Haiti at Breaking Point as Economy Tanks and Violence Soars

Has Haiti ever been stable and functional?

Seems their best years were when Papa Doc was in charge. Which is certainly saying something.

a reply to: ElGoobero

I cannot find the post but a year or so ago there was a military contractor I believe that had done security functions all over the world in some of the worst places in the world and it was their opinion that Haiti was the worst place someone could be.

He said the level of corruption if unfathomable at at basically every level of life there. One thing I believe that he said was there is no garbage collection so essentially huge garbage piles are placed in streets and roads and the dead are just thrown in the garbage piles then the wild animals get the bodies and spread body parts and disease all over the place. Essentially it is a hell on earth and really remarkable considering how close to the US it is and how much aid had supposedly been spent there.

I had 2 relatives get sent there after an earthquake. They have refused to return several times. Nobody to be trusted in any way shape or form.. Not a safe place.

apnews.com...

Haiti awoke Tuesday stripped of its last democratically elected institution — this time, its Senate — an alarming development that solidifies what some call a de facto dictatorship nominally in charge of a country wracked by gang violence.

While only 10 senators had been symbolically representing the nation’s 11 million people in recent years because Haiti had failed to hold legislative elections since October 2019, their terms expired overnight, leaving Haiti without a single lawmaker in its House or Senate amid a spiraling political crisis. Organized crime groups have been running virtually unchecked since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, who himself had been ruling by decree.

“It’s a very grim situation,” said Alex Dupuy, a Haitian-born sociologist at Wesleyan University, “one of the worst crises that Haiti has had since the Duvalier dictatorship.”

if the UN isn't going to help, what good is it???

pray for Haiti

originally posted by: ElGoobero
apnews.com...

Haiti awoke Tuesday stripped of its last democratically elected institution — this time, its Senate — an alarming development that solidifies what some call a de facto dictatorship nominally in charge of a country wracked by gang violence.

While only 10 senators had been symbolically representing the nation’s 11 million people in recent years because Haiti had failed to hold legislative elections since October 2019, their terms expired overnight, leaving Haiti without a single lawmaker in its House or Senate amid a spiraling political crisis. Organized crime groups have been running virtually unchecked since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, who himself had been ruling by decree.

“It’s a very grim situation,” said Alex Dupuy, a Haitian-born sociologist at Wesleyan University, “one of the worst crises that Haiti has had since the Duvalier dictatorship.”

if the UN isn't going to help, what good is it???

pray for Haiti

The UN exists to serve the elites. It always has.

I hate to say it this way, but Haiti really has to get its own sh!t together.

originally posted by: AndyFromMichigan

originally posted by: ElGoobero
apnews.com...

Haiti awoke Tuesday stripped of its last democratically elected institution — this time, its Senate — an alarming development that solidifies what some call a de facto dictatorship nominally in charge of a country wracked by gang violence.

While only 10 senators had been symbolically representing the nation’s 11 million people in recent years because Haiti had failed to hold legislative elections since October 2019, their terms expired overnight, leaving Haiti without a single lawmaker in its House or Senate amid a spiraling political crisis. Organized crime groups have been running virtually unchecked since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, who himself had been ruling by decree.

“It’s a very grim situation,” said Alex Dupuy, a Haitian-born sociologist at Wesleyan University, “one of the worst crises that Haiti has had since the Duvalier dictatorship.”

if the UN isn't going to help, what good is it???

pray for Haiti

The UN exists to serve the elites. It always has.

I hate to say it this way, but Haiti really has to get its own sh!t together.

you're right of course.
but the handful of rich and powerful are too short-sighted. they only seek their own welfare.
in a working capitalist system, the rich hire human labor to enrich themselves, and the laborers are enriched in the process. everybody wins. I guess there just isn't enough wealth in Haiti to come to a mutually advantageous system.

www.npr.org...

The country has had no president since its last one, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in 2021. Its Senate is supposed to have 30 members, and its lower legislative chamber should have 119; all of those seats are unfilled. Haiti's elected mayors were all reappointed or replaced in 2020.

And last week, its 10 remaining senators departed office after their terms ended, leaving behind a nation's worth of elected offices that now sit empty after years of canceled elections.

I wonder if in the last few weeks the Port-au-Prince airport has seen an exodus of wealthy, bags packed with dollars and krugerrands, flying to Miami or similar points.

originally posted by: ElGoobero
pray for Haiti

I pray for whatever country they are fleeing to. Like the US(thanks, Joe Biden).

Because they will just bring their ****up culture with them.

a reply to: ElGoobero

The World Food Programme and partners are doing what they can.

www.wfp.org...

