The violence between rival gangs that now dominates several parts of Port-au-Prince saw one of its worst manifestations beginning July 8, when two rival gangs began a shootout over control of the Brooklyn section of the capital’s largest slum, Cite Soleil. Residents were trapped, unable to leave or obtain food, water, or medical care; nor were ambulances or other vehicles allowed to enter. The toll of that rampage after five days was 89 dead, 74 wounded, many missing, with charred bodies visible, corpses left to rot, houses destroyed, and thousands of refugees, according to the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH).
Although not usually of the same magnitude, scenes like this are played out in neighborhoods across the capital daily as rival gangs vie for control, trapping citizens where they live, often engaging in barbaric acts of violence, murdering men, women, and children and forceably recruiting children. Citizens are driven from their communities, and thus there are tens of thousands of displaced people in Port-au-Prince. As the Miami Herald documented July 8, an underfunded, outgunned, and outmanned national police force struggles to combat the gangs, still waiting for the U.S. to provide promised training for a specialized SWAT team and the equipment it urgently needs. It lacks even the most basic protective gear and weapons that could match those of the gangs.
In this situation, providing humanitarian assistance is a nightmare. Gangs have blocked access roads into and out of the capital. Jean-Martin Bauer, country director for the World Food Program, warns that “the situation is spiraling out of control,” and “getting worse every day,” with at least 1.3 million people in the capital suffering from acute food insecurity. People can’t get to work; farmers from outside Port-au-Prince can’t get their products to market; gasoline is in short supply, and food inflation is running at 53%.
A thoughtful person is tempted to ask the same questions posed by the Archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Msgr. Max Leroy Mesidor, in response to the events of Cite Soleil. In a statement published by Le Nouvelliste July 13, he asked “who will slow down the ascent to Calvary of the Haitian people?"—Calvary, where Jesus Christ was crucified, a place of extreme anguish. “Where is the government?,” he continued. “Where are the Justice and Public Security officials? What does the proximity of so-called friendly countries of Haiti consist of? What are the various international meetings on the situation in Haiti for?”
Within the current system, there are no answers to those questions. That’s because Haiti’s descent into this hell—with no government to speak of, no functioning institutions, and an international community incapable of providing real solutions—is no accident, in the same way that Sri Lanka’s devastation and that of so many other African or Ibero-American or Caribbean nations is no accident. The rotting Trans-Atlantic system has no use for countries like Haiti or Sri Lanka. The Schiller Institute’s “Plan to Develop Haiti,” published in October of 2021, offers the means to liberate it from that disintegrating system as part of a broader development perspective involving the U.S. and other nations of the region, and China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
https://larouchepub.com/other/2021/4839-the_schiller_institute_plan_to.html
As more nations of the Global South align themselves with an emerging new order opposed to the “rules-based” imperial one, institutions like the BRICS and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the China-CELAC Forum can also play a positive role in uplifting Haiti and the Western Hemisphere’s other more impoverished nations.
