A aid worker describes the deep insecurity created by dozens of violent groups such as the one that has kidnapped 17 missionaries from the United States
On October 16, criminals kidnapped 17 American missionaries who were traveling through the suburbs of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. It was not an exceptional event. “Ten people are kidnapped every day,” explains Stevelson Edouard, director of the Social Management area of América Solidaria, a local NGO that collaborates with the Spanish organization Manos Unidas. The demand for victims is high because the Caribbean country has 160 gangs. “It is not something that affects wealthy individuals. Anyone, regardless of their means, can fall into their hands and be held until a ransom is paid, ”says Edouard. Nor is it a rare phenomenon on the continent. What is most extraordinary is the link between organized crime and politics. “Its origin is in the gangs that the electoral candidates of the parties set up to coerce and win in their districts,” he says.
The atmosphere of violence began to consolidate ten years ago, when this practice became widespread. “Politicians began to provide rifles and pistols to young people between the ages of 16 and 35 in their areas of influence,” he says. After the elections, these paramilitaries used the arsenal to make a living and were reinforcing their power with each new appointment with the polls. Estimates speak of half a million illegal weapons throughout the territory.
Three months ago, the murder at his mansion of President Jovenel Moïse marked a point of no return in this process. “There is a confederation of gangs, called G-9, which is linked to the current authority,” he says. “On the 17th, anniversary of the death of the country’s first president, they demonstrated asking for the clarification of the assassination.” The group is led by Jimmy Cherizier, a former commissioner who was expelled for his ties to the underworld.
Gang activity is not limited to either the capital or the cities. “They make the law,” says the aid worker, who warns that they control traffic between the north and the south, raid temples to kidnap shepherds, and raid private homes with impunity to take away their residents. ‘No one is free from being caught, even the policemen. In the northwest, farmers have formed self-defense groups wielding machetes. ‘
The middle class emigrates
The population is defenseless in the face of the exponential increase in crime and is “afraid of demonstrating, being attacked or shot in the street,” Edouard warns. But there are always those who win in troubled rivers. “The atmosphere is favorable for the authorities, who have no opposition and lack the will to change the lives of the people.” The prime minister, Ariel Henry, governs by decree, Parliament does not function and elections are not called. The situation has further deteriorated after the August 14 earthquake. “It is an unprecedented situation with no solutions in sight.”
As if that were not enough, inflation has increased the price of gasoline and basic products. “Some four million Haitians, a third of the inhabitants, suffer from food insecurity,” Edouard calculates, so that the exodus to the United States, the Bahamas or South America is the only possible way to escape the chaos. «Not only for those without economic resources, but for everyone. The middle class is legally emigrating to the Dominican Republic ”.
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