, where the capital's financial and economic activity is now centered, Calpas added.

InSight Crime Analysis

The accusations of the Vitel'Homme's involvement in the murder of Moïse remain murky. What is more apparent is that Haiti's dire security situation permits smaller gang leaders to quickly grow in prominence.

Originally a political activist, Vitel'Homme turned to crime as an alternative route to gain political capital but has maintained ties to grassroots political movements and actors, Calpas explained.

The Kraze Baryè leader previously claimed he has direct connections with Ariel Henry, Haiti's prime minister and acting president, as well as the director general of the PNH, Frantz Elbé. Neither the government nor PNH has confirmed his claims, though links between criminal and political leaders are well-established in the country. The United States, Canada, and the United Nations have imposed sanctions against multiple former and current politicians for their links to a litany of criminal activities and crime groups.

These most recent attacks in Port-au-Prince suburbs are not Vitel'Homme's first connection to serious crime. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) accuses him of involvement in the kidnapping of 17 US and Canadian Christian missionaries in October 2021. It is offering a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture.

According to the US State Department, Vitel'Homme worked with the 400 Mawozo gang, one of the largest criminal groups in Haiti, to carry out the kidnappings of the North American missionaries. He also provided weapons and made ransom demands during the kidnappings, as well as serving as a bodyguard for Joly Germine, a senior leader of 400 Mawozo, the US State Department claims.

The Kraze Baryè gang has carried out kidnappings in the past, delivering victims to allied gangs in exchange for weapons and ammunition, with the other groups receiving the ransom payments, according to Calpas. 

Now, with the gang increasing its presence in Fort-Jacques, and other suburbs like Fermate, Vitel'Homme and his men should have ample opportunities for kidnapping and associated crime.

Ex-Haiti mayor accused of killing, torture faces civil trial

BOSTON (AP) — Accusations of political violence and terror have followed a former Haitian mayor all the way to a Boston courtroom, where a civil trial began Monday that shines a light on the wider issue of bloodshed and unaccountability in the Caribbean nation’s politics.

Attorneys painted widely different pictures of Jean Morose Viliena during opening arguments in U.S. District Court in Boston. Those included claims of a killing, torture and arson — or a successful mayor who helped improve the town of Les Irois in the late 2000s.

Viliena, who now lives in Massachusetts, is being sued by three Haitian citizens who say they or their relatives were persecuted by him and his political allies.

The suit was filed under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, which allows civil lawsuits to be filed in the U.S. against foreign officials who allegedly committed torture or extrajudicial killing — if all legal avenues in their home country have been exhausted. It was filed by the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco.

The defense said Viliena was not involved in violence and increased services while leading Les Irois, a town of around 22,000 people on Haiti’s westernmost tip, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) from the capital Port-au-Prince.

Viliena’s attorney, Peter Haley told the 12-person jury during opening statements about a farmer’s son who got an education, ran for mayor in 2006 and brought more paved roads, a medical clinic, waste pickup and a better education system — all lacking before his election.

Viliena is a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., and he moved to the Boston suburb of Malden in 2009, drives a truck and is a “very productive member of the community,” Haley said.

Bonnie Lau, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the jury that Viliena violently suppressed and intimidated his political foes, even after he moved to the U.S.

“This case is about murder, torture, arson and abuse of power,” Lau told the jurors

The plaintiffs — David Boniface, Juders Ysemé, and Nissandère Martyr — lodged legal complaints against Viliena in Haiti, but he was ultimately released and never tried.

Lau said they are bringing suit in the U.S. because they were failed by the corrupt Haitian justice system.

It’s not the first time a former Haitian official has gone before an American court to answer for alleged wrongdoing in their homeland. In 2006, a New York judge ordered former Haitian strongman Emmanuel “Toto” Constant to pay $19 million in damages to three women who said they were gang-raped by paramilitary soldiers under his command.

Viliena was elected as a candidate for the Haitian Democratic and Reform Movement and was backed by the Committee for Resistance in Grande-Anse, which according to the lawsuit dominates regional politics through patronage, threats and armed violence.

Armed paramilitary groups that ally themselves with particular political parties and candidates and function above the law are commonplace in Haiti, said Robert Maguire, an adjunct professor at George Washington University and Haiti expert who testified on behalf of the plaintiffs.

The paramilitary groups provide muscle for the politicians, he said, and in return get material rewards such as motorcycles, jobs, government posts and access to power.

They act with impunity because of Haiti’s weak government and justice system.

“When there’s no police or judiciary to keep you in check, you feel like you can act like you wish,” he said.

Haley, the defense attorney, pushed back, asking Maguire if he was in Les Irois at the time of the alleged violence, and Maguire acknowledged he had never been to the town.

The plaintiffs allege that in 2007 Viliena — a loyalist of former Haitian President Michel Martelly — began a “campaign of persecution” against Boniface, a supporter of the political opposition, after he tried to defend a neighbor who Viliena allegedly assaulted for piling garbage in the street

Viliena allegedly led a group of men armed with guns, machetes and clubs to Boniface’s home. In Boniface’s absence, his younger brother, Eclesiaste Boniface, was dragged out of the house and fatally shot by one of Viliena’s men, the lawsuit says.

“They left his body on the street all night to send a message,” Lau said.

The suit also alleges that Viliena and his men beat and shot Ysemé and Martyr at a community radio station in 2008. Ysemé was blinded in one eye, while Martyr lost a leg, according to the suit.

Nissage Martyr has since died and his son has taken his place as a plaintiff.

The plaintiffs also allege that Viliane’s allies burned down dozens of homes occupied by his political opponents in 2009. Even though Viliena was not present during the arson, his allies acted on his orders, Lau said.

The suit seeks unspecified damages.

In heart of Haiti’s gang war, one hospital stands its ground

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — When machine gun fire erupts outside the barbed-wire fences surrounding Fontaine Hospital Center, the noise washes over a cafeteria full of tired, scrub-clad medical staff.

