Four South Florida men were found guilty on Friday of conspiring to kidnap or kill Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, who was assassinated in his home outside Port-au-Prince on July 7, 2021, plunging the Caribbean country deeper into political turmoil and gang-fueled chaos.
The verdict, delivered by a 12-member jury in federal court in Miami, came nearly five years after the assassination, following 39 days of testimony over almost nine weeks. The jury spent just over two days deliberating, after sending a question to the judge about one of the nine charges related to the shipment of bulletproof vests to mercenaries in Haiti, a country under a U.S. arms embargo.
The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Albert R. Ramdin, today presented an update to member states on the Organization’s work in support of Haiti, highlighting concrete progress in political facilitation, electoral preparation, security support, international coordination, and strengthening the Organization’s institutional presence in the country.
During his remarks, the Secretary General underscored that the OAS’s efforts have focused on supporting Haitian-led solutions, strengthening coordination among national and international actors, and advancing toward a more structured implementation phase of the Roadmap for Stability and Peace in Haiti.
The assassination of Haiti’s president on July 7, 2021, was the culmination of three months of planning that began in South Florida, where the four defendants on trial and others met to overthrow the country’s leader in their quest for power, contracts and money in Haiti, according to the indictment. All four defendants face up to life in prison if they are convicted of conspiring to kidnap or kill Haiti’s president. The indictment includes several other counts related to the conspiracy charge.
The planned reopening of air travel between Haiti and the Dominican Republic has been postponed, with Dominican authorities citing the need to finalize a comprehensive security protocol before commercial flights can resume.
According to officials, the delay stems from the need to complete a joint security framework governing passenger and cargo flights. The protocol is expected to include coordinated measures covering health screening, immigration procedures, and aviation security standards.
En Haïti, le Conseil électoral provisoire propose une réforme qui impose un minimum de 30 000 membres par parti et une exclusion de six ans pour ceux sous les 3 % des voix, soulevant de vifs débats sur l’équilibre démocratique.
Haïti veut faire le ménage dans son paysage politique… mais à quel prix ? Le Conseil électoral provisoire propose de durcir drastiquement les règles du jeu.
Concerns of Haiti’s problematic political culture, and authorities’ failure to send the right signals about its culture of impunity, were recently echoed by departing foreign diplomats, particularly the representatives of the United States, France and Canada. Reflecting on his battle with the presidential council before its ejection from power, the U.S. chargé d’affaires, Henry T. Wooster, told Le Nouvelliste newspaper in a departing interview that “the most glaring problem we had with” the nine-member panel “was the deep-seated criminal corruption,” followed by “its predatory political nature, the inability to govern and the fueling of chaos.”
Même si les 13 000 inscriptions annoncées pour la journée du 3 août témoignent d'une progression sensible par rapport au début de la campagne, le rythme devrait encore être multiplié par plus de trois pour atteindre l'objectif de trois millions et par plus de quatre pour atteindre celui de quatre millions.
Même si visiblement la population n’est pas encore emballée par l’idée des élections cette année, les organisations politiques, quant à elles, se mobilisent et les futurs candidats à la présidence tentent de se positionner dans les coulisses.
Il est des moments dans l’histoire d’une nation où chaque citoyen est appelé à dépasser ses déceptions, ses doutes et même ses colères pour répondre à une exigence plus grande que lui-même : celle de préserver l’avenir collectif. Les prochaines élections en Haïti constituent l’un de ces moments décisifs. Elles ne représentent pas seulement un exercice constitutionnel ou une formalité politique ; elles sont une épreuve de maturité démocratique, un test de notre capacité à reprendre en main notre destin commun.