Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 29 décembre 2021

 Federal Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Racist and Abusive Treatment of Haitian Migrants in Del Rio, Texas

December 20, 2021

CONTACTS:

Taisha Santil, Haitian Bridge Alliance: Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.

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Federal Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Racist and Abusive Treatment of Haitian Migrants in Del Rio, Texas Asylum Seekers and Haitian Bridge Alliance Seek Accountability from U.S. Government for Atrocious Civil Rights Abuses Against Black Asylum Seekers

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Alleging physical abuse, racial discrimination, denial of basic necessities and medical treatment, and a complete failure to process asylum claims, Haitian Bridge Alliance, 11 Haitian asylum seekers, Justice Action Center, and Innovation Law Lab brought suit against the Biden administration today. The federal class action lawsuit alleges the U.S. government violated Haitian asylum seekers’ statutory and constitutional rights when they were held in an encampment in Del Rio, Texas, in mid-September 2021.

Plaintiffs seek not only accountability for the government’s racist abuse in Del Rio, but also the return of the thousands of Haitians expelled by the Biden administration from the Del Rio encampment since September, so they may pursue their asylum claims in the United States. The lawsuit also underscores the unlawfulness of the Title 42 policy, invoked by the Trump administration and embraced by President Biden, which uses the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to close the border to asylum seekers.

“The stories I heard coming out of the Del Rio encampment will forever haunt me: mothers with newborns denied basic necessities such as shelter and medical care, children being fed nothing or only bread, and outright derision and discrimination from U.S. authorities,” said Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance. “The world watched as Black asylum seekers were abused and dehumanized by men on horseback. As a Black Haitian-American woman descendant of enslaved people in the Americas, I can not disconnect this treatment of Black bodies in Del Rio from the historical treatment of Black bodies in the United States. Instead of providing asylum seekers and refugees the legal protection afforded under the law, the U.S. government treated them with contempt, anti-Black prejudice and summarily expelled them without any due process after they suffered and bore witness to CBP abuse in Del Rio. Immigration is a Black issue.”

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Mirard Joseph. Joseph had crossed the Rio Grande to deliver food to his family, who had not eaten in days. Joseph and his family had made the arduous journey to the United States from Chile to seek safety after fleeing the threat of violence in Haiti. He and multiple other plaintiffs recounted horrific treatment both in the encampments and in the centers in which they were detained before being expelled from the United States or returning to Mexico. “This was the most  painful and humiliating experience of my life,” he said.

“I’m struck that a country I believe could provide safety and protection for me  would absolutely humiliate me and others this way,” said plaintiff “Paul Doe”. “By deporting me and other asylum seekers, President Biden has condemned us to death.”

“The world was witness to the abusive treatment that our plaintiffs and others faced in Del Rio—to date, there has been no accountability,” said Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center. “These asylum seekers fled extreme political instability, kidnappings, and more, all in the hopes of building a safe and stable future for themselves and their families. Instead, they were subjected to degradation, physical abuse, malnutrition, and a swift ejection from a nation that claims to welcome those in need. We’re proud to support Haitian Bridge Alliance and others to ensure that the government is held accountable for its heinous actions.”

Despite a much-overdue conversation about institutional racism in society at large, anti-Blackness and racism within the immigration system remain relatively underdiscussed. This is slowly changing: federal district courts have recently acknowledged the discriminatory intent behind some of the cornerstones of U.S. immigration law.

The United States’ own history with Haiti is similarly poorly understood. Anti-Haitian sentiment from the federal government was on display as recently as 1990, when the federal government recommended that Haitians be prohibited from donating blood. In 2018, then-president Donald Trump referred to Haiti and other countries as “sh*tholes.” Today, Black immigrants make up a disproportionate number of deportees.

“The US immigration system has punished Black migrants and the people of Haiti time and time again,” said Tess Hellgren, Deputy Legal Director of Innovation Law Lab. “With this lawsuit, we say no to white supremacy in the immigration system. We say no to the violence, the discrimination, the expulsion and the cruelty. We stand with Haitian Bridge Alliance and the Haitian people harmed by US immigration enforcement.

The complaint is available here. Attorneys on the case include: Nicole Phillips from Haitian Bridge Alliance, Jane Bentrott, Daniel Tully, Karen Tumlin, Esther Sung, and Lauren Wilfong from Justice Action Center; and Tess Hellgren and Stephen Manning from Innovation Law Lab.

UPDATE: Listen to the 12/21/21 press conference here, with speakers: Taisha Saintil, Guerline Jozef, and Nicole Phillips (Haitian Bridge Alliance), individual plaintiffs “Esther” and “Jacques”, Karen Tumlin (Justice Action Center), Tess Hellgren (Innovation Law Lab). Transcript is forthcoming.

Michelle Karshan

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More than 5,000 flights canceled on Christmas weekend

New York (CNN Business) — Airlines have canceled thousands of flights on Christmas weekend, including over a thousand US domestic flights, as staff and crew call out sick during the Omicron surge. 

Globally, airlines have canceled about 5,700 flights on Christmas Eve day, Christmas and the day after Christmas, according to FlightAware. That includes about 1,700 flights within, into or out of the United States.

Operational snags at airlines are coming as millions are still flying in spite of rising coronavirus cases. The TSA says it screened 2.19 million people at airports across the country on Thursday, the highest figure since the uptick in holiday travel started a week ago.

Over a thousand US flights canceled

On Thursday, United Airlines (UAL) said it had to "cancel some flights" because of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

"The nationwide spike in Omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation," said a United memo obtained by CNN.

United canceled 201 flights on Friday, representing 10% of its total schedule, and 238 flights on Saturday, representing 12% of its schedule, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.

United said it is "notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport," according to a company statement. "We're sorry for the disruption and are working hard to rebook as many people as possible and get them on their way for the holidays."

Later Thursday night, Delta Air Lines (DAL) also canceled flights. The airline canceled 173 Christmas Eve flights, according to FlightAware.

Delta said the cancellations are due to multiple issues including the Omicron variant.

"We apologize to our customers for the delay in their holiday travel plans," Delta said in a statement. "Delta people are working hard to get them to where they need to be as quickly and as safely as possible on the next available flight."

Additionally, JetBlue (JBLU) canceled 80 flights, or about 7% of its overall schedule, on the day before Christmas.

Alaska Airlines said in a statement that it canceled 17 flights because of Omicron Thursday and more cancellations are possible on Christmas Eve. The airline canceled 11 flights Friday.

Thousands of international flights canceled

China Eastern has canceled 474 flights, or 22% of its operation, according to FlightAware. Similarly, Air China canceled about 190 flights, or 15% of its schedule.

Air India, Shenzhen Airlines, Lion Air and Wings Air all canceled dozens of flights as well. 