And no one bats an eye.

Gunfire is part of daily life here in Cité Soleil – the most densely populated part of the Haitian capital and the heart of Port-au-Prince’s gang wars.

As gangs tighten their grip on Haiti, many medical facilities in the Caribbean nation’s most violent areas have closed, leaving Fontaine as one of the last hospitals and social institutions in one of the world’s most lawless places.

“We’ve been left all alone,” said Loubents Jean Baptiste, the hospital’s medical director.

Fontaine can mean the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of people just trying to survive, and it offers a small oasis of calm in a city that has descended into chaos.

The danger in the streets complicates everything: When gangsters with bullet wounds show up at the gates, doctors ask them to check their automatic weapons at the door as if they were coats. Doctors cannot return safely to homes in areas controlled by rival gangs and must live in hospital dormitories. Patients who are too scared to seek basic care due to the violence arrive in increasingly dire condition.

Access to health care has never been easy in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. But late last year it suffered a one-two punch.

One of Haiti’s most powerful gang federations, G9, blockaded Port-au-Prince’s most important fuel terminal, essentially paralyzing the country for two months.

At the same time, a cholera outbreak made worse by gang-imposed mobility restrictions brought the Haitian health care system to its knees.

The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said this month that violence between G9 and a rival gang has turned Cité Soleil into “a living nightmare.”

Reminders of the desperation are never far away. An armored truck driven by hospital leaders passes by hundreds of mud pies baking in the harsh sun to fill the stomachs of people who can’t afford food. Black spray-painted “G9” tags dot nearby buildings, a warning of who’s in charge.

In a February report, the U.N. documented 263 murders between July and December in just the small area surrounding the hospital, noting that violence has “severely hampered” access to health services.

That was the case for 34-year-old Millen Siltant, a street vendor who sits in a hospital hallway waiting for a checkup, her hands nervously clutching medical paperwork over her pregnant belly.

Nearby, hospital staff play with nearly 20 babies and toddlers — orphans whose parents were killed in the gang wars.

Normally, Siltant would travel an hour across the city by colorful buses known as tap-taps for her prenatal checkups at Fontaine. There she would join other pregnant women waiting for exams and mothers cradling malnourished children in line for weigh-ins.

All the clinics in the area where she lives have closed, she said. For two months last year she couldn’t leave the house because gangs holding the city hostage made travel through the dusty, winding streets nearly impossible.

“Some days, there’s no transportation because there’s no fuel,” she said. “Sometimes there’s a shooting on the street and you spend hours unable to go outside … Now I’m worried because the doctor says I need to get a C-section.”

Health care providers told the Associated Press that the crisis has caused more bullet and burn wounds. It has also fueled an uptick in less predictable conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and sexually transmitted infections, largely because of slashed access to primary care.

Pregnant women are disproportionately affected. Gynecologist Phalande Joseph sees the repercussions every day when she leaves her hospital dormitory and pulls on her light blue scrubs.

The young Haitian doctor snaps on a pair of white surgical gloves and makes an incision into a pregnant patient’s belly with a steady hand that only comes with practice.

She works swiftly, conversing with medical staff in her native Creole, when a burst of wailing erupts from a baby girl nurses swaddle in pink blankets.

Operations like these have grown more common, Joseph explains in between C-sections, because the very conditions that have intensified amid the turmoil can turn a pregnancy from high risk to deadly.

This year, 10,000 pregnant women in Haiti could face fatal obstetric complications due to the crisis, according to U.N. data.

Those risks are only compounded by the fact that many of Joseph’s patients are sexual violence survivors or widows whose husbands were killed by gangs. Permeating the struggle is an air of fear.

“If they start having contractions at 3 a.m., they are terribly scared of coming here because it is too early, and they are scared something might happen to them because of the gangs,” Joseph said. “Many times when they arrive, the baby is already suffering, and it is too late so we need to do C-section.”

That became most evident to Joseph last October when four men came rushing to a hospital carrying a woman giving birth stretched out on top of a door. Because of gang lockdowns, the woman couldn’t find any transportation to the hospital after her water broke.

“These four men were not even her family. They found her delivering on the street ... When I heard she lost the baby, it shook me,” she said. “The situation in my country is so bad, and there is not much we can do about it.”

Started as a one-room clinic to provide basic medical services to a community with no other resources, Fontaine Hospital Center was opened in 1991 by Jose Ulysse.

Ulysse and his family have worked to expand the hospital year after year. They fight to keep their doors open, Ulysse said.

Even when firefights arrive at the doors of Fontaine, the hospital reopens few hours later. If it were to close for longer, administrators worry that it could lose momentum and would be hard to reopen.

Today, it’s the only facility to perform C-sections and other high-level surgeries in Cité Soleil.

Because most of the people in the area live in extreme poverty, the hospital charges little to nothing to patients even as it struggles to purchase advanced medical equipment with funds from UNICEF and other international aid providers. Between 2021 and 2022, the facility saw a 70% jump in the number of patients.

The hospital possesses a certain level of protection because it accepts all patients.

“We don’t pick sides. If the two groups face off, and they arrive at the hospital like any other person, we treat them,” Jean Baptiste said.

Even the gangs understand the importance of medical care, he added. Yet the walls still feel like they’re closing in.

Rising carjackings of medical vehicles have made it impossible for Fontaine to invest in an ambulance. When ambulance operators are called from areas like Cité Soleil, they offer a simple response: “Sorry, we can’t go there.”

Fontaine’s mobile clinic can now travel little more than a few blocks outside the facility’s walls.

Doctors worry, but they keep working, just as they’ve always done.

“You say, well, I have to work. So let God protect me,” Jean Baptiste said. “As this situation gets worse, we go out and decide to face the risks. … We have to keep pushing forward.”

