PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The poor now target the poor in Haiti. Many fear leaving the house, buying groceries or paying for a bus ticket – acts that can draw gangs’ attention to narrowly kidnap anyone with money.
Many schools closed their doors this month, not because of Covid-19, but to protect students and teachers against a ransom kidnapping epidemic that started haunting the country a year ago. Nobody is spared: not even nuns, priests or children of street vendors. Students now organize fundraising events to collect ransoms for their classmates.
Its difficulties can only get worse as Haiti moves towards a constitutional crisis.
The opposition demanded that President Jovenel Moïse resign, saying his five-year term ended on Sunday. But the president refuses to step down, arguing that an interim government has occupied the first year of its five-year term.
In a defiant one-hour speech on Sunday, Moïse despised his detractors.
“I am not a dictator,” said Moïse. “My term ends on February 7, 2022.”
As tensions rose on Sunday, the government announced the arrest of more than 20 people, claiming to be involved in a plot to overthrow and kill the president. Among the detainees – on charges that the opposition said were forged – were a Supreme Court judge and one of the inspectors general of the Haitian police.
After years of suffering hunger, poverty and daily power cuts, Haitians say their country, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, is in the worst state they have ever seen, with the government unable to provide the most basic services.
Many fear that current political tensions will only worsen the country’s paralysis and poor governance. On Sunday afternoon, clashes broke out between protesters and the police in three different cities across the country.
Haiti is “on the brink of explosion,” a group of the country’s bishops’ bishops said in a statement late last month.
Over the weekend, the Haitian judiciary sided with the opposition, a heterogeneous group of activists, politicians and religious leaders, and ordered Moïse’s term to end on Sunday.
On Friday, the United States government influenced Moïse – an important prospect for many Haitians, who often seek out their larger neighbor for guidance on the direction in which political winds are blowing.
A State Department spokesman, Ned Price, supported Moïse’s argument that his term ends in February and added that only then “a new president-elect should succeed President Moïse”.
But Price also sent a warning to Moïse about the postponement of the elections and the decision by decree.
“The Haitian people deserve the opportunity to elect their leaders and restore Haiti’s democratic institutions,” added Price.
Moïse has led by presidential decree since last year, after suspending two-thirds of the Senate, the entire Chamber of Deputies and all the country’s mayors. Haiti now has just 11 elected officials to represent its 11 million people, with Moïse refusing to hold any elections in the past four years.
Moïse is trying to expand his presidential powers in the coming months, changing the country’s constitution. A referendum on the new constitution is scheduled for April, and the opposition fears the vote is not free or fair and only encourages its emerging authoritarian tendencies, says Moïse denies.
André Michel, 44, leader of the opposition coalition, the Democratic and Popular Sector, promised that if the president did not resign, the opposition would make more protests and engage in civil disobedience.
“There is no debate,” he said. “Your term is over.”
The opposition hopes to exploit the discontent of millions of unemployed Haitians – more than 60% of the country lives in poverty – to fuel the protests, which in the past have often turned violent and closed large parts of the country.
Although the president has never been weaker – hidden inside the presidential palace, he is unable to move freely even in the capital – observers say he has a good chance of remaining in office. A weak and weak opposition is plagued by internal struggles and fails to reach an agreement on how to remove Mr. Moïse from power or with whom to replace him.
Political uncertainty has sown feelings of dread, with fears that street demonstrations in the coming days will turn violent and plunge the country into a long period of unrest.
Zamor, a 57-year-old driver who gave only the middle name for fear of reprisals, said his daughter was abducted on the street in Port-au-Prince, the capital, last month. He now keeps his three children at home and prevents them from attending school.
“People need to have confidence in the state,” said Zamor, adding that the government “is full of kidnappers and gang members.”
Before the kidnapping epidemic, Haitians could listen to music with their neighbors on the street, play dominoes, go to the beach and mourn with friends and neighbors about their economic despair. But now the fear of being kidnapped invades the streets, making daily routine activities difficult.
“The regime has delegated power to the bandits,” said Pierre Espérance, 57, a leading human rights activist.
“The country is now gangsterized – what we are experiencing is worse than during the dictatorship,” he said, referring to the brutal autocratic regime of the Duvalier family that lasted almost 30 years, until 1986.
Haitians suspect that the proliferation of gangs in the past two years has been supported by Moïse to stifle any dissent. In the beginning, gangs targeted opposition neighborhoods and attacked protests demanding better living conditions. But gangs may have grown a lot to be domesticated and now seem to be operating everywhere.
In December, the United States Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Moïse’s close allies – including the former director general of the Interior Ministry – for providing political protection and weapons to gangs targeting areas of opposition.
The sanctions highlighted a five-day attack last May that terrified neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince. The Treasury Department said that gang members, with coverage and support from government officials, raped women and set fire to houses.
The government denies supporting any gang.
Tourism has stopped, and the vast Haitian diaspora in the United States and elsewhere is moving away from the country.
“Things are getting more and more difficult since the arrival of Jovenel Moïse,” said Marvens Pierre, 28, a craftsman who was trying to sell souvenirs in a public square in the capital.
He entrusted his two young children to his mother because she was receiving remittances from abroad and had money to feed them. He said he was finding it difficult to sell his products.
“I can easily go two weeks without being able to sell my stuff,” lamented Pierre. “This morning I had to ask a neighbor for her soap to bathe.”
Harold Isaac and Andre Paultre reported from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Maria Abi-Habib from Mexico City. Kirk Semple contributed reporting from Mexico City.