After the President is assassinated: Haiti calls in international troops

A Haitian minister requested US and UN troops after President Moïse was assassinated. The soldiers are supposed to secure strategically important places. The US has already rejected the request. There have been three more arrests.

A representative of the Haitian government has requested US and UN troops to secure strategically important locations after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. “During a conversation with the US Secretary of State and the UN, we made this request,” said Mathias Pierre, the minister responsible for electoral matters, to the AFP news agency on Friday.

The soldiers were to be deployed, among other things, to secure the ports and the airport. The UN did not comment at first. The US declined the request. The United States has no plans to provide military aid to Haiti “at this point,” said a senior US government official.

Since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise on Wednesday morning, the country has fallen deeper into a political crisis that could exacerbate growing hunger, gang violence and the Covid-19 outbreak.

Three more arrests

According to the police, the murder of Moïse is on the account of a mercenary group from abroad. The National Police of the Caribbean state reported the arrests of three other men from Colombia on Friday. She had previously demonstrated 15 Colombians and two Americans who allegedly carried out the attack in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Five more Colombians were still wanted. Three alleged perpetrators were killed.

From whom the murder squad got the order remained unclear. The 53-year-old president was attacked at his residence on Wednesday night and then shot. Moïse’s wife Martine was seriously injured. She is now being treated in the US city of Miami. According to the police, the murder squad consisted of 28 heavily armed men.

Colombia’s Defense Minister Diego Molano confirmed the involvement of his country’s citizens. According to initial information, they are former soldiers, said Molano in a video. According to a report in the New York Times, the two Americans said they had been hired as interpreters. The actual plan was to bring Moïse to the National Palace – but not to kill him.

US authorities should help with investigations

Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond, said the attackers pretended to be agents of the US drug agency DEA. In the future, US authorities will also help with the investigation. At the request of Haiti, senior officials from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security would be sent to the capital Port-au-Prince as soon as possible, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

The attack leaves a power vacuum in the Caribbean country. Since a parliamentary election scheduled for October 2019 was canceled due to violent protests against Moïse, among other things, there has no longer been a functioning parliament there since January 2020. Moïse has since ruled by decree. So far, presidential and parliamentary elections and a constitutional referendum are planned for September 26th.

Hull Senate elects transitional president

Haiti’s Senate elected its previous President Joseph Lambert as Moïse’s interim successor on Friday. “I express my modest gratitude to the political institutions that support me,” Lambert wrote on Twitter. He wants to pave the way for a democratic change of power.

However, the Senate – the upper house of the Haitian Parliament – has no longer had a quorum since January 2010. It was therefore initially unclear whether Lambert could actually take office. Because a parliamentary election scheduled for October 2019 was canceled due to violent protests against Moïse, among other things, there are only 10 out of 30 senators whose terms of office have not expired. Nobody sits in the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies. According to media reports, eight of the ten senators voted for Bertrand, two abstained.

Previously, several political actors in the Caribbean state, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic, agreed on Lambert as interim head of state on Friday. This emerges from a letter signed by representatives of several parties and movements – including the conservative PHTK, of which Moïse was a member. However, the signatures of some important forces were also missing.