Gérard Latortue, former interim Haitian premier, dies at 88

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Gérard Latortue, a former interim prime minister of Haiti who helped rebuild and unite the country after a violent coup in the mid-2000s, has died. He was 88.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced Latortue’s death Monday, saying it was a tremendous loss for the nation. He described Latortue as “a reformer, a convinced patriot, an eminent technocrat, a voice of change, of development (and) a supporter of democracy.”

Latortue was a former exile who was sworn in as interim prime minister in March 2004 following months of bloodshed and political strife that left more than 300 dead and culminated in the ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The turmoil at the time prompted the U.S. military to escalate its mission in Haiti.

In a July 2004 interview with The Associated Press in Washington, Latortue vowed to fight corruption and disarm powerful gangs as he requested $1.3 billion from the international community to help rebuild Haiti after the violent revolt.

In September 2005, he welcomed former U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice to Haiti, where she stressed the need for local officials to accelerate the process to hold general elections.

Latortue said at the time that his administration shared the same concerns as the U.S. government and the international community, and that the administration would honor the results of the upcoming elections.

“This government has no concerns whatsoever as to who will be the next president. Whoever that is, we will greet that person with open arms and pass power on to him or her,” Latortue said at the time.

In February 2006, Haiti held general elections to replace the interim government of Latortue, who was succeeded by former Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard Alexis. The provisional president, Boniface Alexandre, was succeeded by former President René Préval.

On Tuesday, former Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant tweeted that Latortue was “a pragmatic politician who knew how, in a very difficult context, to lead the country to free and democratic elections.”

Latortue had previously served as Haiti’s foreign minister, as a business consultant in Miami and as an official with the U.N. Industrial Development Organization in Africa.

PM Holness leads special CARICOM mission to Haiti

Prime Minister Andrew Holness left Jamaica on Monday morning to lead a special Caribbean Community (CARICOM) mission to Haiti.

Representatives from the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago and the CARICOM Secretariat are part of the delegation.

A statement from the Office of the Prime Minister says as part of this mission, members of the CARICOM delegation members are expected to have discussions with several critical Haitian stakeholder groups.

Holness is expected to return to the island later in the evening.

Monday’s mission comes ahead of a planned stakeholder meeting in Jamaica in the coming weeks to discuss the situation in Haiti which is confronted with political turmoil and corruption, and unrelenting gang violence, with armed groups committing murder, rape, as well as kidnappings.

At the end of the 44^th regular summit of CARICOM Heads of Government in The Bahamas less than two weeks ago, CARICOM chairman and host Prime Minister Philip Davis said the regional grouping had taken its moral obligation seriously as it relates to resolving the issues in Haiti.

He dismissed the idea of boots on the ground and this stage, saying that the first step would be to see how CARICOM can strengthen the Haitian national police to enable them to restore order and curb the criminal activities on the island.

Shaggy - Time for Caribbean-styled Grammy awards

Jamaican reggae and rap star, Shaggy, believes the Caribbean must build its own Grammy awards to honour and recognise regional artistes. In a one-on-one interview with Guardian Media yesterday, Orville Richard Burrell, who is popularly known by his stage name, Shaggy, also said the time has come for soca to no longer be a seasonal genre of music.

Last week, soca artiste Machel Montano said he believes he has the key to taking soca to the Grammys and other international award shows. When asked about the potential of such an undertaking, Shaggy told Guardian Media it is certainly not impossible but pushed the idea of the Caribbean honouring its own artistes.

He said, "We should get to a point where we start doing our own Caribbean-type Grammy following in the same footsteps as the Latin guys where they created what is known as a Latin Grammy. Within the Latin culture, there are different styles. There is reggaeton, bachata and all these different styles of music. I think if we come with a Caribbean-style Grammy instead of a dancehall Grammy, reggae Grammy or soca Grammy and instead just create a Caribbean Grammy where our music will be able to compete instead of just one style of music."

As soca returned in scintillating style this year following two years of no carnival activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shaggy warned the local industry the genre must transform from something that is right now too seasonal.

Shaggy, who was awarded the Order of Distinction in Jamaica in 2007, said, "I think one of the big things that has become a ceiling for soca music is that seasonal type of thing where they feel it's only in a season. So when we did Mood with me and Kes, I was in that feel good mood cause this is the land and the culture of feel good and that should not be a season, it should be year-round. You don't have to feel good just for a season, and the minute we move that whole seasonal thing from soca, I think you definitely have a shot of doing crossover success."

He emphasised that Caribbean artistes have to work harder than those in developed countries to make it internationally and that is something not to be underestimated.

Shaggy explained, "These majors are spending around $100k or $5m, so to speak, on a roll out on any one particular act. We don't have that privilege so we have to make up our mind as Jamaican and Caribbean artistes to really realise if we really want our music to go we have to work 10 times harder with 10 times less and get 10 times less sleep and make music 10 times better, just to even have a shot. And once we have that mindset then we're certainly on our way."

Shaggy featured as part of Kes' IzWE concert that took place on Tuesday night at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy. Having enjoyed his performance in the southlands, Shaggy is now looking forward to relaxing in the twin-island a bit before leaving.

Haiti, Portugal qualify for Women's World Cup for 1st time

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) — Haiti and Portugal qualified for the FIFA Women's World Cup finals for the first time after winning playoff matches Wednesday in New Zealand.

Carole Costa scored a 94th-minute clincher in Portugal's 2-1 win over the Cameroon “Lionesses” who have reached the round of 16 at the last two World Cups.

Haiti beat Chile 2-1 earlier Wednesday in an historic match it hopes will bring joy and “a breath of fresh air” to a strife-torn homeland.

Melchie Dumornay scored twice to ensure 55th-ranked Haiti will return to the southern hemisphere in July to play in Group D of the Women's World Cup alongside England, China and Denmark.