Andy Rose, Sharif Paget, Ramishah Maruf, Eric Levenson and Carma Hassan contributed to this report

Haiti receives J&J COVID-19 vaccine linked to blood clots

BY ONZ CHÉRY DEC. 20, 2021

The Haitian TimesJul. 06, 2021

The United States has donated 108,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to Haiti via COVAX, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti announced Sunday, three days after U.S. public health experts recommended that people take other COVID-19 vaccines when possible.

It is unclear whether the J&J vaccine was already on its way to Haiti before a panel of experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said mRNA vaccines, like the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are preferred. The CDC recommendation also emphasizes the J&J vaccine is effective, with more benefits than risks, it usually takes weeks for such vaccine donations to be arranged.

However, scores of Haitians swiftly reacted to the U.S. Embassy announcement, taking to social media to condemn the move.

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Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 23 décembre 2021

 American Missionaries Released

Ex-Hostages Doing Well, Have Left Haiti, Mission Agency Says

All the former hostages from a U_S_-based missionary group kidnapped in Haiti have been flown out of the country after a two-month ordeal and are “doing reasonably well.”.

By Associated Press

|

Dec. 17, 2021, at 7:16 p.m.

By PETER SMITH and CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN, Associated Press

All the former hostages from a U.S.-based missionary group kidnapped in Haiti have been flown out of the country after a two-month ordeal, the leader of their Ohio-based missions organization said Friday, as he also extended an offer of forgiveness to their captors.

David Troyer, general director of Christian Aid Ministries, said in a video statement that a U.S.-flagged plane left the Caribbean nation Thursday afternoon carrying the last 12 kidnapped missionaries, hours after they were freed earlier in the day.

“Everyone including the 10-month-old baby, the 3-year-old boy and the 6-year-old boy seem to be doing reasonably well,” Troyer said.

The last releases came two months to the day after the group of 16 Americans and one Canadian — including five children — were kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang, which initially demanded millions of dollars in ransom. The other five had been freed earlier.

Troyer did not comment on the circumstances of the release, such as whether ransom was paid or a rescue effort was involved, but expressed thanks to “the U.S. government and all others who assisted in the safe return of our hostages.”

“Thank you for understanding our desire to pursue nonviolent approaches," he added, without elaboration.

Based in Berlin, Ohio, Christian Aid Ministries, or CAM, is supported and staffed by conservative Anabaptists, a range of Mennonite, Amish and related groups whose hallmarks include nonresistance to evil, plain dress and separation from mainstream society.

In keeping with Anabaptist teaching, which puts a premium on forgiveness, Troyer offered conciliatory words to the captors.

“A word to the kidnappers: We do not know all of the challenges you face. We do believe that violence and oppression of others can never be justified. You caused our hostages and their families a lot of suffering,” he said. “However, Jesus taught us by word and by his own example that the power of forgiving love is stronger than the hate of violent force. Therefore, we extend forgiveness to you.”

Troyer said the hostages had “prayed for their captors and told them about God’s love and their need to repent.”

The missionaries were abducted Oct. 16 shortly after visiting an orphanage in Ganthier, in the Croix-des-Bouquets area, where they verified it had received aid from CAM and played with the children, Troyer said.

“As they became aware of what was happening at the time of capture, the group began singing the chorus, ‘The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them,’” Troyer said, quoting from the biblical book of Psalms. “This song became a favorite of theirs, and they sang it many times throughout their days of captivity.”

The hostages remained together as a group throughout, he said, in prayer, in song and encouraging each other.

Troyer said CAM workers were aware of dangers in Haiti, where gang activity and kidnappings have been on the rise.

But the organization often works in such perilous places precisely because “that is usually where the biggest needs are,” he added.

CAM hopes to continue working in Haiti, Troyer said, while acknowledging that it will need to bolster security protocols and “better instruct our people about the dangers involved.”

Authorities have said 400 Mawozo was demanding $1 million per person in ransom, although it wasn’t clear if that included the children. The gang’s leader had threatened to kill the hostages unless his demands were met.

Also Friday, a meeting including representatives of 14 countries, various international organizations and Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry produced broad commitments to address security and the political and economic situation in the impoverished Caribbean nation, according to a top U.S. diplomat.

Brian A. Nichols, assistant secretary at the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, said on a conference call that the U.S. government plans to send experts to train the Haitian National Police SWAT team.

In another pledge, Japan promised $3 million in aid including for the construction of police housing and facilities.

Nichols said there was discussion of some nations potentially deploying police to Haiti for activities such as training or mentoring local officers, though that would require more discussion first. He said there was broad agreement that the security situation in the country is a policing challenge, not a military one.

Nichols did not provide details on how the hostages were freed, citing respect for their privacy. Asked about rumors that a ransom was paid, he declined to comment other than to say “the United States government does not pay ransom for hostages.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Haiti: NYT's history of US influence

From: Michael Tarr <Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.>
Date: Sun, Dec 19, 2021 at 10:09 AM
Subject: Haiti: NYT's history of US influence
To: 

