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Haiti president tells protesters ‘go home’ after fuel hike suspended
PORT-AU-PRINCE, July 8, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise
called on protesters late Saturday to “go home” after the suspension of a
fuel price hike that triggered violent protests and left at least two dead in
the Caribbean nation.
In an address broadcast on state television, Moise said he had “corrected
what had to be corrected” following an about-face on the price increases
earlier that day.
“As soon as you speak, I listen. Because you started sending me this
message last night, I received it and corrected what had to be corrected,”
Moise said.
“To those watching me tonight, I ask you all: go home,” he said, adding
authorities had been directed to clean the streets.
The capital Port-au-Prince and its environs have stood paralyzed since
Friday afternoon, with major routes blocked by barricades, some made of
burning tires, and some protesters even calling for a revolution in the
impoverished country.
Just before the suspension was announced, the leader of Haiti’s lower house
of parliament had threatened a government takeover if the fuel price
increases were not reversed.
They had only been announced on Friday, while many Haitians were engrossed
in a World Cup football match.
“If there is no response within two hours, the government will be
considered as having resigned” and the legislature will take charge, Gary
Bodeau, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, told AFP.
Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant then announced on Twitter suspension of
the price increases, writing that “violence and democracy are fundamentally
incompatible.”
Even before the fuel price controversy, deputies had already begun a debate
on his future, and Saturday’s U-turn could lead to the government’s fall.
On Friday night, the bodyguard of an opposition-party politician died in an
altercation with demonstrators in central Port-au-Prince as he attempted to
get through a roadblock. His body was then burned in the road.
On Saturday afternoon, an AFP journalist saw a young man shot dead.
A supermarket and other businesses were looted and vehicles burned, mainly
in the wealthy areas of Petionville.
Similar angry protests broke out in Cap-Haitien, the second-largest city,
as well as in the communes of Les Cayes, Jacmel and Petit-Goave.
Internet service suffered difficulties, although it was unclear whether
there was a link to the unrest.
“We’re seeing a little bit more calm right now,” an American, Stacy
Librandi Bourne, told CNN from Port-au-Prince where, the news network said,
she was among 50 American tourists, children and missionaries unable to leave
the Oasis Hotel because of the unrest.
– ‘Do not destroy’ –
The troubles were sparked by a government announcement that gasoline prices
would rise by 38 percent, diesel by 47 percent and kerosene by 51 percent
starting this weekend.
Protests prompted several major airlines, including American, Air France,
Delta, Jet Blue and Copa, to cancel flights to Port-au-Prince, at least
through midday Saturday.
“I ask your patience because our administration has a vision, a clear
program,” Lafontant, a doctor by profession and political novice, had
appealed hours before the suspension.
“Do not destroy, because every time it’s Haiti that becomes poorer.”
Haiti is still recovering from Hurricane Matthew which struck in 2016.
Almost 40,000 people remain in makeshift camps after an earthquake killed
more than 200,000 people eight years ago, and thousands of others have died
from a years-long cholera epidemic.
– Controversial subsidies –
The national police director also pleaded urgently for calm.
“We understand your right to protest,” said Michel-Ange Gedeon. “But we do
not understand the violence.”
At least two police stations and several police vehicles were burned.
A framework signed in February between the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and Haiti implied the ending of subsidies for petroleum products, which
are a major source of the budget deficit.
But subsidies also help make fuel affordable in the Western Hemisphere’s
poorest country, where most people live in extreme poverty, joblessness is
widespread and the inflation rate has exceeded 13 percent for the past three
years.
Arguing in support of the higher fuel prices earlier in the day, Lafontant
said that between 2010 and 2018, government fuel subsidies had cost $1
billion. That amount, he said, “could have allowed us to build many
kilometers (miles) of highway… many classrooms… many health clinics.”
BSS/AFP/GMR/1150 hrs