Haiti and Portugal have taken two of the last three places at the World Cup which will be decided at the this 10-team inter-continental playoff in New Zealand. Paraguay will play Panama Thursday for the last place in the 32-team tournament which will be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand in July and August.

Haiti's Dumornay recently was signed by seven-time Champions League winners Lyon and showed why with two pieces of slick finishing. She won the race to a through ball from Roselord Borgella in first-half stoppage time to give Haiti a 1-0 lead at the break.

Dumornay then seemed to make the game safe in the eighth of 11 minutes added on by the referee after Chile captain Christiane Endler had saved Nerilia Mondesir's attempt from the penalty spot.

But Maria Jose Rojas scored in the 11th minute of stoppage time to keep Chile’s hopes alive and make the final moments nerve-wracking for Haiti’s Les Grenadiers, who held on to claim an historic victory.

Players shed tears of joy when the final whistle blew, reflecting on success attained in the most difficult of circumstances.

Haiti’s Les Grenadiers had to win two matches in New Zealand to qualify for their first World Cup. They beat Senegal 4-0 in their opening match and then beat 38th-ranked Chile for their first ever win over a South American opponent.

Prior to the tournament midfielder Danielle Etienne told ESPN “there’s a lot of unhappiness in the country and football is the joy."

“Being able to qualify to the World Cup would be major," she said at the time. "We want that for the country as a whole, to have a breath of fresh air and kind of step aside from anything going on.”

While Portugal's win was sealed late it came at the end of a dominant performance. Portugal had 20 shots on goal, most of which were comfortably saved by Cameroon's 16-year-old goalkeeper Cathy Biya who was promoted after Ange Bawou was sent off against Thailand.

Diana Gomes gave Portugal the lead after 22 minutes and the match seemed to be heading to extra time when Ajara Nchout Njoya equalized for Cameroon in the 89th minute.

But an Estelle Johnson hand ball was spotted after a VAR check and Costa scored from the penalty spot.

A Hunger Strike Makes Headlines Before Milan Fashion Week Begins

Stella Jean, one of the few Black designers in Italian fashion, protests her industry’s lack of diversity and inclusion.

The designer Stella Jean has often cut a solitary figure.

Since her debut at Milan Fashion Week in 2013, and with support from Giorgio Armani, the Haitian-Italian designer remains the only Black member of the National Chamber of Italian Fashion. She has often used her platform to address the need for better representation and financial support for design talent of color in the Italian fashion industry — a sector long criticized over instances of racism and cultural appropriation. In recent years, she has undertaken increasingly radical steps to encourage racial equity, co-founding a collective called WAMI, or We Are Made in Italy, after the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

Ms. Jean announced she would go on a hunger strike after a dramatic showdown at a news conference on Feb. 8 with Carlo Capasa, the chairman of the powerful national chamber, known officially as the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, which organizes the Milan fashion shows that take place each spring and fall. She accused the chamber of “abandoning” WAMI and its promotion of young designers of color working in Italy, saying that she believed they had cut their support after a speech she made last September highlighting the challenges of being Black and Italian in the industry.

Now, she is taking this extreme step — saying she fears ongoing professional “recriminations” against her and the designers in her collective — to safeguard the less visible members of WAMI, which she co-founded with the African American designer Edward Buchanan, who is based in Milan, and Michelle Ngonmo, who leads the Afro Fashion Association. The Camera had provided financial and institutional support for WAMI members to produce and present three collections as part of Milan Fashion Week. But in an October letter sent to Ms. Ngonmo, Mr. Capasa said that WAMI was “no longer in line with the current strategy,” adding that the Camera would continue to assess support for collections or projects by the collective on an ad hoc basis. Facing a considerable reduction in funding for the project, Ms. Jean said WAMI’s operations would be suspended, citing the “health and well being” of its members.

Ms. Jean speaks at a news conference in Milan on Feb. 8. The Haitian-Italian designer is the only Black member of the National Chamber of Italian Fashion.Credit...Colleen Barry/Associated Press

“After we confirmed the Camera’s abandonment of WAMI without further specifications and assurances,” Ms. Jean said over a video call, “some collective members confided in me that they feared the worst for themselves and their livelihoods as they suddenly found themselves in an extremely critical and time-sensitive situation.”

She added, “I found myself holding the responsibility of the lives of these people who had relied on and believed in WAMI and who at that moment had their lives hanging in the balance. That’s why I offered to swap what little I could. I understood that if I stopped demanding equal opportunity, Mr. Capasa would, in turn, have a guarantee that nothing would ever happen to any of these designers or people working in fashion.”

In an email sent to The New York Times, Mr. Capasa said the Camera Della Moda had not withdrawn its support for WAMI. He said that he had offered the collective a free venue for Milan Fashion Week, which begins on Feb. 21, and that slots on the calendar remained available and at no charge to WAMI designers and Ms. Jean, who announced that she would no longer participate in the show.

“No step backward was taken on our part on the support we offered. Economic support for the production of collections and events for brands is not part of the core of Cameras’s activities. Any additional economic support may be one-off for new brands, especially at the beginning of their journey,” Mr. Capasa wrote. Although there was never a signed partnership, he added, “we are very proud to have always supported WAMI and the Afro Fashion Association projects, adopting different ways depending on the possibilities available at different times.”

Mr. Capasa said that two previous WAMI designers were presenting collections as part of the official calendar in Milan this season, and that there would be a new event, the Black Carpet Awards, to be held on Feb. 24, that would showcase work by Italian-based designers of color.

Ms. Jean previously stepped away from the fashion calendar in 2020, saying that she would not return until there were more Black designers on the schedule. Last season, two non-Italian designers of color — Maximilian Davis and Rhuigi Villaseñor — made debuts at Salvatore Ferragamo and Bally, partly spurring Ms. Jean’s comeback show last September. On Friday, Mr. Capasa added that he regretted that neither Ms. Jean nor several WAMI members would present during the fashion week and he hoped that would change.