The New York Times, December 19, 2021
A Bloody History Of U.S. Influence Hangs Over Haiti.
American policy decisions are vital to understanding Haiti’s political instability, and why it remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
By Chris CameronIn September 1994, the United States was on the verge of invading Haiti.Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country’s first democratically elected president, had been deposed in a military coup three years earlier. Haiti had descended into chaos. Gangs and paramilitaries terrorized the population — taking hostages, assassinating dissidents and burning crops. International embargoes had strangled the economy, and tens of thousands of people were trying to emigrate to America.But just days before the first U.S. troops would land in Haiti, Joseph R. Biden Jr., then a senator on the Foreign Affairs Committee, spoke against a military intervention. He argued that the United States had more pressing crises — including ethnic cleansing in Bosnia — and that Haiti was not especially important to American interests.“I think it’s probably not wise,” Mr. Biden said of the planned invasion in an interview with television host Charlie Rose.He added: “If Haiti — a God-awful thing to say — if Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interest. ”Despite Mr. Biden’s apprehension, the invasion went forward and the Haitian military junta surrendered within hours. Mr. Aristide was soon restored to power, and the Clinton administration began deporting thousands of Haitians.Nearly a decade later, Haiti’s constitutional order would collapse again,
prompting another U.S. military intervention, more migrants and more deportations. As rebels threatened to invade the capital in 2004, Mr. Aristide resigned under pressure from U.S. officials. A provisional government was formed with American backing.The violence and unrest continued.That cycle of crisis and U.S. intervention in Haiti — punctuated by periods of relative calm but little improvement in the lives of most people — has persisted to this day. Since July, a presidential assassination, an earthquake and a tropical storm have deepened the turmoil.Mr. Biden, now president, is overseeing yet another intervention in Haiti’s political affairs, one that his critics say is following an old Washington playbook: backing Haitian leaders accused of authoritarian rule, either because they advance American interests or because U.S. officials fear the instability of a transition of power.Making sense of American policy in Haiti over the decades — driven at times by economic interests, Cold War strategy and migration concerns — is vital to understanding Haiti’s political instability, and why it remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, even after an infusion of more than $5 billion in U.S. aid in the last decade alone.A bloody history of American influence looms large, and a century of U.S. efforts to stabilize and develop the country have ultimately ended in failure.The American Occupation (1915-34)The politics of slavery and racial prejudice were key factors in early American hostility to Haiti. After the Haitian Revolution, Thomas Jefferson and many in Congress feared that the newly founded Black republic would spread slave revolts in the United States.For decades, the United States refused to formally recognize Haiti’s independence from France, and at times tried to annex Haitian territory and conduct diplomacy through threats.It was against this backdrop that Haiti became increasingly unstable. The country went through seven presidents between 1911 and 1915, all either assassinated or removed from power. Haiti was heavily in debt, and Citibank — then the National City Bank of New York — and other American banks confiscated much of Haiti’s gold reserves during that period with the help of U.S. Marines.Roger L. Farnham, who managed National City Bank’s assets in Haiti, then lobbied President Woodrow Wilson for a military intervention to stabilize the country and force the Haitian government to pay its debts, convincing the president that France or Germany might invade if America did not.The military occupation that followed remains one of the darkest chapters of American policy in the Caribbean. The United States installed a puppet regime that rewrote Haiti’s constitution and gave America control over the country’s finances. Forced labor was used for construction and other work to repay debts. Thousands were killed by U.S. Marines.The occupation ended in 1934 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy. As the last Marines departed Haiti, riots broke out in Port-au-Prince, the capital. Bridges were destroyed, telephone lines were cut and the new president declared martial law and suspended the constitution. The United States did not completely relinquish control of Haiti’s finances until 1947.The Duvalier DynastyThe ruthless dictator François Duvalier took power in 1957, as Fidel Castro led a revolution in Cuba and as U.S. interests in the region were becoming increasingly focused on limiting the influence of the Soviet Union.Duvalier, like many other dictators in the Caribbean and Latin America, recognized that he could secure American support if he presented his government as anti-communist. U.S. officials privately described Duvalier as “the worst dictator in the hemisphere,” while deeming him preferable to the perceived risk of a communist Haiti.When the United States suspended aid programs because of atrocities committed soon after Duvalier took office, the Haitian leader hired public relations firms, including one run by Roosevelt’s youngest son, to repair the relationship.Duvalier — and later his son Jean-Claude — ultimately enjoyed significant American support in the form of aid (much of it embezzled by the family), training for Haitian paramilitary forceswho would go on to commit atrocities and even a Marine deployment in 1959 despite the protests of American diplomats in Haiti.By 1961, the United States was sending Duvalier $13 million in aid a year — equivalent to half of Haiti’s national budget.Even after the United States had tired of Duvalier’s brutality and unstable leadership, President John F. Kennedy demurred on a plot to remove him and mandate free elections. When Duvalier died nearly a decade later, the United States supported the succession of his son. By 1986, the United States had spent an estimated $900 million supporting the Duvalier dynasty as Haiti plunged deeper into poverty and corruption.Favored CandidatesAt crucial moments in Haiti’s democratic era, the United States has intervened to pick winners and losers — fearful of political instability and surges of Haitian migration.After Mr. Aristide was ousted in 1991, the U.S. military reinstalled him. He resigned in disgrace less than a decade later, but only after American diplomats urged him to do so. According to reports from that time, the George W. Bush administration had undermined Mr. Aristide’s government in the years before his resignationFrançois Pierre-Louis is a political science professor at Queens College in New York who served in Mr. Aristide’s cabinet and advised former Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard Alexis. Haitians are often suspicious of American involvement in their affairs, he said, but still take signals from U.S. officials seriously because of the country’s long history of influence over Haitian politics.For example, after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, American and other international diplomats pressured Haiti to hold elections that year despite the devastation. The vote was disastrously mismanaged, and international observers and many Haitians considered the results illegitimate.Responding to the allegations of voter fraud, American diplomats insisted that one candidate in the second round of the presidential election be replaced with a candidate who received fewer votes — at one point threatening to halt aid over the dispute. Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state, confronted then-President René Préval about putting Michel Martelly, America’s preferred candidate, on the ballot. Mr. Martelly won that election in a landslide.A direct line of succession can be traced from that election to Haiti’s current crisis.Mr. Martelly endorsed Jovenel Moïse as his successor. Mr. Moïse, who was elected in 2016, ruled by decree and turned to authoritarian tactics with the tacit approval of the Trump and Biden administrations.Mr. Moïse appointed Ariel Henry as acting prime minister earlier this year. Then on July 7, Mr. Moïse was assassinated.Mr. Henry has been accused of being linked to the assassination plot, and political infighting that had quieted after international diplomats endorsed his claim to power has reignited. Mr. Martelly, who had clashed with Mr. Moïse over business interests, is considering another run for the presidency.Robert Maguire, a Haiti scholar and retired professor of international affairs at George Washington University, said the instinct in Washington to back members of Haiti’s political elite who appeared allied with U.S. interests was an old one, with a history of failure.Another approach could have more success, according to Mr. Maguire and other scholars, Democratic lawmakers and a former U.S. envoy for Haiti policy. They say the United States should support a grass-roots commission of civic leaders, who are drafting plans for a new provisional government in Haiti.That process, however, could take years.Chris Cameron is based in the Washington bureau. @ChrisCameronNYT

Opinion: Drug trafficking and an assassination have deepened Haiti’s chaos

Editorial Board

Moïse was elevated from obscurity to the presidency mainly by his predecessor, former president Michel Martelly — himself suspected of close ties to some of Haiti’s biggest trafficking kingpins. According to the Times account, Moïse was compiling a dossier of traffickers’ names that he planned to share with the U.S. government. Among the most prominent names was Mr. Martelly’s brother-in-law, who retained enormous influence over Moïse’s government. Moïse was shot to death in his bedroom by a team of Colombian mercenaries who, according to the Times and its sources, were searching for that list of names.

Mr. Martelly, barred by Haiti’s constitution from seeking a third consecutive presidential term, is now living in Miami; he is widely regarded as planning another bid for the presidency. One question that arises from the Times report is how, given the allegations of corruption and trafficking ties against him, he retains a visa enabling him to live in the United States and, for that matter, why he has not been arrested.

Haiti is a long-standing narco-state whose police and government institutions have often been in cahoots with traffickers. The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, it is a major trans-shipment point for cocaine, heroin and other contraband headed to the United States from South America.

