Front Burner - The assassination of Haiti’s president

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

After months of rising political violence, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by heavily armed gunmen in the presidential residence. Widlore Mérancourt, a Haitian journalist, joins host Jayme Poisson for the latest from Port-au-Prince.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Haiti's President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in his home by a group of armed men. His wife was also seriously injured.

Haiti has been roiled by more than a year of escalating protests against the Moise government and a lot of gang violence. And now this assassination has plunged the country into even deeper chaos. Today, what we know so far about Moise's assassination and the state of the country. My guest is Weedlor Marenkor. He's the editor-in-chief of the Aibo Post, an online news platform in Haiti. Wilar, thank you so much for making the time today. I know you're very, very busy, so we're very appreciative. Thank you. What is the atmosphere in Port-au-Prince like right now? Okay, so it's a very tense situation and there is a lot of confusion.

A lot of people that I'm talking to are trying to buy as much bread as they can. They are trying to have food in their homes because one person told me in Port-au-Prince that a storm is probably coming. So they don't know what happened last night when the president was assassinated. They don't know who conducted the assassination. So they don't really know what's coming because you are in a country where a large swath of the country is controlled by gangs. And sometimes these gangs people are having more guns than the police they are heavily armed um and uh it's it in this situation it doesn't take a lot uh for the country to be in chaos i know that there's still so much that's that's unclear here but but what do we know

so far about how President Moise was assassinated and the people who carried out that attack? Okay, as I'm talking to you, we have more questions than answers. What we know as fact is that the president was killed this morning at 1 a.m. A group of people armed went to his residence, his personal residence, and they killed him. And his wife was wounded, and she is in a hospital in the U.S. right now to be taken care of. Videos and testimonies of witnesses are telling us that the persons who conducted the attack were crying, this is a DEA operation, this is a DEA operation, don't shoot.

If you shoot, we will have to shoot back. DEA operation, everybody stand down. DEA operation, everybody stand down. And I contacted personally the U.S. Embassy in Haiti asking if there were a DEA operation during that time. They are telling me no, we don't know anything about a DEA operation during that time, they are telling me, no, we don't know anything about a DEA operation. And they are saying that the U.S. doesn't take part in the assassination of the president. So the prime minister went to the TV this morning to say

the persons who conducted the attack were speaking English and Spanish. And I can hear from at least one of the videos, one of the person crying the yay was speaking in English and Creole at the same time. So we have a lot of speculations with regard to who did this. Are they armed people, mercenaries, people bringing this country to kill the president? Are they people who were inside the country? Because we have commanders in Haiti. We have folks who can conduct this type of operation in this country

because a lot of people are heavily armed. And it's not that hard to find a couple of people to do this type of thing. We don't know. We have a lot of speculation and not a lot of facts. And you mentioned the prime minister just there. I understand in the wake of the killing of the president, it's not really clear who should be taking over lead of the country. So who is in charge of the country at the moment? Because there is no legal pathways. He's really putting the whole country in doubt.

And can you tell me, can you tell me about that? Yes, the Prime Minister Claude Joseph, he resigned recently because he was replaced by Ariel Henry as a new Prime Minister. This Prime Minister had as mission to reunite the opposition and conduct the elections. But the decree that declared Ariel as Prime Minister went out in the official paper of Haiti. But he had yet to sworn in, and this sworn-in activity was supposed to be conducted this week. But as the president died, there was a vacuum in the head of the state

in terms of who is conducting the government and who is talking to the international community and so on. And the interim prime minister step up and fill this position. But at the same time, if you talk to oppositions, if you talk to politicians, and if you talk to all sorts of people, they are telling you, this guy, I mean, this prime minister, he is very controversial. They don't want him there. He resigned. He's not supposed to be conducting affairs in the name of the government in Haiti. He don't have any legal or moral authority

whatsoever. So one lawyer told me that we are in a vacuum because there is nothing in the books that is telling you how you deal with a situation like that. Wow, wow, wow. And I just, for our listeners, I'll point out the current prime minister, the man who has been speaking to the country. It's a man named Claude Joseph. I ask the population to remain calm.

I appeal to the intelligence of the Haitian people in these difficult times. I gathered the ministers and we decided to declare a state of emergency in the country. I want to talk to you a little bit about sort of what led to this. There have been protests against Moïse's government since he first came to power in 2017, but things really escalated in January of 2020. And can you tell me about what happened then and how Moïse responded at the time? Okay, so Jovenel Moïse is a controversial figure in Haiti. His name, his personal name and his company are cited in several corruption cases in Haiti. And he is someone who, during his terms, registered the many mass protests against his own government.

These men chant, Moise is a thief. His critics say he took office under bad circumstances, but made them much, much worse. Jovenel doesn't have any respect for the Constitution. You are a thief, Jovenel Moise. You don't any respect for the constitution You're a thief Jovenel Moïse You don't have respect for the constitution He presided over a country in turmoil Almost all the time You have gang people, gang members

Controlling according to one human rights organization About 30% of the country And this 30% of the country is a large swath of the country Because it's where a lot of people live. And last year, what happened in 2020 is he declared that the parliament is ineffective and unilaterally, he says that some senators would not be able to continue, even when there was debate with regard to if their mandate expired. And this year, people were using the same logic he used then to remove a couple of senators, but he refused to step down, saying that his mandate wasn't expired.