While Ms. Jean praised the appointment of Mr. Davis, who is British-Trinidiadian, and Mr. Villaseñor, who is Filipino American, in European fashion houses, calling it “important and symbolic,” she also said that designers of color who might fall under the category of “made in Italy” were “completely ignored.” Talent cannot only be exported, she argued. It must also be homegrown — including by investing in and supporting young talent accessing college placements, internships, jobs or even showing collections on the mainstream calendar.

“Black made in Italy can speak to and tell so many things about the national condition and what happens in this country,” Ms. Jean said.

“I’m mindful of the fact that I arrived with a blue U.S. passport here and a Parsons degree,” said Mr. Buchanan, a co-founder of WAMI who has lived in Milan for two decades. “But if I had a passport from Nigeria or Somalia, it would have likely been a different story.”

He called Ms. Jean’s decision to go on a hunger strike “a personal one,” though he agreed with her statements about the challenges of being Black and working in fashion in Italy. “I can’t say enough about these struggles and difficulties,” he said. “I have had many of them, too, and ultimately I have been within the interiors of the fashion establishment in Italy for 25 years.”

The global fashion industry has been under sustained pressure in recent years to improve representation and racial equity both in front of and behind the camera. But several racist gaffes by Italian fashion houses, including Gucci’s 2019 “blackface” sweater with a mouth cut out and trimmed in red, and Prada’s 2018 keychain of a monkey with inflated lips, has placed Italian fashion under particular scrutiny.

Italy is whiter than most European countries — and does not collect racial data in its population census, nor does it have birthright citizenship, which means that children of immigrants who are born in the country do not automatically become Italian citizens.

In a New York Times investigation published in 2021 that attempted to track representation progress, many Italian brands said regulation prohibited companies from processing data on race, ethnicity, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership or sexual orientation without explicit consent. This meant they were unable to participate in charting whether there were more people of color in their design studios, sales rooms, on their runways and in their campaigns.

For Ms. Jean, the future of minority talent in the Italian fashion establishment remains far from certain. She said her hunger strike felt like a last stand after feeling as though she and her younger peers had been professionally blacklisted for their activism.

“I’m a small independent designer, and I’m the only Black-owned brand in the history of fashion of the Chamber — this does not make me stronger than others,” she said. “I’m always aware of being a flea near these giants and of my perceived inability to put convincing arguments on the table. When I learned that my companions were in such a disparate situation, I had nothing else left to barter with.”

Gang Wars In Haiti Leave Young Women, Girls Vulnerable To Sexual Assault

‘Gruesome testimonies’ from victims show the need for urgent action, U.N. official says.

Gangs in Haiti are increasingly using sexual violence against women to terrorize and control people and territory on the impoverished Caribbean island.

According to a disturbing United Nations human rights report, the gangs are even targeting children as young as 10, elderly women and sometimes men in an explosion of violence in the capital Port-au-Prince.

A 19-year-old woman, using the pseudonym “Nadia,” told The Associated Press that she became pregnant after a group of men dragged her into a car when she was walking home from school in the capital city. They held her for three days, during which she was beaten and gang-raped. She struggled with the idea of terminating her pregnancy but decided to keep her daughter, now three months old. Nadia now lives in fear for herself and her baby.

“Gangs use sexual violence to instill fear, and alarmingly the number of cases increases by the day as the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Haiti deepens,” Nada Al-Nashif, the Acting Human Rights Chief said.

“The gruesome testimonies shared by victims underscore the imperative for urgent action to stop this depraved behavior, ensure that those responsible are held to account, and the victims are provided support.”

Indeed, Nadia’s experience has become all too common. Sexual violence in Haiti typically happens in the context of kidnappings, according to the U.N. report published in October 2022. The kidnappers have used video of the rapes to extort money from their victims’ families who usually can’t afford to pay.

“They’re running out of tools to control people. They extort, but there’s only so much money that can be extorted from people that are really poor. This is the one thing they have they can inflict on the population,” Renata Segura, deputy director for Latin America and the Caribbean for International Crisis Group, told The AP.

Like Nadia, scores of rape victims decide not to report the attacks out of fear of gang retaliation and the ineffectiveness of the local police. Underreporting makes it impossible to know the full extent of the problem.

Haitian officials declined The AP’s request to comment on how they are addressing the issue. But the U.N. has documented 2,645 cases of sexual violence in 2022, a 45 percent increase from the year before.

Security in Haiti has deteriorated sharply since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse inside his private residence in July 2021.

In July 2022, the U.N. announced that it documented 934 gang-related killings from January to June of that year. There were 680 kidnappings across the capital during that six-month period. And over a five-day period, from July 8 to 12, at least 234 more people were killed or injured in gang-related violence in the Cité Soleil area of the city.

“We are deeply concerned by the worsening of violence in Port-au-Prince and the rise in human rights abuses committed by heavily armed gangs against the local population,” a U.N. statement said about the skyrocketing violence.

“We urge the authorities to ensure that all human rights are protected and placed at the front and center of their responses to the crisis. The fight against impunity and sexual violence, along with the strengthening of human rights monitoring and reporting, must remain a priority.”

U.S. Arrests Three Americans in the Assassination of Haiti’s President

Antonio Intriago, a Venezuelan American businessman, and Arcángel Pretel, a Colombian American citizen, are the owners of a Florida-based security company that has been tied to the 2021 killing.

Federal agents on Tuesday arrested the owners of a South Florida security company with ties to the assassination of Haiti’s former president, according to one of their lawyers, the latest step in an investigation that has implicated several American citizens.

The suspects, Antonio Intriago, a Venezuelan-American businessman, and Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, a Colombian American citizen, were detained in South Florida and were expected to appear in court later on Tuesday, a lawyer for Mr. Intriago said.