It has been a focal point of intense efforts, and intense frustration, for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, whose investigative efforts have often been stymied by the top-to-bottom corruption in Haiti’s government and security apparatus. The DEA itself has come under suspicion that some of its personnel in Haiti might have been co-opted by traffickers.

Among the targets of past DEA investigations is Dimitri Hérard, who was detained in connection with Moïse’s murder. Mr. Hérard, formerly a key security official forMr. Martelly, was also a close associate of Mr. Martelly’s brother-in-law, Charles Saint-Rémy, widely suspected of being a trafficking kingpin. It was Mr. Hérard who was in charge of the presidential security detail that stood aside on the night of the assassination, allowing the hit men unfettered access to Moïse’s home.

Impunity is the rule in Haiti, not the exception; hardly anyone in the country has been convicted of trafficking offenses, and top officials, including the current justice minister, have been implicated in protecting traffickers from anti-corruption investigations.

Haiti is now in chaos, its government unelected, its streets controlled by criminal gangs and its economy in shambles. In other words, it is a paradise for drug traffickers. The Biden administration, by averting its gaze, enables the pandemonium that has enveloped the country. Americans might imagine that Haiti’s problems are not of their concern, but those troubles have a way of washing up on American shores, as refugees — and as contraband.

Editorials represent the views of The Washington Post as an institution, as determined through debate among members of the Editorial Board, based in the Opinions section and separate from the newsroom.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 17 décembre 2021

Haiti’s Leader Kept a List of Drug Traffickers. His Assassins Came For It.

In the months before his murder, President Jovenel Moïse took a number of steps to fight drug and arms smugglers. Some officials now fear he was killed for it. 

Maria Abi-Habib

By Maria Abi-Habib

Dec. 12, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET

PORT-AU-PRINCE — President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti was about to name names.

Before being assassinated in July, he had been working on a list of powerful politicians and businesspeople involved in Haiti’s drug trade, with the intention of handing over the dossier to the American government, according to four senior Haitian advisers and officials tasked with drafting the document.

The president had ordered the officials to spare no one, not even the power brokers who had helped propel him into office, they said — one of several moves against suspected drug traffickers that could explain a motive for the assassination.

When gunmen burst into Mr. Moïse’s residence and killed him in his bedroom, his wife, Martine Moïse — who had also been shot and lay bleeding on the floor, pretending to be dead — described how they stayed to search the room, hurriedly digging through his files.

“‘That’s it,’” they finally declared to one another before fleeing, she told The New York Times in her first interview after the assassination, adding that she did not know what the gunmen had taken.

Investigators arrived at the crime scene to find Mr. Moïse’s home office ransacked, papers strewn everywhere. In interrogations, some of the captured hit men confessed that retrieving the list Mr. Moïse had been working on — with the names of suspected drug traffickers — was a top priority, according to three senior Haitian officials with knowledge of the investigation.

The document was part of a broader series of clashes Mr. Moïse had with powerful political and business figures, some suspected of narcotics and arms trafficking. Mr. Moïse had known several of them for years, and they felt betrayed by his turn against them, his aides say.

In the months before his death, Mr. Moïse took steps to clean up Haiti’s customs department, nationalize a seaport with a history of smuggling, destroy an airstrip used by drug traffickers and investigate the lucrative eel trade, which has recently been identified as a conduit for money laundering.

The Times interviewed more than 70 people and traveled to eight of Haiti’s 10 departments, or states, to interview politicians, Mr. Moïse’s childhood friends, police officers, fishermen and participants in the drug trade to understand what happened in the last seven months of the president’s life that may have contributed to his death. Many of them now fear for their lives as well.

The house where Mr. Moïse was assassinated in July. His home office was ransacked, with papers strewn everywhere.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times

“I would be a fool to think that narco-trafficking and arms trafficking didn’t play a role in the assassination,” said Daniel Foote, who served as the U.S. special envoy to Haiti before stepping down last month. “Anyone who understands Haiti’s politics or economics understands this.”

A central figure on Mr. Moïse’s list was Charles “Kiko” Saint-Rémy, two of the Haitian officials tasked with helping draft the dossier said. Mr. Saint-Rémy, a Haitian businessman, has long been suspected by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of involvement in the drug trade. Notably, he is also the brother-in-law of former President Michel Martelly, who lifted Mr. Moïse out of political obscurity and tapped him to be his successor.

Mr. Martelly, who is considering another run for the presidency, and Mr. Saint-Rémy were hugely influential in Mr. Moïse’s government, with a say in everything from who got public contracts to which cabinet ministers got appointed, according to Haitian officials inside and outside his administration. But Mr. Moïse came to feel that they and other oligarchs were stifling his presidency, his aides say.

American officials say that they are looking closely at Mr. Moïse’s efforts to disrupt the drug trade and challenge powerful families as motives in the assassination, and they note that Mr. Saint-Rémy emerged as a possible suspect early in the investigation. But they caution that Mr. Moïse threatened a large swath of the economic elite, including a number of people with deep criminal connections.

Mr. Martelly and Mr. Saint-Rémy did not respond to a detailed list of questions for this article.

The investigation into Mr. Moïse’s killing has stalled, American officials say, and if the assassination is not solved, many Haitians fear it will add to the mountain of impunity in the country, further emboldening the criminal networks that have captured the state.

Suspected drug and arms traffickers have long sat in Haiti’s Parliament. Small planes with contraband frequently land on clandestine airstrips. Haitian police officers have been caught aiding drug smugglers, while judges are regularly bribed to throw cases.

Haiti may now provide the largest route for drugs destined for the United States, but no one knows for sure because the country has become so difficult to police. American law enforcement is unable to run a wiretapping program in the country, or even fully collaborate with its Haitian counterparts, because corruption in the police and judiciary runs so deep, U.S. officials say.

“Anyone involved in drug trafficking here has at least one police officer on their team,” said Compère Daniel, the police commissioner of the Northwest Department of Haiti, a major transit smuggling corridor.

“It is impossible to get police officers to cooperate with me on the field,” he said. “Sometimes they don’t even answer my calls.”

The D.E.A.’s operations in Haiti have also drawn scrutiny. Criticism of the agency has sharpened because at least two of the Haitians suspected of involvement in Mr. Moïse’s assassination were former D.E.A. informants.

In November, the Senate Judiciary Committee criticized the D.E.A. for corruption allegations that have swirled around its Haiti operations, citing a Times investigation in August linking Mr. Moïse’s head of palace security to the drug trade. The D.E.A., accused by former agents of mishandling one of Haiti’s biggest drug cases, declined to comment.