It's seems to a complex problem because the gangs and politicians are working together, sort of like a crime family.

a reply to: Charliebrowndog
Can it just be that some of our freedmen were somehow replaced after the Civil War? Perhaps by the very people who used to buy up condemned prisoners and sell them to slave forts on the African coast? They had lost their gig after the Civil War and Brazil's ending slavery in 1868, after all.

If you consider them as a separate nation, U.S.A. African Americans are the 15th wealthiest nation on Earth.

jamaica-gleaner.com...

More than a hundred protesters blocked roads, shot guns into the air, and broke through gates in the capital's airport and the Prime Minister's house, with tensions escalating throughout the day.

Gangs have killed at least 10 officers in the past week; another is missing and one more has severe bullet wounds, according to the Haitian National Police.

Video circulating social media — likely recorded by gangs — shows the naked and bloodied bodies of six men stretched out on the dirt, their guns laying on their chests. Another video shows two masked men who are smoking cigarettes from the dismembered hands and feet of the dead men.

a gang called Gan Grif is responsible for a lot of this. opposing them is the gang Fantom 509 described as 'an armed group of current and former police officers'.

The Bahamas has withdrawn all its embassy staff.
jamaica-star.com...

The Bahamas government has ordered an immediate departure of all diplomatic personnel from Haiti or as soon as security conditions permit

“Up to this time, there was a voluntary departure order in place and all staff at the embassy chose to stay. Per the new instructions, they are to leave for home as soon as conditions permit,” according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday night.

not getting any better.

news.un.org...

The full 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan, which will be launched on 19 April, comes at “a critical time”, said Ulrika Richardson, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti.

“With the situation in the country rapidly deteriorating, this year’s plan will address the most immediate humanitarian and protection needs while strengthening people’s and institution’s resilience to natural shocks,” she said.

“At the same time, what the people of Haiti desperately want is peace and security, and we should all support efforts to that end.”

Haiti has been in crisis for months and now the UN finally...makes a proposal.
do something already, UN.

originally posted by: ElGoobero

I wonder if in the last few weeks the Port-au-Prince airport has seen an exodus of wealthy, bags packed with dollars and krugerrands, flying to Miami or similar points.

www.wlrn.org...

The uptick in immigration across the country is directly affecting Miami-Dade County Public Schools, he said during the May 21 show.

"Just last year in our public school system, we had over 14,000 new children, 10,000 of which came from four countries of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti," Suarez said May 21.

USA so evil and racist let's go there

UN is still talking not doing

www.pbs.org...

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Thursday for a robust international force to help combat Haiti’s armed gangs and restore security in the impoverished nation, saying that a U.N. expert’s estimate that Haiti needs up to 2,000 additional anti-gang police officers is no exaggeration.

Stressing that the U.N. is not calling for a military force or a political mission, Guterres appealed to U.N. Security Council members and potential contributing countries “to act now” to deploy a multinational force to help the Haitian National Police “defeat and dismantle the gangs.”

The Caribbean nation has been asking for such a force since last October.

Haiti has no strategic value. It produces nothing of worth. The global community doesn't care.

shame on the UN for its lack of action.

It seems an impossible task to 'fix' it. Millions have been given to Haiti, but as par for the course, it never seems to find it's way to the masses that need it, instead it goes to the thieves in high positions.

What should be done though? How would one go about 'fixing' Haiti? The corruption is so deep and crime so integral for simple survival, it almost seems unattainable. And it's been bad for so long, the threads of their society are set. Some times humans are so mired in their own evil, they don't know how to get up and out. The immigrants are the smart ones. But alas, we all take our baggage with us wherever we go and they are no different. It's a tragedy what is happening.


"How do you combat evil when the whole world has lost its way and is governed by criminals?" Steven Segal in the movie Attrition

originally posted by: Dalamax
Well it looks like the need another round of Clinton.


a reply to: ElGoobero

HuH! What did the people of Haiti ever do to you?

a reply to: JIMC5499

They use to make Hanes men's underwear there.

originally posted by: Ohanka
Has Haiti ever been stable and functional?

Seems their best years were when Papa Doc was in charge. Which is certainly saying something.

Some relatives went to the Dominican Republic last week. I see its on the same "island" as Haiti. Is one country safe and other is not?

originally posted by: musicismagic
a reply to: JIMC5499

They use to make Hanes men's underwear there.

There's a specific kind of Hanes underwear I'm looking for that's now hard to find in stores. It doesn't have the elastic band that makes you itch. Instead the elastic is covered by cotton....the same material as the underwear itself.

originally posted by: carewemust

originally posted by: Ohanka
Has Haiti ever been stable and functional?

Seems their best years were when Papa Doc was in charge. Which is certainly saying something.

Some relatives went to the Dominican Republic last week. I see its on the same "island" as Haiti. Is one country safe and other is not?

yes, two countries on one island, divided by a mountain range.
apparently the DR is not a fun place but infinitely better than Haiti.
and they watch that border very closely.