The widow of slain Haitian president Jovenel Moise, who was critically wounded in the attack that claimed his life, on Saturday issued her first public remarks since the assault, calling on the nation not to “lose its way.”
Martine Moise’s comments came three days after she was airlifted to a Miami hospital for treatment after she was wounded early on Wednesday when gunmen stormed the family home in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.
They also come as the impoverished Caribbean nation reels from the slaying of its leader, with no clear succession plan on the horizon.
Photo: AFP
“I am alive, thanks to God,” Martine Moise said in an audio message in Creole that was posted on her Twitter account and verified as authentic by Haitian Minister of Culture and Communications Pradel Henriquez.
“In the blink of an eye, the mercenaries entered my home and riddled my husband with bullets ... without even giving him a chance to say a word,” she said.
According to Haitian authorities, a hit squad of 28 men — 26 Colombians, many of them retired soldiers, and two Haitian-Americans — burst in and opened fire on the couple in their home.
Photo: AFP
So far, 17 have been arrested, and at least three were killed.
A handful remain at large, police say.
However, no motive has been made public, and questions are swirling about who might have masterminded the assassination.
Martine Moise pointed at a variety of possible reasons: saying the killers could have been sent by people who might have been displeased with her husband’s plans to provide “roads, water and electricity, a [constitutional] referendum and elections set for the end of the year.”
She said that perhaps those behind the killing “do not want to see a transition in the country.”
“I am crying, it is true, but we cannot let the country lose its way,” she said. “We cannot let his blood ... have been spilled in vain.”
Meanwhile, one of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders said that his gang members would take to the streets to protest Jovenel Moise’s assassination, threatening to pitch the country deeper into chaos.
Jimmy Cherizier, a former policeman known as Barbecue, who heads the so-called G9 federation of nine gangs, railed against police and opposition politicians whom he accused of colluding with the “stinking bourgeoisie” to “sacrifice” Jovenel Moise.
“It was a national and international conspiracy against the Haitian people,” he said in a video address, dressed in khaki military fatigues and sitting in front of a Haitian flag. “We tell all bases to mobilize, to mobilize and take to the streets for light to be shed on the president’s assassination.”
Cherizier said his followers would practice “legitimate violence” and that it was time for “the masters of the system” — business magnates of Syrian and Lebanese descent who dominate parts of the economy — to “give back” the country.
“It’s time for black people with kinky hair like us to own supermarkets, to have car dealerships and own banks,” he said.
Some of the magnates had been at loggerheads with Jovenel Moise.
Fears of worsening clashes had citizens on edge in Port-au-Prince, which has been racked by violence for weeks as gang members battled police for control of streets.
“They really don’t have the capacity to handle security,” city resident Benoit Jean said. “There aren’t enough cops.”
US officials say Port-au-Prince has asked Washington for “security and investigative assistance,” and FBI agents have already been dispatched, but a Haitian minister said that troops were also requested.
A senior US administration official said that troops are off the table at this time.
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