‘The True Leader Wasn’t the President’

When Mr. Moïse was chosen by Mr. Martelly in 2014 to be his successor, Mr. Martelly introduced the nation to a supposed outsider with peasant origins, a man of the countryside who had lifted himself out of poverty by running banana plantations.

Mr. Martelly’s associates said he first met Mr. Moïse during a conference and was struck by the entrepreneur’s business acumen.

But the story was misleading: Mr. Moïse had mostly grown up in the capital, several of the original board members of his banana plantation say it was a failure, and Mr. Moïse was already a close associate of Mr. Saint-Rémy and at least one other suspected drug trafficker.

Mr. Moïse, 53 at the time of his assassination, was born in Trou-du-Nord, French for “hole of the North,” an agricultural town that has suffered under decades of government neglect. His father drove a tractor at a nearby sisal plantation but lost his job when it closed, according to interviews with local residents.

When Mr. Moïse was 7, his mother moved him and his siblings to Carrefour, a slum of Port-au-Prince, in search of work and a secondary school for her children, relatives said. In university, Mr. Moïse met his wife and they moved together to her hometown, Port-de-Paix, in the northwest.

By 2000, Mr. Moïse had met and become business partners with Evinx Daniel, according to relatives and acquaintances of both men. Mr. Daniel, a close friend of Mr. Martelly’s, would later be accused of drug trafficking.

Mr. Moïse worked with Mr. Daniel on one of his ventures, Mariella Food Products, which produced biscuits with a pigtailed schoolgirl on the packaging. A former high-ranking Haitian police officer said the company was suspected of being a money laundering front.

The full extent of Mr. Moïse’s involvement in the company is unclear, but a former senator, Jean Baptiste Bien-Aimé, recalled the men coming to his office to talk about the company about a decade ago, and said the men were often with Mr. Saint-Rémy, the brother-in-law of Mr. Martelly.

“They were always together. They were fish crushed in the soup,” said Mr. Bien-Aimé, using a local saying to describe close relationships.

Mr. Saint-Rémy has publicly admitted that he sold drugs in the past but claims all his businesses are now legitimate. Haitian law enforcement officials and former D.E.A. officers who recently served in Haiti say he is still believed to be one of the country’s biggest drug traffickers.

Jacques Jean Kinan, Mr. Moïse’s cousin, said he and Mr. Moïse worked with Mr. Saint-Rémy in the eel industry.

With his brother-in-law as president, Mr. Saint-Rémy wielded enormous influence, often demanding that choice licenses and contracts be awarded to him, particularly eel export licenses, according to officials in Mr. Martelly’s government.

When his demands were not heeded, he could turn violent: In 2015, Mr. Saint-Rémy assaulted an agriculture minister for issuing a contract without his consent, an altercation reported at the time and confirmed by a former government minister.

As Mr. Saint-Rémy’s hold on the eel trade solidified, Mr. Moïse decided to get out of the sector and focus on Agritrans, a banana plantation near his hometown.

“My father said that the Martelly family cornered the eel business and made it difficult to get in,” said Joverlein Moïse, the slain president’s son.

Mr. Moïse also kept in touch with his associate, Mr. Daniel, who had opened a hotel in Les Cayes, a coastal city in the south, an official and a relative said.

In 2013, Mr. Daniel told the authorities that he found 23 packages of marijuana floating at sea while he was on his boat and decided to bring them home. Mr. Daniel saidat the time that he and Mr. Saint-Rémy called the D.E.A. to pick up the load he discovered.

A prosecutor, Jean Marie Salomon, doubted the story, suspecting it was a ploy to cover up a drug deal gone bad after locals had stumbled on the stash. He arrested Mr. Daniel on drug-trafficking charges, but he said Mr. Martelly’s minister of justice personally intervened and ordered his release.

Shortly after, Mr. Martelly went to Mr. Daniel’s hotel with a delegation in a clear display of support, Mr. Salomon said. “The message was, justice does not matter,” he said.

Just months after his release, Mr. Daniel went missing in 2014, his abandoned car found at a gas station. Two people — a relative of Mr. Daniel’s and a police officer at the time — said Mr. Moïse was one of the last people to see him alive. Mr. Daniel is presumed dead.

Mr. Salomon suspects that drug traffickers killed him, concerned that he would expose their network as part of a plea deal, and Mr. Daniel’s disappearance remains unsolved. Two investigators said they were sidelined by a federal police unit controlled by Mr. Martelly’s government that took over the investigation and tampered with the evidence.

Barred by the Constitution from running for two consecutive terms, Mr. Martelly began looking for a successor. He wanted to find someone to keep the bench warm for him until he could launch another presidential bid and shield himself from corruption allegations involving the misappropriation of billions of dollars during his tenure, according to former officials in the Martelly and Moïse administrations.

He settled on Mr. Moïse, marketing him as a successful entrepreneur and nicknaming him the “Banana Man” on the campaign trail.

“I told Martelly, you have to look for the peasant vote, someone who looks like them, someone with black skin,” said a former senator, Jacques Sauveur Jean, a friend and sometimes political ally of Mr. Martelly. He said Haitians were tired of the privileged light-skinned elite who ran the country, like Mr. Martelly, and felt that Mr. Moïse, with his dark skin and rural origins, better represented them.

In interviews, three of the original board members of Mr. Moïse’s plantation business, Agritrans, described the venture as a failure, with their original investments lost and little but a barren field to show for it.

But as Mr. Martelly contemplated a successor, the company received a $6 million loan from the government.

Esther Antoine, one of Mr. Moïse’s campaign managers, said she worked to polish his image, to get rid of a stutter that had haunted him and improve his confidence onstage. But on the campaign trail Mr. Martelly took center stage, she said, outshining the man he was supposed to be promoting.

Ms. Antoine, who worried that Mr. Martelly’s outsized presence was “drowning” her candidate, said she convinced the president to give Mr. Moïse the space to campaign alone. That did not sit well with Mr. Martelly’s wife, Sophia, she said.

She said the first lady grew suspicious of Ms. Antoine and called her to the Martelly family home in the middle of the night, reprimanding her for not informing them of Mr. Moïse’s every move.

Ms. Antoine said she pushed back, arguing that she was there to work for Mr. Moïse, not the Martelly family.

“That’s when the wife looks at me and says, ‘Jovenel is a property. You don’t seem to understand that,’” Ms. Antoine recounted. “I was shocked. When I asked her to repeat it, she then switched to French: ‘Jovenel est une propriété.’”

The former first lady did not respond to a detailed list of questions for this article.

When he won and took over the presidency in 2017, Mr. Moïse felt suffocated by Mr. Martelly but remained loyal to him, his aides said.

Mr. Moïse was unable to choose his own cabinet without the approval of the Martelly family or Mr. Saint-Rémy, they said. The Martellys would often call Mr. Moïse, yelling at him for his legislative initiatives, according to several people who overheard the conversations.