Their company, CTU Security, based in Doral, Florida, recruited some 20 former Colombian soldiers who helped storm the home of the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, the night of his assassination in July 2021. Lawyers for Mr. Intriago previously admitted that CTU recruited the men.

“I can confirm that Intriago was arrested this morning and has been in Miami for the course of the investigation,” Joseph Tesmond, Mr. Intriago’s lawyer, said. “He intends to enter a not guilty plea at his bond hearing this afternoon.”

Mr. Tesmond also confirmed the arrests of Mr. Pretel and a third suspect: Walter Veintemilla, an American citizen and financier living in Florida, who lent $172,000 to CTU Security to finance their operations in Haiti, according to Haitian authorities.

Understand the Assassination of Haiti’s President

President Jovenel Moïse was killed on July 7, 2021, in an attack at his private residence on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.

• What Happened: Before his murder, Mr. Moïse took a number of steps to fight drug and arms smugglers. Some officials fear he was killed for it.
• The Attack: Martine Moïse, the president’s widow who was struck by gunfire during the attack, recounted the nighttime raid.
• The Aftermath: Haiti, which has struggled with a legacy of corruption, violence and political paralysis, plunged into further crisis after the killing.
• Murder Investigation: The United States, which assumed a leading role in investigating the death, has charged a former Colombian commando, a Haitian businessman and several other men, including three Americans, with the assassination.

On July 7, 2021, assailants entered Mr. Moïse’s home outside Port-au-Prince and shot him 12 times, leaving him dead and wounding his wife. The murder accelerated Haiti’s spiral into unchecked violence, as gangs stepped in to to fill the power vacuum and now control most of Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital.

While about two dozen suspects have been arrested in Haiti and Miami, authorities in both countries have struggled to identify the plot’s masterminds. There were no immediate details on the charges against the three men arrested on Tuesday.

Mr. Intriago released a statement shortly after Mr. Moïse’s murder saying he was unaware of the plans to assassinate the former president. Initially, he said, the plan was to arrest Mr. Moïse and force him to step down, replacing him with a Haitian American pastor named Christian Emmanuel Sanon.

CTU Security recruited the Colombian mercenaries and looked for funding from Mr. Veintemilla to finance the operation to arrest Mr. Moïse. The firm hoped to provide security for infrastructure projects in Haiti that Mr. Sanon intended to undertake once he became president of the country.

But just a few weeks before the assassination, the plan changed and Mr. Sanon was no longer seen as a viable candidate to lead the country. The plot morphed from a plan to arrest Mr. Moïse to assassinating him, according to the Justice Department.

The South Florida security firm is also accused in another plot to assassinate a political figure, President Luis Alberto Arce Catacora of Bolivia, about a year before Mr. Moïse’s murder.

Representatives from the security firm — including Mr. Pretel — traveled to Bolivia in October 2020, and allegedly plotted with the defense minister to assassinate Mr. Arce and prevent him from winning the election, according to the Bolivian government.

In the United States, the Justice Department has so far charged seven suspects in connection with Mr. Moïse’s assassination, including four last month.

Three of the four are accused of conspiracy in the killing: James Solages, 37, and Joseph Vincent, 57, who are dual Haitian American citizens; and Germán Alejandro Rivera García, 44, a Colombian accused of leading the group of mercenaries on the ground in Haiti.

The fourth, Dr. Sanon, 65, was charged with counts related to smuggling, though was not charged with conspiracy to commit murder. All four are set to be arraigned and enter pleas on Feb. 15.

The Justice Department had previously charged three others in the assassination, including a Haitian businessman, a former Colombian soldier and a former senator of Haiti.

Haitians Celebrate Annual Festival Of The Dead

Haitians today marked Fèt Gede, the Festival of the Dead, at the National Cemetery in Port-au-Prince.

Fèt Gede is an annual tradition when practitioners of voodoo parade and believe they are possessed by the spirits of the dead. Fête Gede which is also Festival of the Ancestors, is one of the most important celebrations in the Voodoo religious calendar. It is a time when Vodouisants celebrate the ancestral dead which is equivalent to the Mexican Day of the Dead and Halloween, all in one.

People dress up, take to the streets, dance their communion with the ancestors, and walk in processions to the graveyards where they feed their ancestral dead with the gifts of their own table. In this way, spirits are honored, and their protection is gained for the coming year. The festival shares calendar space and ideology with the Roman Catholic Day of the Dead, or All Souls Day but Fet Gede can be more accurately said to derive from African traditions preserved largely unchanged through the centuries.

Haitians celebrate Fèt Gede, the Festival of the Dead, at the National Cemetery in Port-au-Prince, on November 1, 2022. (Photo by RICHARD PIERRIN/AFP via Getty Images)

Vodouists come in a spiritual pilgrimage to the cemetery to pay their respect to the dead, but first, permission of passage has to be obtained. The grave of the Papa Gede, the first man who ever died. Papa Gede is a psychopomp who waits at the crossroads to take departed souls into the afterlife, although he does not take a life before its time.

Haitians celebrate Fèt Gede, the Festival of the Dead, at the National Cemetery in Port-au-Prince, on November 1, 2022. (Photo by RICHARD PIERRIN/AFP via Getty Images)

Ancestral services are held at this ‘crossroad’, considered to be the bridge between life and death. Kwa Baron is the Lwa guardian of the cemetery and head of the Gedes. Believers converge on the Haitian capital’s main cemetery to honor the Gede and the father of them all, Baron Samedi. They lay out gifts such as homemade beeswax candles, flowers, food and, to warm the Gede’s bones, bottles of rum stuffed with chilli peppers.

The festival comes amid gang warfare and police killings in Haiti that has left a journalist and an opposition party leader dead in recent days.

Haiti’s National Police says it’s been ordered to launch an investigation into the death of journalist Romelson Vilsaint, who witnesses say was struck in the head by a police tear gas canister.

The Association of Haitian Journalists also accused police of beating up several journalists and confiscating their equipment and other belongings, condemning what it called “anti-democratic acts of repression.”

