HAPPENINGS
- The Slaughterhouse that is Haiti by Raymond Alcide Joseph
There is no question that Haiti, under the gang-connected government has become a slaughterhouse sparing no one. The murder, last Sunday. November 1st, of a female student in her last year of High School has caused an uproar that can’t be disregarded.
Evelyne Sincère, 22 years old was kidnapped by unidentified bandits, on Thursday, November 29 in Delmas, in northeastern Port-au-Prince. Her corpse was discovered Sunday on a heap of garbage at Delmas 24. Indications are that she was raped before being killed. Apparently, her parents of meager means could not come up with the $100,000 cash demanded by her kidnappers. The promising young woman was among the top in her class at the Lycée Jacques Roumain of Martissant, where the notorious Grand Ravine slum is located. She was in the Philo (for Philosophy) class, the last of the 6-year Haitian High School system.
Writing on his Twitter account on Sunday, President Jovenel Moïse stated, “As head of a family,” he was “shocked” by the kidnapping of the young woman and by her execution. He wrote: “Police and judicial authorities have but one choice: Put the bandits out of service.”
According to the online blog Juno7, which had an exclusive interview with interim Police chief Normil Rameau, he gave his “guarantee” that those who committed the crime as well as their accomplices will be found and properly punished. “Various units have been mobilized to facilitate the task of the National Police to track down the criminals,” he said, adding, “We call on the population to collaborate with the Police to counter the hoodlums who commit these odious crimes in society.”
Hopefully, this latest wanton slaughter will serve as a wake-up call to address the issue of generalized criminality in Haiti where no one is spared, from Monferrier Dorval, the former president of the Bar Association of Port-au-Prince, to the lowliest student like Evelyne Sincère. But when these crimes are perpetrated, such as that of the Bar Association president, a few yards from the president’s private residence, sanctimonious statements from the president and others are the norm. And the slaughter continues.
These murders are not cold statistics. Families of all sorts suffer the bitter losses. Take what happened in Cayes, southern Haiti, where Mardochée Wagnac, 14 years old, was gunned down on the evening of October 21. She had resisted giving her telephone that the bandits wanted. Being from the Cayes region where I grew up, I knew the Wagnac family. So, I contacted a close friend of mine in the family. “She was like a grandchild to me,” said my friend, whose name I will withheld for obvious reasons. “I was on the phone with her just last week,” she continued. “This cuts through me like a knife.”
On October 26, the Police in Cayes announced that two teenagers had been arrested in the case: 16-year-old Edrison Amazan, nicknamed Patchouko, and 18-year-old Pierre Thony Samson, nicknamed Baba. Additionally, several other arrests were announced of men and one 57-yearold woman involved in drug trafficking. All were armed, reinforcing the idea of the vast slaughterhouse that Haiti has become. Teenagers, as well as adults, some reaching retirement age, all are armed to kill.
*On Sunday, November 1st, a Pastor and son were kidnapped while on the way to church. This kidnapping took place on the National Route No. 2, going south from Port-au-Prince. The wife of the pastor, whose name was not provided, herself a deaconness in an Adventist congregation in Port-au-Prince, said a ransom of $800,000.00 is demanded. She has called on the brothers and sisters to pray for the release of her loved ones. This information was communicated by Bethlehem Info.
A review of some spectacular kidnapping cases
The authoritative Port-au-Prince Le Nouvelliste, published on Sunday, November 1st, a major story by Roberson Alphonse regarding the murder of the promising young woman murdered by her kidnappers under this gory headline: “Evelyne Sincère: Kidnapped, Tortured, Assassinated and Dumped on Garbage Heap. Additionally, he reviewed some of the spectacular killings in the slaughterhouse that Haiti has become.
Other than the feature story about Evelyne Sincère, he pointed out several kidnappings of young women who were also murdered and others, especially of notable personalities, who fared better, still alive after their scary experience.
*“In November 2006, Farah Kerbie Dessources, 20 years old, also in her last year of High School. . . ., kidnapped, tortured and assassinated . . . and the kidnappers told her mom where to find the body at Santo 3. . . . Eventually, two of the kidnappers were apprehended.”
*“In December 2015, though a ransom of $50,000 was delivered, the kidnappers of Lencie S. Mirville, 22 years old, tortured and assassinated her and dumped her body in a canyon on the Road of Friendship.(toward Jacmel) … [That was it for] the young woman, who was studying agronomy at the Quisqueya University, member of the youth committee of her church, a Sunday School teacher at the MEBSH. [My late father was the third president of the MEBSH]. The police arrested a mechanician known to the family.”
*”In these last weeks many cases were registered: Wolf Hall, owner of Titi Lotto, held for many days and ordered freed by the gang chief named Ti Lapli (Little Rain), member of the G-9 [of Jim my ‘Barbecue’ Cérizier, an ally of President Moïse].”
*“On October 21, former International football [soccer] player Johnny Descollines, a young medical doctor, and his friend were kidnapped at Delmas 33 around 3 am by heavily armed men in Police uniform in a Nissan vehicle.”
