This was something I wrote maybe a week ago or more, but never quite got around to publishing. Never quite got to finish it, but nevertheless, I want this to see the light of day and get published, and not get into the bad habit of writing things that never get published. This seems to happen to frequently. So here, now, I am remedying this, at least for this Haiti post:
Sometimes, it feels like certain places cannot catch a break. Haiti feels like one of those places.
Just in recent decades, I can recall Haiti being in the headlines, and mostly for all of the wrong reasons. There was the involvement by American forces during the Clinton administration to reinstate deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been removed from office and forced into exile following a coup d'état in 1991. Then, there was that horrible earthquake that simply devastated the nation, and lay much of the capital city of Port-au-Prince in rubble. An already impoverished, troubled nation – the poorest in the Western Hemisphere - just could not seem to catch a break. Remember, in between all of these things, Haiti is in the Caribbean, which means it has to deal with tropical storms and hurricanes on a regular basis during hurricane season each year.
Now this most recent tragedy. An assassination of a sitting president, another violent removal of the nation’s leader. The country is in a troubled state, and this obviously has shaken the nation like almost nothing else could have done. There is political instability in a nation already famous, or rather infamous, for it already.
Update: It appears that they have arrested some of the people who may have been involved in the assassination. There are connections with Florida. Apparently, it was indeed a coup attempt, with a successor imagining that he could just take over with a violent overthrow.
However, the political situation is still very turbulent and remains in doubt.
The situation in Haiti always seems so bleak and hopeless, and it's not difficult to understand why so many Haitians emigrate to the US, Canada, France or elsewhere. As if natural disasters and rampant poverty, violence and corruption weren't enough to contend with, stuff like this seems to happen there with depressing frequency. According to Wikipedia, there were no fewer than six coups in the 20th century alone, and another one in 2004. And now of course Jovenel Moïse has been murdered. While I can't claim to know anything about his policies or character, the peaceful transition of power is something Haiti desperately needs if it's to achieve any measure of stability, let alone prosperity.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. This certainly will not help it achieve stability or prosperity anytime soon, that's for sure.
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