“The safety of media and free movement of journalists are essential for the full and complete enjoyment of freedom of the press, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and the right to information that make up democracy,” it said.

Haiti has been grappling with myriad crises that have escalated across the nation over the last month. Widespread gasoline and diesel shortages have emerged after armed gangs blocked the nation’s main fuel terminal, and these gangs have also severed access to clean water, food and other essentials as Haiti also deals with a deadly cholera outbreak.

The “triple threat” of cholera, malnutrition, and violence, which affects more than a million children in Haiti, has prompted the UN Committee on the Rights of Children to call on the international community to take “immediate action.” Since the start of the academic year in Haiti on October 3rd of last year, the committee claims that the increase in insecurity in the Caribbean nation has prevented the majority of children from attending school.

According to reports, the nation is currently dealing with a cholera outbreak that threatens “the health, well-being, and lives of 1.2 million children living in the affected areas,” despite the fact that there had not been one for the previous three years. In terms of hunger, UNICEF estimates that nearly 100,000 Haitian children under the age of five are severely acutely malnourished. This issue has recently gotten worse as a result of the country’s unrest and economic issues. It has also urged the Haitian government to uphold its responsibilities under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which include preventing children from being exposed to pornography, human trafficking, or any other form of involvement in armed conflict.

Haiti – Newspaper Ends Print Edition

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti – A Haitian publication, Le Nouvelliste has announced the discontinuation of its print edition following the violent assault of one of its reporters, Roberson Alphonse earlier this week.

In a statement, the newspaper informed subscribers, readers, and sponsors that it was forced into this “painful obligation” because it was impossible to provide fuel to distribute the newspaper and use up its last supply of paper.

The statement added that the newspaper’s management has decided to continue publishing the newspaper in an electronic version “in order to preserve the long tradition of Le Nouvelliste and keep the populace informed.”

On Tuesday, Alphonse, a well-known investigative journalist was hospitalized in stable condition after being attacked by gunmen in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

In a statement, Haiti’s Ministry of Culture and Communication called the attack an “assassination attempt” and expressed solidarity with Alphonse’s family, colleagues, and “the entire corporation hard hit by this unfortunate event, which too often threatens the press sector in Haiti”.

In another incident this week, the authorities in the southern city of Les Cayes found the body of radio commentator Garry Tess, who had been missing since October 18.

Tess was a lawyer who also worked as a political analyst and host of the popular radio program.

The Inter-American Press Association has stated that this year has been one of the deadliest on record for members of the press.

Haiti’s Elites Keep Calling for the U.S. Marines

The United States must break the habit of disastrous intervention.

At the end of the first U.S. occupation of Haiti—a period of brutal domination from 1915 to 1934—a critic warned that U.S. forces would not be gone for long. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s State Department had left Haiti in the hands of a man friendly to its core interests: the Haitian conservative Sténio Vincent, whose otherwise fervent nationalism was tempered by a deep affection for U.S.-centric capitalism.

The critic, the American journalist and orator William Pickens, wrote in the NAACP’s flagship magazine, The Crisis, in June 1935: “The marines are gone, but the American Financial Adviser is still there, collecting for American creditors, and if opposing Haitian factions start cutting each other’s throats with their machetes, [Vincent] may yell for the marines to come and help him protect the money bags.”

Now, another yell is coming from Port-au-Prince. In October, the government of Ariel Henry, Haiti’s de facto prime minister and president, called for a foreign military intervention—“the immediate deployment of a specialized armed force, in sufficient quantity” to stop the street gangs that are terrorizing the population and cutting off access to Haiti’s ports, most crucially the one that receives and stores Haiti’s imports of oil and gas. He did not specify which nation would oversee this armed force. But anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Haitian history—or access to a map—knew the only country he could be referring to.

Vincent never needed to call for the Marines, but in the main Pickens got it right: In the nearly 90 years since that first U.S. occupation ended, U.S. and U.S.-backed forces have remained the most constant factor in Haiti: training and arming Haitian militaries, meddling in elections, and alternately reinstalling and overthrowing Haiti’s leaders. In the last 30 years, U.S. troops have invaded or otherwise intervened in Haiti three times: in post-coup invasions in 1994 and 2004 and to quell feared unrest (which never materialized) after the 2010 earthquake.

In the intervening time, the United States explicitly outsourced its occupations to other countries’ troops: first, a U.N. mission from 1993 to 1997, and then under a mostly Brazilian-led multinational force that controlled Haiti’s streets and rural areas from 2004 to 2019. The latter force, known by its French initials as Minustah, left as its main gifts to Haiti an abandoned generation of children fathered by the U.N. troops and a catastrophic cholera epidemic started by a battalion from Nepal.

Two years after the last U.N. mission left, in July 2021, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated at his home in a suburb of Port-au-Prince. Moïse was the hand-picked successor of Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, a popular singer-turned-right-wing nationalist who became president thanks to the electoral interference of the Obama administration in the post-2010 earthquake election. (Martelly had been allowed to go through to the second round after then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused the sitting president of fraud to benefit his own protégé.) Though the plot that led to Moïse’s assassination remains unsolved, this much is clear: He was killed by a group of gunmen, mostly consisting of Colombians and claiming to be agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Indeed, at least two of them were in fact former DEA informants. A New York Times investigation found evidence that the men may have been looking for a list of drug traffickers Moïse was intending to expose. The Intercept reported that several had received U.S. military training.

By the time of his death, Moïse, with the tacit support of the Trump administration, had allowed Haiti’s already hollowed-out government to effectively collapse around him. There was no functioning parliament or plans to elect one. He had overstayed the end of his constitutional term and was ruling by decree. Gangsters, along with elements of the Haitian police and the reconstituted Haitian army, carried out a series of massacres; a Harvard Law School study detailed “a widespread and systematic pattern that further state and organizational policies to control and repress communities at the forefront of government opposition.”

