Haiti’s government has declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew after an explosion of gang-led violence over the weekend saw thousands of prisoners escape after assaults on the country’s two biggest prisons.
The 72-hour state of emergency went into immediate effect as the government said it would set out to find the killers, kidnappers and other violent criminals it said it had escaped in the attacks.
“The police were ordered to use all legal means at their disposal to enforce the curfew and apprehend all offenders,” said a statement from Finance Minister Patrick Boisvert, who is acting as prime minister while Ariel Henry is overseas trying to salvage support for a United Nations-backed security force to stabilise the country in its conflict with increasingly powerful crime groups.
Gangs led by Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer known as Barbecue, are trying to force Henry from power.
Pierre Esperance of the National Network for Defense of Human Rights said only about 100 of the National Penitentiary’s estimated 3,800 inmates remained inside after the assault on Saturday night.
“We counted many prisoners’ bodies,” he added.
@MindfulTermiteGreen3mos3MO
Is it a mere coincidence that a significant chunk of what’s deemed as ‘third-world’ countries were former colonies?
Which is not to suggest all the failings can be attributed to colonialism. But it would be disingenuous to suggest that it plays no role in the continuing poverty of these countries. It takes generations of nation building to emerge from subjugation and loot that was inflicted by colonialism.
Nations, such a Haiti, which were colonized by European aristocracies were not nations prior to being colonized. Haitians who are descendants of former slaves are of African descent because their African ancestors were kidnapped and sold into slavery by European colonizers.
These countries weren’t “easy targets” prior to being colonized. They were largely unpopulated, or populated with native people who didn’t adhere to any European political zeitgeist. In fact, they had never heard of Europe at all.
India was a British colony with borders drawn in London and with assets defended by the Royal Navy. The region had a rich human and cultural history prior to English colonization.
Germany and Japan are completely different as well. Both are former colonial powers themselves, for example.
I always wondered why Haiti had such grinding poverty. Was it from hurricanes? Political corruption? I had no idea that French, American and Corporate Colonialism had such a pernicious effect. Getting the story out is the first step. Of many....
@Patriot-#1776Constitution3mos3MO
British & American colonisation spread civilisation and rule of law to barbarous peoples and lifted many from poverty
@Patriot-#1776Constitution3mos3MO
Haiti is unsuccessful not because it was once owned by France but because it was created by utterly uneducated slaves who didn't understand free government and how to operate a prosperous society – and that ignorance still has not been lifted from that unhappy island.
@Patriot-#1776Constitution3mos3MO
Hate to burst your bubble, but European colonisation in general, and British colonisation in particular, were positive goods in the world. Take for example, Africa – a dark continent populated by barbarian tribes who constantly enslaved one another, enslaved on million white people, were always warring with one another, and mass-murdered other tribes by burning them alive and then eating their roasted corpses. Britain came to this hellish continent and what did it go? In 1807, it abolished the slave trade throughout the Empire – the first Nation in history to do so – and wen… Read more
@FearlessKoalaSocialist3mos3MO
It’s not a coincidence but not for the reason you’re implying. The nations which were colonized never made progress before and were easy targets.
If was about the destruction of colonialism, Indian wouldn’t be a world leader. And, nations like Germany and Japan, which were decimated following war(s) would not be some of the wealthiest nations.
@D1rectAbaloneDemocrat3mos3MO
No mere coincidence…many former colonies are offshoots of enterprises developed to exploit people and nature, to the benefit of European elites - kings, merchants, adventurers. They were not born as nation building, but as profit making projects.
In fact, the few colonies that did succeed, at least economically - take the USA as an example - were born out of a project by people who were escaping oppression and looking for a new land to build a new society.
the difference between the two models is that in the former established governance institutions were more extractive in nature, whe… Read more
@C0nstituti0nMandrillUnity3mos3MO
While I was in college in 1987, I spent weeks in Haiti and wrote a 120 page honors thesis on why copious US and NGO economic assistance had no impact on Haiti while it had a major impact on the Dominican Republic. It became a World Bank white paper. I fell in love with the country and its people. Over the next decades, I helped support several college students and build a factory there. It was like throwing money into the wind. The students left for the US and the factory failed when the managers pocketed over half the investment capital.
France and the United States’ venal actions certa… Read more
@ThriftyCoyoteTranshumanist3mos3MO
While I am on the minister of defense and have no authority on foreign affairs. The Jamaica Defense Force should be deployed on the North coast including the coast guard.
@ISIDEWITH3mos3MO
@ISIDEWITH3mos3MO
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