“The true leader wasn’t the president,” said Gabriel Fortuné, a close adviser to Mr. Moïse who died in an earthquake a day after speaking with The Times. “It was his godfather, Martelly. When we talk about the godfather we are talking about the Italian way,” he added, “the family.”

Ms. Antoine acknowledged that Mr. Moïse often turned a blind eye to the corruption in his government, to avoid making enemies and advance his own initiatives.

“He would say, ‘Let me feed them so they leave me alone. If they’re making money, they’ll let me do my electricity and build my roads,’” Ms. Antoine recalled him saying.

But Mr. Moïse’s critics said he joined in the corruption. Before he came to power, the Haitian government was investigating Mr. Moïse, his wife and their company, Agritrans, for large amounts of money found in their bank accounts that could not be explained by the level of business they were generating, an official who worked on the case said.

Two government anti-corruption units also questioned why Mr. Martelly’s government gave a $6 million loan to Agritrans, a company with such a limited record. But when Mr. Moïse came to power, he fired the directors of the two anti-corruption units who worked on the inquiry.

‘They Will Kill Me’

As Mr. Moïse settled into office, he soon realized that the withering control Mr. Martelly and his family exerted on the campaign trail extended to his personal security, several officials said.

Mr. Moïse inherited Dimitri Hérard, a pivotal member of Mr. Martelly’s presidential security force who became the head of the police unit protecting Mr. Moïse’s presidential palace

Mr. Hérard was also a drug-trafficking suspect. In 2015, when a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship docked in Port-au-Prince with 1,100 kilograms of cocaine and heroin aboard, Mr. Hérard was seen commanding police officers in uniform to load the drugs into vehicles before speeding off with them, according to a witness and Keith McNichols, a former D.E.A. agent stationed in Haiti who led the agency’s investigation into the missing drug shipment.

But Mr. Martelly shielded Mr. Hérard from being questioned by investigators in the case, a former United Nations official said.

Mr. Moïse deeply mistrusted Mr. Hérard, according to several presidential advisers and an international diplomat the president confided in. On at least one occasion, they said, Mr. Hérard was found spying on the president for Mr. Saint-Rémy, informing him about Mr. Moïse’s meetings.

Mr. Hérard, now in detention as a suspect in the assassination, could not be reached for comment.

In January, Mr. Hérard ordered about 260 weapons from Turkey — including M4 carbines and handguns — making out the order to the presidential palace, Mr. Fortuné and a former security official said. But instead of arming his own unit, they said, Mr. Hérard sold most of the weapons to gangs and businesses.

“When Moïse found out about the weapons Hérard ordered, he wasn’t surprised — he was scared,” Mr. Fortuné said.

Mr. Moïse’s relationship with the presidential security forces, already on tenterhooks, further soured. But that changed in February, when Mr. Hérard claimed to have foiled a coup attempt against Mr. Moïse. Suddenly, the distrust waned. Some former aides, like Ms. Antoine and Mr. Fortuné, wondered whether the supposed coup was a false flag, to throw off Mr. Moïse’s suspicions about Mr. Hérard.

After the coup scare, Mr. Moïse went on the offensive, publicly blasting Haiti’s oligarchs and political elite for trying to kill him, including in one of his final interviews with The Times before his death.

Behind the scenes, Haitian officials say, Mr. Moïse began working to take down his perceived enemies. He spoke with his closest aides and select officials to start compiling the dossier breaking down narcotics and weapons smuggling networks in Haiti, including Mr. Saint-Rémy, according to the people involved with the document.

In February, Josua Alusma, the mayor of Port-du-Paix and a close Moïse ally, ordered a crackdown on the eel trade, the industry dominated by Mr. Saint-Rémy. Many of the eels go to China, but the Haitian police are investigating the industry as a way to launder illicit profits.

“I don’t like this business. It happens at night, do you know what I’m saying?” Mr. Alusma said. “There’s no security.”

He said the industry needed to be regulated and taxed. “People like Kiko go in and out of the city,” he said, using Mr. Saint-Rémy’s nickname. “But we are the ones here cleaning his trash,” he added, referring to illegal weapons seized during a raid this year.

The same month, the president also started to discuss plans to nationalize a seaport owned by allies of Mr. Martelly, where several shipments of illegal weapons have been found and seized over the years, two senior Haitian officials said.

“Jovenel told me that he had an agenda that he wanted to implement but he couldn’t because, he said, ‘They will kill me,’” recounted a powerful politician who served as an informal aide to Mr. Moïse, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of his life. The port, he said, “was part of the plan.”

Mr. Moïse also tried to push customs, despite considerable resistance, to start inspecting Mr. Saint-Rémy’s shipments and charging taxes on his goods, according to several presidential aides, two senior security officials and an official at the customs department. Haitian economists estimate that the country loses about $500 million a year because of corruption at customs.

Then, in mid-May, Dominican security forces arrested Woodley Ethéart, also known as Sonson Lafamilia, a close friend of Mr. Martelly and Mr. Saint-Rémy’s. When Mr. Martelly was president in 2015, he stood by Mr. Ethéart after he was arrested on kidnapping charges.

This year, Mr. Ethéart still had a warrant out for his arrest and generally kept a low profile. But in May, he and Mr. Martelly took photos of themselves partying together in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic’s capital, that were posted on social media, a senior Dominican official said.

The next day, Dominican forces arrested Mr. Ethéart and extradited him to Haiti.

Mr. Moïse was ecstatic, his aides said.

The president’s phone buzzed with calls from Mr. Martelly and Mr. Saint-Rémy, but he refused to answer them, according to a close friend and a presidential adviser.

“Sonson Lafamilia is very close to the Martelly family,” said Joverlein, Mr. Moïse’s son. “It is possible that Martelly saw that arrest as some kind of disrespect, that my father was a traitor and was betraying the Martelly family.”

Drug trafficking routes in Haiti’s north also came under pressure. In the 1990s, little Cessna planes from Colombia landed on dirt airstrips on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. But as the population expanded, the landing strips became surrounded by slums. Poor residents realized the valuable illicit cargo the planes held and began raiding them, according to a security official.

So, about a decade ago, traffickers moved the airstrips north, to Savane Diane, a sprawling, isolated area. Since then, the drug trade has evolved and boomed. The planes no longer come solely from Colombia — Venezuela has become a big player, too, with family members of President Nicolas Maduro arrested by the D.E.A. in Haiti in 2015 for drug trafficking. The son of Honduras’s former president was also arrested in Haiti by the D.E.A.

This year, Mr. Moïse approved an agro-industrial zone in Savane Diane, but when the project broke ground, officials found they were about three miles south of one of Haiti’s most active airstrips for cocaine and heroin deliveries.