The most notorious of those gangsters was and is Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, a former Haitian National Police officer and head of a gang consortium that calls itself the “G9 Family and Allies.” (His nickname is said to be an allusion to a penchant for burning his victims.) The Harvard study reported that, in November 2018, armed gangs led by Chérizier carried out a massacre of at least 71 people in the slum of La Saline, raping at least 11 women and destroying 150 homes. According to the study, “In the weeks before the attack, two senior officials from Moïse’s administration, Pierre Richard Duplan and Fednel Monchéry, met with then-police officer and gang leader Jimmy Chérizier alias Barbecue to plan and provide resources for the attack.” (Chérizier has denied any links to the Moïse government.) Further massacres followed.

Moïse’s death left an inescapable power vacuum. Institutionally, it was filled by then-71-year-old Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon who entered politics as part of the coalition that fomented the 2004 coup against the leftist Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Moïse had announced his intention to nominate Henry as his prime minister (the No. 2 role in the Haitian system), but given the lack of a parliament, that nomination was never confirmed. Instead, Henry was installed by press release: an announcement from the so-called Core Group (a consortium of ambassadors headed by the United States, France, and Canada that includes representatives of the United Nations, European Union, and Organization of American States), which called on Henry to form a government—despite his lack of a democratic mandate.

In the streets, the power vacuum has been filled by the gangs, particularly Chérizier’s G9 alliance, which among other things now controls access to the country’s main fuel port. Those gangs are, by necessity, allied with and financed by Haiti’s tiny clique of import-export oligarchs, who use them as muscle to grab territory and settle scores. The exact web of connections and alliances is opaque, for obvious reasons. But when something as profitable as a port is in play, it is not the nearby poor but people at the uppermost echelons of Haitian society who have the most to gain or lose from which areas the gangs control.

It was against that backdrop that Henry’s government requested the foreign force, in its words, “to avoid a complete asphyxiation of the national economy.” The United States responded with, ultimately, a pair of resolutions in the U.N. Security Council. The first, approved by the council last week, authorized a travel ban, asset freeze, and arms embargo against individuals it deems “as responsible for or complicit in, or having engaged in, directly or indirectly, actions that threaten the peace, security or stability of Haiti.” That could include some of Haiti’s oligarchs or politicians, but for now the only person explicitly named in the resolution is Chérizier. This prompted the spectacle of representatives of the world’s most powerful nations, including the United States, Russia, and China, taking a break from arguing over the war in Ukraine to talking about a gang leader named “Barbecue.” It was undoubtedly the highlight of the year for a man who has styled himself as a “revolutionary” and clearly dreams of even greater national power.

The second resolution, which has not yet been approved, proposes “a limited, carefully scoped non-UN mission led by a partner country with the deep, necessary experience required for such an effort to be effective, and whom the United States could find ways to support.” The “non-UN mission” part implies that this would not be a force directed by the U.N. Department of Peace Operations or outfitted in the trademark blue helmets, which have now been thoroughly discredited in Haiti thanks to Minustah’s malfeasance. (Ironically, a resurgence of the cholera epidemic that the U.N. caused, and has since entirely escaped accountability for, is one of the justifications for this new mission.)

The “partner country” is not specified. But it is likely Mexico, which co-sponsored the resolution along with the United States. Why would Mexico want to intervene in Haiti? Well, there has been a major surge in Haitians seeking refuge in or trying to enter the United States through Mexico. In 2021, Haitians became the largest group of asylum-seekers in Mexico, exceeding the number of people trying to flee violence in Honduras and nearly equaling all other sources of asylum-seekers combined.

Late last year, the Biden administration was chastened by a media storm surrounding the arrival of Haitian refugees crossing from the Mexican state of Coahuila to Del Rio, Texas. The Mexican army has been trained, financed, and equipped by the United States under the so-called Mérida Initiative, aimed at ending that country’s ongoing drug wars—which would fit the definition of “deep, necessary experience required for such an effort,” at least from the State Department’s point of view.

But as Michael Paarlberg has argued, the Mérida Initiative is a prime example “of dysfunctional U.S security cooperation arrangements with foreign governments” that foster corruption and violence instead of lessening them. In Mexico’s case, that is likely because it ignores the core U.S. involvement in narcotrafficking: providing a market for drugs headed north and a seemingly unlimited source for the weaponry heading south.

In Haiti—which has its own obvious problems with narcotrafficking—the U.S.-supported rot runs even deeper, to the democratic vacuum that a century of U.S. invasions, occupations, and interference has left in its wake. Sending an armed force to do battle with one Haitian gang and its sponsors may briefly win the de facto government (or Chérizier’s other rivals) access to the fuel port, but it will do nothing to make Haiti a safer or more stable place for its people to live in the medium or long term.

It is not clear when or if the resolution approving an armed force will be taken up by the Security Council. China and Russia have both signaled skepticism about the U.S.-backed mission. Asked for comment, a State Department spokesperson told me: “While we envision this mission would be authorized by the [Security Council], such a mission would rely on voluntary support from the international community, and our draft resolution explicitly asks for contributions of personnel, equipment, and other resources.” Already, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Northland has been dispatched to the Bay of Port-au-Prince, and the United States and Canada have jointly delivered tactical vehicles “and other supplies” to the Henry government.

This will, in effect, just bolster another gang: the clique that Henry currently represents, its allied elites, and whatever loyal faction they favor within the Haitian National Police. In other words, outside force may give a different group access to the fuel port and keep the current clique in relative power a little longer. But it will do nothing to prevent the violence and inequality that rive Haitian society. Only forcing the unpopular and manifestly undemocratic Henry government to share or cede power, preparing the ground for eventual elections and a return to Haitian democracy, and ending a century of destructive U.S. interference in their affairs, will give ordinary Haitians a shot at survival.