And since then, a large part of the opposition did not consider him as president of the country, effectively, even though he had the backing of the international community, mainly the U.S., France. It was on this background of constitutional crisis and political crisis that you have a worsen insecurity climate. Remember, just last week, 20 people were killed in Port-au-Prince.

Among them, you had a high-profile human rights and political activist and a journalist. And according to the report of NDDH, which is the leading human rights organization in Haiti, the gang that did the job, I mean the killing, the murders, were doing it in the name of a group that is allegedly closed to the government. allegedly closed to the government. And a couple of weeks before that, you had the clash between gangs that caused a lot of people to be killed in impoverished areas.

And a lot of people had to flee. Thousands of people flee their homes and are trying to seek shelter because of this situation, this insecurity situation. So it's a very dire situation that was already very critical with 4.4 million people in severe needs of food that you have now a vacuum in power. that you have now a vacuum in power. And you will probably have a struggle with regard to who is the president and who will be able to conduct a transition and get Haiti back to its foot.

How did Moise respond to people in groups that challenged his power? Well, he was a very stubborn president. His opponent would tell you that he's not someone who was listening to opponents and he was not someone either who listened to the international community. Well, a couple of examples. He was trying to change the constitution. He was doing that in an illegal manner because he was trying to organize the referendum. But the 1987 constitution, which is the longest constitution in terms of duration in the history of Haiti, this constitution forbids referendums because we have a bloody history of constitutions being changed by referendum in this country. Protesters insist it's vital.

We consider the 1987 constitution to be the birth certificate of Haiti's democracy. So that's why we're here in the streets defending our constitution, this huge democratic gain that the Haitian people made so many sacrifices to achieve. One person, one group, a clique can't change it. If the constitution needs to be changed, the whole country must agree to it. The U.S., for instance, and several other organizations and actors were telling the president, you can do that, you shouldn't do that. And the U.N UN actually put out a statement

saying, oh, the way that you are doing this is not inclusive enough. So we think that we should not go there. The European Parliament sent out a press release to condemn, you know, this process. But the president was stubborn to go there anyway. Moise defended his right to change the constitution. I'm not the first president to want to do this. President Praval, who served two terms, tried to amend the constitution. And you see how that failed. He said at the time that this constitution

is a cancer for the country. And according to his opponents, he was doing that because he wanted to shield himself from persecution, because inside the proposed constitution, he would not be able to be prosecuted by the justice system after his term. And a lot of people would not be able to do that neither. The U.S. and Canada, too, have also supported the Moise government. And what has the impact of that been, you think? Well, I talked to Samuel Magistin, who is one high-profile human rights leader in Haiti. is one high-profile human rights leader in Haiti.

She told me that the international community spent the last years speaking only and listening only to the government because they were supporting the government and it's time for them to listen to the people because if they were listening to the people, what is happening may not have happened. So lots of people will tell you in Haiti that the international community is at least morally complicit with regard to the situation right now.

If they exerted the pressure that they could have exerted at the time, probably the situation would not have gotten as dire as it is now. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix.

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Before we go today, I did want to ask you, you know, you talked before about the journalist that was killed in Port-au-Prince just last week. And I wonder, you know, have you personally felt concerned for your own safety? Okay. I don't know if I'm concerned about my own safety as a journalist, but I am very worried. At least five journalists were killed during the mandate of President Jovenel Moïse. It's a bloody record. And just last year, in October last year, I was the victim of an attempt of kidnapping. And I escaped. I was lucky. I was not killed and I was not kidnapped. But anything can happen. And in this volatile situation where you don't know who's holding the cards

and you don't really know who's doing what, anything can happen. And when you don't have a national police that is effective, that can do its work and investigate and make sure that if a killing happened, the folks who did it can be prosecuted. You don't have any guarantee. I have colleagues who died. Most of my colleagues who died, we don't hear anything about them.

And most people actually who died during this administration terms have not yet had justice. You have Montserrat de Roval, who is a high-profile lawyer, a batonnier in Haiti, the head of lawyers. He was killed, assassinated, and nothing is telling us who did the killing. And the persons conducting the investigation were reporting on the press that they are being threatened.

The police that was supposed to protect the magistrate that was conducting the inquiry in terms of investigation reported that he don't have that anymore. So he's like, I mean, what he tried to say, he can be assassinated anytime. Wow. Laura, you know, I really want to thank you for this and also for the incredibly courageous work that you are doing right now. I hope that you stay safe out there. Thank you.

We are doing our best. All right. So a significant update before we go today. Late Wednesday night, Haiti's police chief announced that four people suspected of being involved in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise had been killed and two had been arrested. This happened during a gun battle with police, according to the police chief. We're following developments in this story really closely, and we'll keep you updated. But that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner, and we'll talk to you soon. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.