The small lake nearby was filled with fish, in an area where malnutrition is rampant, yet locals would not go near it. When The Times asked them why, farmers explained that human remains were often dumped there.

And when The Times went to the local airstrip, a farmer with a machete in his hand approached, asking if a drug delivery was happening so that he could get a bribe to look the other way.

Two jagged dirt strips — one path for each wheel — cut through waist-high grass. Yards from the airstrip lay the hull of a small plane that, residents say, crashed over the summer. The wreckage of another charred plane lay close by.

When the police cars that are often seen offloading the planes’ cargo get stuck along the rough roads, local tractor drivers get paid a few dollars to tow them out, residents said. Before a plane comes, they added, farmers cut the grass around the airstrip and start fires in empty cans so pilots know where to land at night.

Mr. Moïse’s aides said he became aware of the airstrip after a furious call from the D.E.A.

Between May and June, the airstrip in Savane Diane and another in Haiti’s north hosted an inordinate amount of traffic, with at least a dozen planes coming through, potentially carrying thousands of kilos of cocaine, Haitian security officials say. In mid-June, the D.E.A. called the Haitian authorities, demanding to know why there was such an uptick, according to Haitian officials with knowledge of the communication.

Several of the planes had even stopped in Port-au-Prince to refuel in the middle of the night, when the airport was closed, they said.

When Mr. Moïse found out about the deliveries in mid-June, he was fuming, his aides said. Then came an order from the presidential palace: Destroy the airstrip.

But the local authorities refused to do it, according to several officials interviewed.

About a week later, Mr. Moïse was at home with his wife and two children when hit men burst into his home. They had been let into the presidential compound by Mr. Hérard’s forces. In his initial testimony, Mr. Hérard said they stood down when the gunmen identified themselves as D.E.A. agents.

Not a single shot was fired between the assassins and Mr. Moïse’s guards. As the gunmen stormed the residence, the president called Mr. Hérard and another security official to rescue him, his widow told The Times. No help came.

One of the men leading the assassins, Joseph Felix Badio, was a former D.E.A. informant who called the country’s new prime minister, Ariel Henry, multiple times in the days just before and the hours right after the assassination, according to a copy of the police report. Mr. Henry, a close ally of Mr. Martelly, has denied any involvement in the killing.

Mr. Badio is still on the loose, but in the weeks after the assassination he was seen in bulletproof government vehicles, according to a security officer who was involved in the investigation.

Mr. Henry has stripped the government of Mr. Moïse’s former allies. Last month, he appointed a new justice minister, Berto Dorcé — who, according to a D.E.A. investigation, bribed one of the judges overseeing the case of the Panamanian-flagged vessel with 1,100 kilos of drugs aboard. A former senior Haitian law enforcement official also said Mr. Dorcé once spent months in jail in connection with drug trafficking.

Mr. Dorcé did not answer a list of questions for this article. Mr. Martelly is in Miami, where he lives, mulling another presidential run, his associates say.

National elections will be held next year, and Mr. Martelly is considered a front-runner.

Julian Barnes contributed reporting from Washington.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 10 décembre 2021

 Three of a Group of Missionaries Kidnapped in Haiti Have Been Released

The U.S. Christian aid group said three more people were released of the 17 who had been kidnapped by a gang in Haiti. Two were released last month.

NYT - Dec. 6, 2021

Outside the Christian Aid Ministries headquarters last month in Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince.Odelyn Joseph/Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — Three more hostages from a group of 17 missionaries and their children kidnapped in Haiti have been released, the American Christian charity they were with said on Monday. Their release brought the total number of people freed to five.

In a statement on Monday, Christian Aid Ministries said that the three people released “are safe and seem to be in good spirits.”

The organization did not provide their names, ages or the circumstances of their release, including whether a ransom had been paid. In the past, the group had asked for discretion to protect the hostages still being held.

“We would like to focus the next three days on praying and fasting for the hostages,” the statement read. The group continued, “We long for all the hostages to be reunited with their loved ones. Thank you for your prayer support.”

There was no immediate comment from the United States government on the latest release.

The Ohio-based charity said on Nov. 21 that two hostages had been released.

The kidnapped group, which included 16 Americans and one Canadian, was taken in October by a gang called 400 Mawozo, in a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. Swaths of the city have come under control of criminal groups amid the escalating political and economic crisis that followed the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, in July.

Among those kidnapped were five children, including an infant. Kidnapping has become an increasingly common practice for Haitian gangs, who have targeted even students going to school and pastors delivering sermons.

The 400 Mawozo gang, which is well-known for orchestrating mass kidnappings, had initially demanded a ransom of $1 million per person, although that was widely viewed as a starting sum for negotiations. It is not clear what, if any, money was paid for the five people released so far.

But the gang has been known to release captives with health problems. Haitian officials have said that the two hostages released last month were freed over medical concerns.

The abductions set off alarm among American lawmakers, who condemned the poverty and violence that has wracked Haiti and made kidnapping-for-ransom a big businesses in and around Port-au-Prince, where nearly half the nation lives.

In the days after the missionaries and their children were seized, the F.B.I. sent a team to Haiti to work with the local authorities to secure their release. Under American law, ransoms can be paid to gangs for the release of U.S. citizens held captive. American citizens are barred, however, from paying ransoms to terrorist organizations.

But U.S. officials worry that if ransoms are paid to 400 Mawozo, it will only encourage more kidnappings. There are tens of thousands of Haitian Americans in Haiti at any given moment, according to State Department officials.

Not long after the group was first kidnapped, the leader of the 400 Mawozo gang threatened to kill the hostages if the group’s ransom demands were not met. 

“I will prefer to kill them and I will unload a big weapon to each of their heads,” the leader, Wilson Joseph, said in a video recorded on the streets of the violent Croix-de-Bouquets neighborhood.

Turks and Caicos police report seven Haitian migrants found dead after boat capsized

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November 30, 2021

Turks and Caicos police say they recovered the bodies of seven people from Haiti Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021, whom authorities say were part of a large group of migrants leaving their country. Miami Herald File

Turks and Caicos police say they have recovered the bodies of seven undocumented Haitians Tuesday whom authorities say were attempting to illegally migrate from nearby Haiti. 

The dead were among a large group of migrants on a vessel that collided with a Turks and Caicos police marine patrol boat around 9:40 p.m. Monday, the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police said in a press release. 

Police said the crew of the marine patrol boat was trying to intercept the migrant vessel as it approached land in the North West Point area of Turks and Caicos. That’s when the two vessels collided and several of the Haitians fell into the water.

The Turks and Caicos crew, with the help of the U.S. Coast Guard, rescued 64 adults — 41 men and 23 women — from the water. 

