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Haiti gripped by violent protests, rage against president
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Sept 28, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Angry protests rumbled through
Haiti and its capital of Port-au-Prince Friday as thousands of people took to
the streets against President Jovenel Moise, drawing tear gas from police as
demonstrators looted and threw stones.
Protesters took over a police station in the impoverished Cite Soleil
neighborhood, making off with sheet metal roofing, furniture and police
protection equipment, only slightly slowed by the air wafting with tear gas.
“Now we are taking whatever we need to better our homes because we are
tired of getting soaked when it rains,” said Steven Edgard, a protester.
In the early hours of the day, groups of young people prevented traffic
from circulating on some of Port-au-Prince’s main arteries.
Lamp posts, burning tires, tree trunks and piles of trash were used to
create barricades under the helpless gaze of police patrols.
Violent clashes later broke out as protestors threw stones in response to
tear gas. Shots were also heard ringing out from the melee.
After the demonstrators were dispersed, several shops were looted in the
wealthiest areas of the capital.
The day’s demonstrations were part of a larger wave of protests that have
rocked Haiti throughout the week as the country’s inhabitants voiced anger
over Moise, who is implicated in several corruption scandals.
Protestors rejected a “truce” proposed by Moise in a rare address broadcast
to the nation on Wednesday, in which he appealed for national reconciliation
and a unity government.
In June, judges of Haiti’s High Court of Auditors said in a report that
Moise was at the center of an “embezzlement scheme” that had siphoned off
Venezuelan aid money intended for road repairs, laying out a litany of
examples of corruption and mismanagement.
The aid money came through Venezuela’s PetroCaribe program, which had
allowed Haiti to buy petroleum products at discount and on credit but which
was plagued by allegations of corruption.
However, the program has now been suspended for more than a year because of
deteriorating relations between Venezuela and the United States.
The suspension has meant that Haiti’s long-suffering population has been
faced with an extra burden: an ever-worsening fuel shortage that has resulted
in closed service stations, rising prices and long lines to buy petrol.
– Police gone –
Gary Desrosiers, a spokesman for the police, told AFP that all measures
were taken to “avoid clashes with the population” and that elite SWAT agents
had evacuated officers at the looted police station after the protests began.
The police had taken all of their weapons so that protestors could not
abscond with them, he said.
“We did not want the police to come out of their base because this is a
unit that fired real bullets at the people, that uses tear gas grenades when
all people want is to be respected,” said Edgard, the protestor.
One of the poorest countries in the Americas, three-fifths of Haiti’s
population lives below the poverty line of $2 a day.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0824 hrs