Haiti, without a president and without a state one year after the assassination of Jovenel Moïse

Few countries emerge unscathed from the assassination of their president in his bed, but if it is Haiti, an assassination is the prelude to the ICU.

When on the night of July 7 a group of Colombian hit men entered Jovenel Moïse's room and shot him twice in the chest, once in the forehead, once in the abdomen and three more times in the hip after his death, no they not only ended the life of their ruler, but also pushed the Caribbean country a little further down the slope it has been rolling down for decades.

A year later, there are 40 detainees, but the trial is still bogged down and 18 Colombian hitmen are waiting in a prison in Port-au-Prince in subhuman conditions.

While they wait, on the other side of the prison walls, the country has been decomposing day by day, splicing one misfortune after another.

In the last year, the prime minister, Ariel Henry, was uninjured in a gun attack while leaving mass;

the presidential elections were postponed without a date;

an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 caused more than 2,000 deaths;

feared drug kingpin Jeremy Barbecue emerged;

violent gangs kidnapped 17 American missionaries and Hurricane Grace left thousands of families destitute.

One year later,

It is difficult to know if Moïse's murder was the start of the list of misfortunes or if his death is only part of the chain of tragedies in which the country is immersed, political putrefaction included.

According to Gédeon Jean, from the Center for Analysis and Research on Human Rights (CARDH), with the assassination of the president "the judicial and political disaster in which the country was involved only accelerated," he explains in an interview with EL PAÍS from Port-au-Prince .

The mercenaries responsible for the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse on July 8, 2021. Odelyn Joseph (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

On the night of July 6-7, in bed, next to Moïse, there was also the first lady, Martine Moïse, and the only good news from that night of blood, shooting and chases between police and murderers in the dark through Petion Ville is who came out alive.

The 48-year-old woman was shot twice in the arm, one in the hand and another in her abdomen.

However, she arrived alive at a Miami hospital and is fully recovered.

Currently, she lives in a hidden place in the north of the country, where she ponders whether or not to stand for election, according to sources close to her widow.

Her environment is divided between those who ask her to forget about politics in a fratricidal country that has discovered how easy it is to kill inside the presidential house and those who surrounded her husband, those who encourage her to lead a political movement that, according to your surveys,

I would give him the victory easily.

For Martine Moïse, the murderers of her husband are still free and only from power is it possible to do justice, some of those who are part of this second group explain to this newspaper.

Meanwhile, at the head of the country is the Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, elected just one day before the assassination, and who should call elections that were postponed several years ago.

One of the reasons for the crime, according to

is that Moïse's killers were trying to find a list with names of well-known Haitian politicians and businessmen that was supposed to be sent to the United States.

The theory, argued by Moïse himself in his last interview with a media outlet -the one he gave to EL PAÍS on February 28, 2021, four months before his murder- is that a group of families linked to the electricity sector, which he faced during his administration, assured that there was a coup d'état underway led by these oligarchs who "tried to take over the country."

The fact is that although the operation to end him was a success, in which five vehicles were used, almost 30 foreign ex-military personnel and significant logistics of megaphones and vests to pass themselves off as DEA agents during a mission, the escape of the sicarios, on the other hand, was a total disaster.

Of the 26 Colombians who participated in the murder, two died, six escaped and 18 were arrested in the hours that followed.

Those arrested await trial in a Haitian prison.

Colombia and the Colombian military associations have not forgotten about them and are pressing for repatriation or, in the best of cases, a speedy trial that does not come.

The former soldiers recently denounced in a letter that they are suffering torture, threats and inhuman confinement.

First Lady Martine Moise during a memorial service for her late husband, President Jovenel Moïse, at the National Pantheon Museum, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on July 21, 2021. Odelyn Joseph (AP)

Among the intellectual authors are two Americans and Joseph Félix Badio, a former official of the Haitian Ministry of Justice, considered to be the person who gave the order to the hired Colombian mercenaries.

The eyes also point to Prime Minister Henry because he spoke with Badio on the day of the assassination.

Another of those involved is former senator John Joël Joseph, arrested in Jamaica, accused of handing over weapons to the military.

Island authorities deported him to Colombia, but he was captured during a stopover in Panama and sent to Florida.

There he is awaiting a court hearing to answer charges of conspiracy to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States and providing material support.

Among those implicated are also a DEA informant and Haitian businessmen Desir Gordon Phenil and Ashkard Peter Joseph;

as well as Supreme Court Justice Windelle Coq Thelot.

Last October, another Colombian suspect, Marco Antonio Palacios, was arrested in Jamaica and extradited to the United States, where he is charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

The investigation and the possibility of a trial stalled after Judge Garry Orélien resigned in January, citing personal reasons for leaving the case.

He is the umpteenth magistrate to drop the case.

The five previous judges were also threatened and in October the judicial office where the collected evidence was kept was burned.

Recently, the former Colombian vice president and foreign minister, Marta Lucía Ramírez, criticized the ineffectiveness of Haitian justice and in a meeting with the press, Ramírez also said that the honorary consul in Port-au-Prince, Julio Santa, had been threatened for defending the rights of Colombians.

The power vacuum left by Moïse's death has been filled by violent gangs, increasingly armed, who have made kidnapping and managing the port and gasoline their way of life.

In October, 17 Americans who were part of a religious group were kidnapped by a gang known as the 400 Mawozo, which means something like "the 400 of the people."

The millionaire income generated by the kidnapping, which was resolved after the payment of the ransoms, has given more strength to these gangs.

An altar with flowers as a tribute to President Jovenel Moïse, in front of the National Palace, in Port-au-Prince. Orlando Barría (EFE)

According to Gédeon Jean, director of the Center for Human Rights (CARDH), the organization of reference to explain the phenomenon of violent gangs that control 60% of the country -according to their own data-, Haiti is experiencing the emergence of a "monster" that He has weapons and money while he shakes the neighborhoods with a political discourse that blames the State for the poverty in which they live, he says in a telephone conversation.

“We are witnessing the creation of a Somalia in the Americas,” academic Ralph P. Chevry predicted more than a year ago in

While all this is happening, not a single day has stopped the arrival of planes from the United States with thousands of deported Haitian migrants, abandoned to their fate in the country after several years abroad.

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