Police caught another 16 men on land in North Point, according to the press release. 

Authorities say there may have been more people in the group and a search will resume at dawn on Wednesday. 

“My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of those who have lost their lives today,” Kendall Grant, acting commissioner of the Turks and Caicos police, said in a statement. “We were hoping for the best. Unfortunately, we are now dealing with a tragedy. It is unclear how many irregular migrants were on board the vessel.” 

The tragedy is the latest in a worsening Haitian migration crisis that has affected islands in the Caribbean as well as South and Central America, along with Mexico and the U.S. The Turks and Caicos are a a British dependent chain located 736 miles south of Florida and 136 miles from the northern coast of Haiti, and is a popular location for Haitians fleeing violence and political stability at home and hoping to get to the U.S.

Since mid-September, more than 11,000 Haitians have been repatriated from seven countries back to Haiti, according to the International Organization for Migration. This includes two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flights that arrived from the U.S. on Tuesday and one on Friday, which together returned about 129 Haitians including families.

Error! Filename not specified.A sailboat floats in the shallow water off Card Sound Road in Key Largo Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. The U.S. Border Patrol said 61 migrants from Haiti were on the vessel. U.S. Border Patrol 

Last week, a large group of 63 Haitian migrants arrived off the coast of a remote area of Key Largo on a sailboat. Those individuals are currently in custody at ICE’s Broward Transitional Center, immigration lawyers in Miami say. 

David Goodhue covers the Florida Keys and South Florida for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald. Before joining the Herald, he covered Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware.

Senators and US officials are still working to ensure return of Ohio hostages in Haiti

(WTRF) — Senators are still fighting to bring the missionaries abducted overseas back home. Two missionaries are back safe but others remain hostages.

 We’ve been waiting for the return of the rest of the missionaries for six weeks now. Many of them are from Ohio. But there’s still no sign of 15 of them.

Meanwhile in the states, the FBI and State Department are trying to bring them home.  

Senator Rob Portman says he’s working closely with the State Department and promises to stay personally involved. The Assistant Secretary of State is in daily connection with people on the ground.

I just urge the kidnappers to let these people go, these good people go who are trying to help the people of Haiti. I believe the US government has this at the top of their agenda, but we’ve go to get this resolved.

Sen. Rob Portman – OH – (R)

In the meantime, people are praying for the missionaries and their safe release to authorities. 

My Group Can Save Haiti. Biden Is Standing in Our Way.

Dec. 1, 2021

NY Times PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — On the streets of Port-au-Prince in February, demonstrators demanded that the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, step down because he had overstayed his elected term. His administration had dissolved Parliament after failing to hold elections, and he had illegally packed the judiciary and electoral commissions. Armed gangs, acting with his support, massacred protesters and terrorized poor and powerless citizens. Government agencies were a shambles, as they have been for years.

With the United States and other countries providing unstinting support for Mr. Moïse, Haitian civil organizations realized that the only way Haiti would be saved was if they saved it.

That month, groups representing unions, professional associations, farmers’ alliances, human rights and diaspora organizations, Voodoo groups and churches formed the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis. I am one of 13 commissioners.

To reach beyond the political class and our own circles, we consulted Haitians of every political stripe, professional background, religious affiliation and social class to reach a broad consensus through compromise that would provide us with the authority to create a Haitian-led solution.

Facing no perfect alternatives to a corrupt, illegitimate government that rules by decree, we believe the country’s best hope is a political transition in which inclusion provides legitimacy, leading to free elections. We can create a free, secure, democratic Haiti on our own, but we need the United States and other nations to abandon the status quo and back the work we’ve been engaged in for months.

We established a modest headquarters in a small room in Hôtel la Réserve in Port-au-Prince, where we met protesters, business leaders and representatives of the ruling party alike. We used Zoom and WhatsApp to talk with Haitians in other cities and with the Haitian diaspora. We consulted hundreds of people and organizations representing millions of Haitians.

Then events overtook our deliberations.

In July, Mr. Moïse was assassinated. The country was in shock. With disagreement about who would serve as interim head of state, opposition politicians quickly approached the commission to discuss a transitional government. That day, the U.S. Embassy tweeted its support for Mr. Moïse’s acting prime minister, Claude Joseph.

The commission worked with new urgency. We had already posted our draft accord online and opened it for public comment. Now we brought several hundred people together to work on it.

Yet meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy tweeted an extraordinary statement from a group of ambassadors that anointed Ariel Henry as acting prime minister and asked him to form a government.

On Aug. 30, we unveiled a blueprint for creating a transitional government backed by many political parties and sectors of Haitian society that had never before reached consensus.

It proposes an interim government whose members, in the absence of elections, will be nominated by various sectors to legitimately represent Haitians. There would be a president of the transition and head of government, as well as a representative body that can check executive power. It sets goals for strengthening institutions ahead of elections, working with many capable, well-intentioned civil servants who yearn to be able to do their jobs effectively.

It contains provisions that guard against self-interest, for instance, preventing commission members from holding leadership positions in the transitional government. The accord, which now has more than 900 signatories from groups representing millions of Haitians, includes participants who disagree with one another, ensuring diverse points of view.

Ariel Henry, Haiti’s acting prime minister, addressing the United Nations General Assembly via video in September. His proposal for new elections lacks sufficient reforms.Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Mr. Henry, the unelected, de facto prime minister, quickly proposed a rival planthat would consolidate all power of the interim government in his hands. It focuses on quick elections without sufficient reform to make them credible or ensure wide participation. And most of its supporters represent groups that are already aligned with and benefiting from the existing corrupt, predatory and failing system.

We pushed forward, even as some people related to the talks were killed or forced into hiding by gangs and commissioners were threatened. Armed men interrupted our meetings twice.

Still, we were able to hold substantive and moving conversations. Regardless of their backgrounds, people had identified the problems of massive corruption and impunity for government officials. Justice was a key demand. Most people agreed that Haiti has grown more unequal and far more violent and that basic security was urgent. They agreed on the need to find a solution among Haitians without international intervention. In these ways, Haitians were already unified.

This week we are naming the members of the National Transition Council, which is expected to select an interim president and head of government. This should lead to a negotiation for the departure of Mr. Henry, who said he would step down if not wanted.

Haitians need the United States and other countries to shift their support to the commission’s democratic process — in which Mr. Henry is free to participate. The best solution for our country’s complex and overlapping problems is for Haitians to build a more inclusive, stable and nonviolent political system, a functional democracy.

Perhaps the Biden administration and other foreign leaders feel they are doing what’s best for Haiti by standing behind Mr. Henry. They are actually standing in the way of what’s right: letting Haitians save our own country.

Monique Clesca (@moniclesca) is a journalist based in Port-au-Prince, a former U.N. official and a member of the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis.

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