Angry protests on Friday rumbled through Haiti and its capital, Port-au-Prince, as thousands of people took to the streets against Haitian 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 the Haitian 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 been suspended for more than a year because of deteriorating relations between Venezuela and the US.
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.
Gary Desrosiers, a spokesman for the police, told reporters 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.
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
‘NO COUNTRY BUMPKIN’: The judge rejected arguments that former prime minister Najib Razak was an unwitting victim, saying Najib took steps to protect his position Imprisoned former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was yesterday convicted, following a corruption trial tied to multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund. The nation’s high court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering related to more than US$700 million channeled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Najib denied any wrongdoing, and maintained the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia and that he had been misled by rogue financiers led by businessman Low Taek Jho. Low, thought to be the scandal’s mastermind, remains
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced plans for a national bravery award to recognize civilians and first responders who confronted “the worst of evil” during an anti-Semitic terror attack that left 15 dead and has cast a heavy shadow over the nation’s holiday season. Albanese said he plans to establish a special honors system for those who placed themselves in harm’s way to help during the attack on a beachside Hanukkah celebration, like Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim who disarmed one of the assailants before being wounded himself. Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the Dec. 14 attack, and
RSS