*“On October 9, 2020, around 2 pm., Marthe Romulus, 37 years old, was intercepted with the chauffeur of her boss by six heavily armed men wearing the uniform of the USGPN [the Palace National Police] at Miracles Street [not far from the Palace]. They were released following negotiations on Facebook in which the men of BBQ and those in Bel Air, a stone throw from the Palace, were implored by a family member of the firm, who said ‘free my uncle Deslouis Domond, who is a businessman who creates jobs.’”
Before concluding, Roberson Alphonse quoted from the most recent report of the BINUH, acronym for the United Nations Integrated Bureau in Haiti:
*The kidnapping business has intensified in the past few months, according to the BINUH. With a disconcerting nonchalance, the BINUH 
reports: “After having diminished regularly from March to reach 3.5 kidnapping monthly, it went up to 19 in July, the gangs having returned to more lucrative activities, following weeks of intense negotiations and confrontations. In total 32 people (including 9 women and 3 children) were kidnapped, against 25 in the preceding three months (including 7 women and 7 children, which amounts to an increase of 28%.” There it is— from the representative of the United Nations, which has been in Haiti under various names, as UNMIH, from 1993 to1996, and on a permanent basis since 2004, as MINUSTAH, MINUJUSTH and BI – NUH. In other words, the proliferation of gangs, staging kidnappings regularly and on a national level, has developed under UN’s watch. One wonders whether that is an outgrowth of “stabilizing” the country. Recently, a statement by Secretary General Antonio Guterres about gang presence in Port-au-Prince alleviating the violent atmosphere has since disappeared. Are we to believe that the UN, in line with the current Haitian regime, sees some gang activity in a positive light, caring little for those who suffer their abuse almost on a daily basis?
*Suddenly, the Trump administration “is stepping up pressure on Haitian President Jovenel Moïse” to organize elections. So reported Jacqueline Charles, in an article, on Monday, November 2. It was like a “Hail Mary” pass, a few days before the final vote in the U.S. elections, apparently as a last minute appeal to Haitian-American voters in Florida, the majority of whom, the administration found out rather belatedly, are anti-Moïse.
According to Ms. Charles, “Under Secretary of State David Hale spoke by phone Thursday [October 28] with Moïse and emphasized the need for Haiti to hold overdue legislative elections as soon as possible and for Haiti’s democratic institutions to determine the proper legal mechanism for constitutional change, with input from civil society, said State Department Deputy spokesperson Cale Brown.”
The Trump administration has enabled the Haitian apprentice dictator since he began ruling by decree on the second Monday of January. Nothing was said when he failed to organize timely elections for the Lower House, the mandate of all their 118 members having elapsed that January, along with the mandate of 10 Senators. Moreover, to make sure that he would not be encumbered ed by a functioning Senate, Moïse illegally dismissed 10 other Senators, stealing two years from their remaining mandate. With on ly a third of the Senate in office, it has been unable to function as a working body. That phone call from the Under Secretary was too late to sway Haitian-American voters, especially since the bulk of the voting was already done.
The cavalier attitude of the Trump administration toward democratic governance in Haiti is obvious in the manner Washington reacted to voter suppression there. One never knows, but secretly, Jovenel Moïse may have been egged on in his mammoth voter suppression program. Over protests by major sectors of the society, Mr. Moïse introduced his Dermalog card, which he calls the “Carte d’Identification Unique” (CIU), replacing the current NIF, which is equivalent to a Social Security card in the U.S. And citizens were given until October 20, 2020 to have their CIU. Past that date, the NIF would not be accepted for transactions. Also, without the CIU, citizens cannot vote.
Denouncing what has happened, France’s Ambassador to Haiti, José Gomez, said that only two (2) million CIU cards were distributed as of October, whereas there are more than six (6) million eligible voters in the country, not counting those abroad. What did American Ambassador Michele Sison say? Nothing! Did she alert her superiors in Washington about this naked grab for power by their apprentice dictator? We doubt it. Why didn’t the Trump administration come to the rescue of the Haitian people while all the sectors mandated to participate in the election process were protesting the illegal and anti-constitutional actions of Jovenel Moïse? Warnings were a-plenty about democracy being jeopardized in Haiti, both by Haitians and some diplomats, especially from the European Union.
Why did Washington enable Moïse to flaunt even Haiti’s Supreme Court and establish his own illegal Provisional Electoral Council (French acronym CEP) and the adjunct In de pen dent Constitutional Commission to work with the CEP? And now, at this late hour, why a phone call to their staunch ally, a despot not unlike those President Trump embraces, to suggest that he should slow down and listen to civil society? No democratic election will be possible in Haiti for the foreseeable future, not under Jovenel Moïse’s rule. RAJ November 4, 2020 raljo31@yahoo.com
Cet article est publié par l’hebdomadaire Haïti-Observateur, édition du 4 novembre 2020 VOL. L No. 43 NYC ; et se trouve en P. 1, 7, 12 à : http://haiti-observateur.info/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/H-O-4-november2020.pdf
